Aucbvax.4641 fa.info-terms utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!info-terms Sat Oct 24 00:51:41 1981 Favorite terminals >From purdue!cak@Berkeley Sat Oct 24 00:16:30 1981 Up until yesterday, I would have said my favorite terminal is the HP 2648; the graphics model. Of course, this is a pipe dream, because they cost >$5K, even now, 3 or 4 years after their introduction. But I worked with one for a couple of summers and fell in love; silky keyboard, truly programmable function keys (a pet peeve of mine), and 3 screenfuls of memory accessible at a keystroke. The layout is clean, the graphics crisp, the font excellent.....it even has a separate keyboard! Anyway, that was until yesterday. Then our BitGraph came in. It's really close, and after we develop some software, I think I will be convinced. Imagine this, if you haven't seen one; 85 columns by 64 rows, all visible at once, in a really crisp font. My biggest gripe is the keyboard; it's the standard VT100 keyboard, which has the overly sensitive CAPS LOCK button right next to A, where you always hit it when reaching for CTRL (for example for a backspace). I fixed this (as I have done to vt100s and HP2621s in the past) by cutting out a small square of closed cell packing foam and putting it under the key. It makes it too stiff to press easily with the pinky, but you can nail it with your thumb if you want lock. Of course, the BitGraph doesn't have the fancy built in graphics software that the HP does (yet...) On a more down to earth level, I like the HP2621, except for its brain damaged function keys. HP has rumored/announced a product called the Shadow, which was a 15" cube terminal plus detached keyboard for about $1700. I haven't seen one yet, but I suspect they will be quite nice. There are also rumors that they will introduce a 262X family tube with graphics, including graphics printer. That should be nice. I detest DEC crts. They are overpriced and underfeatured, and each model has at least one basic design flaw (to my mind). I worked with a Teleray only once, trying to do block mode transfers, and it was awful. We have a lot of Adds Regent 40s here, and they are pretty good, but have some brain damage too. The regent 20s should be avoided. So, I guess I don't have a favorite cheap (oops, inexpensive) terminal; but I wish I did so I could buy one for myself. Chris Kent (Purdue Univ. CS) ----------------------------------------------------------------- gopher://quux.org/ conversion by John Goerzen of http://communication.ucsd.edu/A-News/ This Usenet Oldnews Archive article may be copied and distributed freely, provided: 1. There is no money collected for the text(s) of the articles. 2. The following notice remains appended to each copy: The Usenet Oldnews Archive: Compilation Copyright (C) 1981, 1996 Bruce Jones, Henry Spencer, David Wiseman.