jdsb@occrsh.ATT.COM (John_Babcock) (12/14/89)
I would like to find some information about portable terminals.
What we need is standard full duplex asynchronous ASCII terminals
so our technicians can do troubleshooting on the second floor without
lugging around a full size terminal. We are looking for:
- Something light enough to carry
- Preferably battery powered
- A Dumb terminal (i.e. not a PC with terminal emulation - These
tend to disappear.)
- Not too expensive
- Reliable
- If possible, an 80 char by 24 line screen
- Possibly vt100 or AT&T 5425 emulation
Can someone tell me what is out there. Any recommendations?
____________________________________________________________________________
* John Babcock att!occrsh!jdsb
* AT&T Network Systems jdsb@occrsh.att.com
* Oklahoma City, OK dent@unocss..unl.edu (dent) (12/15/89)
jdsb@occrsh.ATT.COM (John_Babcock) writes: > I would like to find some information about portable terminals. >What we need is standard full duplex asynchronous ASCII terminals >so our technicians can do troubleshooting on the second floor without >lugging around a full size terminal. We are looking for: > >- Something light enough to carry >- Preferably battery powered >- A Dumb terminal (i.e. not a PC with terminal emulation - These > tend to disappear.) >- Not too expensive >- Reliable >- If possible, an 80 char by 24 line screen >- Possibly vt100 or AT&T 5425 emulation I'm not sure how much this will help, but.. US West (the Telco for the Midwest region) is now selling "Minitel" terminals made by Phillips. They run about $200 to $300 I /think/, and they're about 7" cube (possibly slightly larger). They have a handle in the top very much like the Mac Plus case (in fact they look like Mac Pluses with just Monitors, and slightly smaller). They have VT-100 emulation built-in, as well as a 1200-baud modem, and a nasty chicklet-keyboard, but if you're just looking for occaisional use, this might not be such a bad thing (the keyboard slides into the terminal for storage). Oh, and they're monochrome only (yes, 80x24 :-). The one drawback is: They're not battery powered. I can only assume that they are problably reliable; they're the same as the Minitel terminals in wide-spread use in France.. but I really don't know for sure. Oh -- another drawback: communication parameters are 7E1 only, not 8N1. But most things can life with that so... I hope this information helps in some way... sorry that I can't be more specific about it! Another thing you might consider is the Zenith "MiniSport" laptop (who knows what "Bull-Kit" calls them now). These are quite small, battery-powered, MS-DOS in ROM, and tiny little 2" disks. No hard drive, so perhaps these wouldn't be as "stealable" as other computers you mentioned? They can be purchased with 1200-baud modems, and they have 80x24 (albeit W-I-D-E, like the Tandy Model 200)... I imagine that these would be a lot more rugged than the minitels, if you're going to cary them around a lot; and the keyboard is nicer -- although still a bit wierd. :-) -/ Dave Caplinger /--------------------------------------------------------- Microcomputer Specialist, Campus Computing, Univ. of Nebraska at Omaha mspecial@zeus.unl.edu ...!uunet!unocss!dent MSPECIAL@UNOMA1
uncosb@sw1e.swbt.com (Steve Brown [501-373-6300]) (12/28/89)
In article <954@occrsh.ATT.COM> jdsb@occrsh.ATT.COM (John_Babcock) writes: > > I would like to find some information about portable terminals. >What we need is standard full duplex asynchronous ASCII terminals >so our technicians can do troubleshooting on the second floor without >lugging around a full size terminal. We are looking for: > >- Something light enough to carry >- Preferably battery powered >- A Dumb terminal (i.e. not a PC with terminal emulation - These > tend to disappear.) >- Not too expensive >- Reliable >- If possible, an 80 char by 24 line screen >- Possibly vt100 or AT&T 5425 emulation > >Can someone tell me what is out there. Any recommendations? Hi John, About 6 weeks ago I saw an ad in Telephony Mag. about the Colleague Laptop VT220 Terminal. I called the 1-800-553-6773 and they were happy to send me an evaluation unit. I have used it for about a month and I am very pleased with it. I used a TI prior to this and I like the Colleague made by Random Corporation. I believe it meets your list of expectations. It has VT52/100/220 Emulation, internal 15 hour battery, 25X80 column Supertwist Display. I asked for the Colleague PLUS model which has a Full-Featured internal word processor, data Capture/Send/ Screen-Snap, 65K of Non-volatile RAM, 2400 Baud Internal Modem & Backlit Screen. With our company discount we are getting this model for about $1200. You should be able to get the plain jane model for around $600-700. Call Random Corporation and ask for Phillip G. Grosvenor. Tell him Steve Brown in Little Rock, Arkansas sent you. I'm sure he'll let you have an evaluation unit for 30 days. Steve Brown