jlw@ariel.UUCP (J.WOOD) (10/13/83)
I have just installed a HJL-57 keyboard in my COCO. I made the decision in comparison of the ads and reviews in several magazines, esp. HOT COCO which had ads for the HJL, the Micronix, and the Mark Data Products ones. ORDERING HJL Products Inc. 955 Buffalo Road PO Box 24954 Rochester, NY 14624 (716) 235-8358 (24 Hours, 7 Days a week) Price: $79.95 + $2.00s&h I ordered mine last Thursday after 5:00pm and received it via UPS on Tuesday with an intervening Monday Holiday. GOOD THINGS Solid as a rock (Aluminum frame). N-key rollover. Good to excellent feel. Sculptered keycaps and disked layout a la Selectric. Good instructions and simple installation. Worked first time. Bezel. Four function keys, one latched. Versions for both Pre-rev. F boards and rev. F. Know your revision. BAD THINGS Only one so far, QC missed and didn't catch that my unit was missing the 'enter' keycap. I called yesterday and they are going to mail me a new one. We'll have to see when it arrives. One more so-so thing. The layout is straight RS-COCO with the four function keys, two each on either side of the space bar. I'd have preferred a more standard layout. OVERALL and COMPARISON Overall this is a quality unit. I prefer the position of the function keys to that of the Micronix and the Mark Data has no extra keys. N-key rollover is a big plus; Micronix has this too. Joseph L. Wood, III AT&T Information Systems Laboratories, Holmdel (201) 834-3759 ariel!jlw
ottmar@micomvax.UUCP (10/17/83)
I found the review useful and informative. However, there is one minor
point that I would like to dispute: the N-key rollover.
*NOTE* since no mention was made of hardware/software modifications, I assume
that it is a "drop-in" replacement for the original keyboard.
The Color Computer does NOT receive data from the keyboard as a stream of
characters. It can only determine which keys are instantaneously depressed
at any given time. Therefore, the software must continually poll the keyboard,
debounce the keys, etc. Since the interface is constructed this way, N-key
rollover is a function of the SOFTWARE, not the hardware. It is a contradiction
in terms to discuss "N-key rollover" as an attribute of a CoCo-type keyboard.
The bottom line is this: the Mark Data keyboard "has" N-key rollover in the
same way that the other two keyboards do (i.e. when attached to SOFTWARE that
can perform this function). However, Mark Data is being much more careful in
its advertising to avoid misleading the consumer. The other two companies are
perhaps not overly concerned with this aspect of their ads, and would rather
have the "N-key rollover" buzzword present, even though it is IRRELEVANT to
their keyboard implementation.
Ottmar Bochardt
...!philabs!micomvax!ottmar