mroz@hudson.steinmetz (peter a mroz) (08/21/87)
This is in response to a recent net request for VT100/Tek 4010/4014 emulations on the IBM PC. I've been a faithful user of PCPLOT-III ($100) for five years. They have just released PCPLOT-IV ($149) and PCPLOT-IV+ ($225), which have substantial improvements over version III. The basic package has Tek 4010/VT100/VT640 emulation. The + package has "partial" 4105 emulation. I have the + version and do NOT recommend it, as you really need a complete 4105 emulation to do anything worthwhile. However, the VT100 and Tektronix 4010/4014 emulations are SUPER. PCPLOT has many nice features: o file transfer (including XMODEM) o graphics or alpha screen dump to almost any printer o capture of graphics code for replaying to an HP plotter o flawless operation at 9600 baud o very nice easy-to-use setup screens o script files o mouse support for gin modes o support for almost any graphics board/computer Their address and phone are: Microplot Systems Co. 659-H Park Meadow Road Westerville, OH 43081 614-882-4786 My system, by the way, is an IBM AT with a 30 mb hard disk, 1 1.2 meg floppy, a Quadega+ graphics card (no problems except for uSoft codeview colors), and a NEC Multisync monitor. I've tried out several other emulators and can give you some ideas about them: TGRAF-05 (tek 4105 for $500) and TGRAF-07 (4107 for $1000) are super packages if you can afford them. They have very good Tektronix 410x terminal emulation, including hardware segments for the 4107. Tektronix now sells a board/software combo for $2500 that turns your PC into a Tek 4107. I think that's too much to pay. The software in the Tektronix system turns out to be TGRAF-07. DON'T BUY SMARTERM-240 - it hung my PC so bad I had to manually reboot from the maintenance disk. It "lost" my setup parameters, whatever they are. If I had made a mistake in telling the maintenance program what my system was it would have happily reformatted my 30 mb hard disk. General Electric has a company-wide license for EMU-TEK. I don't like the company (EMU-TEK) and I don't like their product. We keep getting beta releases; we were promised a 4105 emulation a long time ago and it materialized in the form of another beta copy. The first beta release didn't support the EGA. I can get it for free but I'd rather use something that's reliable and works! I haven't used their latest and greatest so they may have cleaned up their act. There are some guys here who have Procomm 4010 (I'm not sure about the name). The only problem is that it's copy protected, so you have to insert a diskette to start it up. Other than that they like it just fine. I saw QKKERMIT (PD) advertised on the net a few months ago and pulled it over using BITNET. It didn't come with the necessary files to do the tek 4010 emulation and it seemed to be very specific for Zenith hardware talking to an IBM mainframe. Hope this helps! Peter Mroz General Electric | ARPA: mroz@ge-crd.arpa Corporate Research and Development | UUCP: mroz@moose.steinmetz.ge.com PO Box 8, 37-2001 Schenectady, NY 12301 Is that a real poncho or is that a Sears poncho? 518-387-6021 Hmmmmm . . . no fooling.