craig@lakesys.UUCP (Craig Stodolenak) (06/21/88)
The time has finally come when my computer is of little use to me as is; all I
use it for is a terminal anyway. I'm selling it and replacing it with (what I
hope to be) top-of-the-line terminal and modem.
I've looked at the product lines of WYSE and TeleVideo, and being a "gadget
freak", love the WY-60 and TVI-965. I've also looked at some Kimtron and DEC
units, but haven't found anything I've liked as much. The dual-modem and
printer capabilities, 132 x 48+ line display, pop-up "desk
accessories", and other do-dads are really things that I can (and would) take
advantage of. I have several friends who are dealers, and can get me
practically any terminal I wish at cost, so price isn't that much of a problem.
Are there any particular models that you NetGods can recommend? Any models I
should stay away from? WYSE and TVI seem (to me, at least) to be the two
"biggies" in the terminal marketplace (besides IBM). Any experiences with
either company that I should know about?
I spend a _great_ deal of my free-time online to various services, and on my
budget, this is a major hardware purchase. I appreciate any and all
responses...
--
- Craig L. Stodolenak / craig@lakesys.UUCP
WAUC / Wisconsin Apple Users Club, Inc. / BBS: (414) 546-0238
P.O. Box 20743; Greenfield, WI 53220-2099
(414) 482-0399 / ...!{backbone}!uwvax!uwmcsd1!lakesys!craigloverso@encore.UUCP (John Robert LoVerso) (06/28/88)
In article <758@lakesys.UUCP> craig@lakesys.UUCP (Craig Stodolenak) writes: > I've looked at the product lines of WYSE and TeleVideo, and being a "gadget > freak", love the WY-60 and TVI-965. (I've said it before, and I'll say it again...) The Wyse WY60 is certainly a feature filled terminal, but it still lacks the most important thing: speed. It cannot keep up with 19200 baud. Last week at USENIX I got to play with a few of these in the vendor show. My best estimate was that the WY60 flow controls itself to an effective 1400cps when set to do 19200. It kept up just fine at 9600 baud. I didn't try it at higher bauds, but I did try this using a variety of host machines. My WY75 handles 19200 just fine, and at 38400 it gets an effect 2500cps. I was using the WY60 in both native and WY75 emulation modes. Other than the speed issue, I find the WY60 to be a terminal with all the right features for me (soft keys, keyboard layout, etc). The newer Televideos are also nice, but the lastest models I've seen (905, 955) still inflict the user with magic cookie characters for screen attributes. I can't believe that they add all that ugliness just to save a few $$ on static rams. I won't ever buy (another) Televideo as long as they use magic cookies. My greatest wish is that terminal manufacturers will quit adding silly features like calucator emulators and instead make a serious effort to produce terminals that can handle 19.2Kb w/o flow control and forever rid us of magic cookies! John R LoVerso Encore Computer Corp encore!loverso, loverso@multimax.arpa
craig@lakesys.UUCP (Craig Stodolenak) (06/28/88)
In article <3249@encore.UUCP> loverso@encore.UUCP (John Robert LoVerso) writes: > >The newer Televideos are also nice, but the lastest models I've seen >(905, 955) still inflict the user with magic cookie characters for >screen attributes. I can't believe that they add all that ugliness >just to save a few $$ on static rams. I won't ever buy (another) >Televideo as long as they use magic cookies. > >My greatest wish is that terminal manufacturers will quit adding silly >features like calucator emulators and instead make a serious effort to >produce terminals that can handle 19.2Kb w/o flow control and forever >rid us of magic cookies! > >John R LoVerso Alright, I've been following this group for a while now, and still I'm puzzled by this. Just what is this "magic cookie" several of you speak of? One thing I've found in my ongoing investigation... I like WYSE keyboards a heck of a lot better than TVI's. The WYSE's seem better made, more evenly spaced (the TVI's seem all crunched together, if that makes any sense), and the WYSE's LOOK better. But the Televideo 965 looks like the one I'll get, IF I can find someone on the net to ask a few remaining questions of. I still haven't gotten a reply. [hint] [TVI-965 users write to me] This is [TVI-965 users write to me] not a [TVI-965 users write to me] subliminal message [TVI-965 users write to me]. -- - Craig L. Stodolenak / craig@lakesys.UUCP WAUC / Wisconsin Apple Users Club, Inc. / BBS: (414) 546-0238 P.O. Box 20743; Greenfield, WI 53220-2099 (414) 482-0399 / ...!{backbone}!uwvax!uwmcsd1!lakesys!craig
gwyn@brl-smoke.ARPA (Doug Gwyn ) (06/29/88)
In article <783@lakesys.UUCP> craig@lakesys.UUCP (Craig Stodolenak) writes: >Just what is this "magic cookie" several of you speak of? "Magic cookie" in this context refers to the usurping of a character cell in the display memory to store an "attribute shift" instruction, as opposed to storing attributes in a parallel set of bits. Magic cookies introduce gratuitous "glitches" into the display and make it considerably more difficult to program display operations, as well as constraining possible display layouts. There is really no excuse for such crude technology in modern times, and some of us think you should refuse to support vendors who design such junk.
vixie@palo-alto.DEC.COM (Paul Vixie) (06/29/88)
In article <3249@encore.UUCP> loverso@encore.UUCP (John Robert LoVerso) writes:
# The newer Televideos are also nice, but the lastest models I've seen
# (905, 955) still inflict the user with magic cookie characters for
# screen attributes. I can't believe that they add all that ugliness
# just to save a few $$ on static rams. I won't ever buy (another)
# Televideo as long as they use magic cookies.
Televideo still supports their old 912/920 line, in the form of new-looking,
sleek terminals that use magic cookies. They also have a line of ANSI-type
terminals, starting with the 970 and lately continuing with the 965. These
ANSI-type terminals don't have magic cookies. The only reason they still
make the older ones is because lots of software depends on the cookies --
you can, for example, make something become underlined on the screen by
writing a close-attributes cookie at the end of the to-be-underlined-area
and writing an open-attributes cookie at the beginning -- you don't have to
rewrite the intervening characters.
