info-mac@uw-beaver (info-mac) (11/17/84)
From: Don Johnson <dhj@zeta.ARPA> I have been evaluating a Tektronix emulator named 'Tekalike' for a few weeks now. As a terminal emulator, it has a few problems. Its default fonts are ALL proportional-spaced. Consequently, systems assuming fixed width fonts (most do obviously) produce table-like displays that don't quite line up on Tekalike. There is no font menu item to change it's default fonts within the context of the program. I have not tried doing resource-mover things to it yet. It also does not seem to be able to force a ^S typed from the keyboard down the line while the screen is being filled with text. It does support XON/XOFF, however. It cannot be used to save a session like MacTerminal; no vertical scroll bar is provided. After all of these negative things, let's now turn to the 'good' stuff. It is a nice Tektronix graphics terminal. Supports up to 4014 and 4016 graphics terminals, including color. As to output devices, it supports Imagewriter AND Apple, Houston Instruments, and HP PLOTTERS!!! (this includes color ones). I have NOT connected a plotter to try out that section of the program personally, however. Color is drawn in patterns on the Mac screen, but is proported to appear correctly on the plotters. Features not supported (it says this in the documentation) are line styles (dotted, dot-dash, etc.), incremental plot mode, special point plot mode, and hard copy requests from the host. I have had NO problems using UNIX's tek driver; I don't really know what the middle-two omissions are all about. One can 'record' a graphics session into a file. This file contains the actual graphics codes sent from the host. One can reopen old recordings to play them back. The neat stuff is that one can ZOOM-in on a recording AT FULL TEKTRONIX RESOLUTION. As 4014 is 3180X4096, one does not encounter Mac quantization when ones zooms. To accomplish the zoom, one gets a 'pointing hand' cursor, draws an arbitrarily shaped rectangle ala MacPaint, an the program redraws the recording so that the portion selected fills the screen. One can zoom again, and again, and again... There are three output screen sizes that one can select: Full screen (excluding menu bar), Tekalike screen, and MacPaint screen. The second size preserves the aspect ratio of the plot while the first does not; essentially, these two are the full-screen options. The latter scales the plot down so that it will fit in the MacPaint editing window so that Cut/Paste of a whole plot can be made. Tekalike will save whatever plot one has on the screen as a MacPaint document. The saving and screen size are all available at any level of zoom. These zoom, screen size, and save features allow one to get Tektronix plots into the MacPaint world so that further editing can be made to 'jazz' them up. The documentation is good. The remaining problem is the price: $250. The company producing the program is : Mesa Graphics P.O. Box 506 Los Alamos, NM 87544 As a concluding statement, I am going to buy it for the graphics terminal aspect, but I will have to also purchase MacTerminal for a good terminal emulator. Don Johnson Electrical Engineering Dept. Rice University dhj@rice.arpa