[fa.info-mac] TEKALIKE terminal emulator for the MAC

info-mac@uw-beaver (info-mac) (09/18/84)

From: KSPROUL@RUTGERS.ARPA

I just received my TEKALIKE termianal emulator from MESA Graphics..

I have only used it on RS1 on a VAX, but it is really great!!

It supports not only the Imagewriter printer, but several plotters
as well, namely:

Apple 410 color plotter
Houston Instruments DMP-29 & DMP-41
Hewlett Packard HP7475A

The speed seems quite good, and am VERY pleased with it... 

---- BUT ----

It costs $250   however, they do have good quantity discounts

It is write protected   but they do send you two copies of the disk..

There address is

Mesa Graphics
P.O. Box 506
Los Alamos, NM 87544

As usual,  I am in no way affiliated with this company, just giving a
review of the product.


BTW, I also have the Griffin terminal on order that was produced at REED
univ, and will report on it when it gets here...

Keith Sproul
Ksproul@Rutgers.arpa
-------

info-mac@uw-beaver (info-mac) (09/19/84)

From: (Dave Martin [stug]) dpm@lbl-csam
There ARE, however some minor problems with the first TEKALIKE release:

(1) The flow control (I've tried both "send" and "full") is inadequate when
using the "record" function at speeds higher than about 1200 baud.  The result
is misplaced vectors.

(2) The "record" function is sensitive to either file size or data (I don't know
which, yet), causing only the first portion of a recorded file to play back.
I've seen this problem on 70KB files whereas 20KB files seem to have no problem.


(3) There are no fonts supplied which are suitable for normal terminal usage.
All fonts are variable-width so nothing lines up.

(4) No mention is made as to how to generate ` and ~ characters from the
keyboard. ~ generates RUBOUT, ` generates ESC and COMMAND-` generates a BREAK.
Ever tried living without a tilde under the Software Tools or BSD?

Other than the above problems, the package is extremely nice.  Anyone who is
looking at VT-100/TEK emulating terminals may wish to consider a Mac with
MacTerminal and TEKALIKE instead.  Now if only the functions of both were
combined into a single package so it didn't take 30 seconds to switch between
VT-100 and Tektronix emulation...

(By the way, TEKALIKE drops to $125 at about the 50pc. level)

dpm