Note that if you write the cookies in the wrong order, the whole screen
blinks in your start-attribute until you get the close-attribute written.
Note also that I hate magic-cookie terminals with a livid passion and I
would never own or use one except under duress. I'm trying to explain
why they're still being made. Lots of operating systems being run in
offices don't have termcap(3X), it's all hard-coded, and lots of the code
has been lost as the previous generation of programmers dies of old age.
# My greatest wish is that terminal manufacturers will quit adding silly
# features like calucator emulators and instead make a serious effort to
# produce terminals that can handle 19.2Kb w/o flow control and forever
# rid us of magic cookies!
Yes! Yes! I have no use whatever for a calculator or a calendar or any
of that hash. Give me a terminal that can perform EVERY operation, not
just scrolling, not just writing characters, but EVERY OPERATION in one
byte-time. If I'm running at 38,400 and I send an insert-10-lines or
clear-region command, DON'T QUEUE IT. Do it in the time it takes to
receive the next 8 bits. NO QUEUEING. NONE.
I realize that I'm talking about a hard-coded terminal, probably implemented
in ECL gate arrays. So be it. I'll give up 600W of power to never have to
send "^S" except when I, the user, want the screen to freeze.
--
Paul Vixie
Digital Equipment Corporation Work: vixie@dec.com Play: paul@vixie.UUCP
Western Research Laboratory uunet!decwrl!vixie uunet!vixie!paul
Palo Alto, California, USA +1 415 853 6600 +1 415 864 7013wayne@teemc.UUCP (//ichael R. //ayne) (07/02/88)
In article <3249@encore.UUCP> loverso@encore.UUCP (John Robert LoVerso) writes: > >The newer Televideos are also nice, but the lastest models I've seen >(905, 955) still inflict the user with magic cookie characters for >screen attributes. I can't believe that they add all that ugliness >just to save a few $$ on static rams. I won't ever buy (another) >Televideo as long as they use magic cookies. I recently spoke to TeleVideo about this very issue. I had the name of an engineer who had posted a nice summary of TVI terminals, magic cookies and attributes so called him directly. After speaking to him and one of his coworkers, I learned that the 965 should not suffer from ANY of the silliness of the previous terminals (no magic cookies, no having to write the end attribute byte before the begin to avoid screen flash). So you can go out and buy one of those. Apparently, there is another one that is good also but it has those blasted DEC, er, I mean, ANSI escape sequences (uck!). Having dug into the TVI firmware a bit, I suspect that there is much more to it than saving on RAMs (he says, cryptically, not wanting to divulge TVI proprietary information to the net). /\/\ \/\/ -- Michael R. Wayne --- TMC & Associates --- wayne@teemc.uucp INTERNET: wayne%teemc.uucp@umix.cc.umich.edu uunet!umix!teemc!wayne
klg@njsmu.UUCP (Kenneth Goodwin) (07/07/88)
In article <3241@palo-alto.DEC.COM>, vixie@palo-alto.DEC.COM (Paul Vixie) writes: > In article <3249@encore.UUCP> loverso@encore.UUCP (John Robert LoVerso) writes: > # The newer Televideos are also nice, but the lastest models I've seen > # (905, 955) still inflict the user with magic cookie characters for > # screen attributes. I can't believe that they add all that ugliness > # just to save a few $$ on static rams. I won't ever buy (another) > # Televideo as long as they use magic cookies. > We have over 30 TVI 955 terminals, they have a SETUP feature that allows you to use OR NOT use magic cookie mode. That is, screen attributes can be stored in onscreen ram or parallel offscreen ram, so you can have it any way you want. We have had them for over two years and are reasonably happy with them We have had Hazeltine 1500 series, Esprit series , perkin elmer terminals and of all of them, the TVI 955 are by far the best. The only complaint has been a few baby dead terminals, plus ROM BUGS. We may persue obtaining updated versions of the ROMS when we buy our next set of TVI 955's. We are also considering purchasing Visual Technology 630 and 640 X system model terminals, any comments on these? Ken Goodwin NJ State Medical Underwriters, Inc.
henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) (07/11/88)
>The newer Televideos are also nice, but the lastest models I've seen >(905, 955) still inflict the user with magic cookie characters for >screen attributes... A more subtle botch in their last generation of terminals (I haven't seen specs on the latest ones) is that ^N and ^O made the terminal change *handshaking modes*!!! (That is, from XON/XOFF to CTS/RTS and such.) This is an awful blunder, not just contrary to the ASCII standard but also quite likely to bite users, since a mistake like catting a binary or a directory has a high probability of sending any single character. -- Anyone who buys Wisconsin cheese is| Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology a traitor to mankind. --Pournelle |uunet!mnetor!utzoo! henry @zoo.toronto.edu