john@uw-nsr.UUCP (John Sambrook) (12/24/86)
I would be interested in hearing from anyone who has one or more Zenith Z-49 terminals. I have noticed what may be a problem and would appreciate additional input from others on the net. We recently received five new Z-49 terminals. Having had nothing but good success with Z-19's and Z-29's we didn't feel it necessary to get a demonstration on our system before purchasing them. To date I have noticed two problems. First, the terminal seems much slower than our other -19's and -29's. Putting a datascope between the terminal and our computer system confirmed this. Lots of flow control going on. However, I can live with this problem. The second, more serious problem is that when listing a long file the terminal will eventually get into a state where it will overprint the last line for a to minute or so before it breaks free and resumes normal operation. Sometimes it never breaks out of this mode and it is necessary to cycle the power on the terminal. While hard to describe the behavior looks a lot like a regular line printer with a paper jam. The problem occurs regularly at 9600 baud and somewhat less frequently at 4800 baud. Software handshaking is enabled. The problem can be demonstrated by cat'ing a long file such as /usr/spool/uucp/LOGFILE. While I first thought that it was something unique to our system I no longer believe this to be the case. A few days ago one of the people I work with reported seeing the same behavior on some Z-49 terminals connected to another system in our department. Our local terminal people feel that we have some early revision ROM's. They gave me the numbers for the latest ROMs and we do indeed have these ROMs installed. I tried to contact Walt Hanza (sp?) at Zenith Data Systems but he has yet to return my (four, to date) calls :-( To close, if you have any information on this problem that you feel might be useful I would appreciate hearing from you. If there is any interest I will summarize to the net. Thanks, -- John Sambrook Work: (206) 545-7433 University of Washington WD-12 Home: (206) 487-0180 Seattle, Washington 98195 UUCP: uw-beaver!uw-nsr!john
ehrlich@psuvax1.UUCP (Dan Ehrlich) (12/26/86)
In article <923@uw-nsr.UUCP> john@uw-nsr.UUCP (John Sambrook 5-7433) writes: >I would be interested in hearing from anyone who has one or more >Zenith Z-49 terminals. I have noticed what may be a problem and >would appreciate additional input from others on the net. > >We recently received five new Z-49 terminals. Having had nothing >but good success with Z-19's and Z-29's we didn't feel it necessary >to get a demonstration on our system before purchasing them. > >To date I have noticed two problems. First, the terminal seems >much slower than our other -19's and -29's. Putting a datascope >between the terminal and our computer system confirmed this. >Lots of flow control going on. However, I can live with this problem. > >The second, more serious problem is that when listing a long file the >terminal will eventually get into a state where it will overprint the >last line for a to minute or so before it breaks free and resumes >normal operation. Sometimes it never breaks out of this mode and it >is necessary to cycle the power on the terminal. While hard to >describe the behavior looks a lot like a regular line printer with >a paper jam. > >The problem occurs regularly at 9600 baud and somewhat less frequently >at 4800 baud. Software handshaking is enabled. The problem can be >demonstrated by cat'ing a long file such as /usr/spool/uucp/LOGFILE. > >While I first thought that it was something unique to our system I >no longer believe this to be the case. A few days ago one of the >people I work with reported seeing the same behavior on some Z-49 >terminals connected to another system in our department. > >Our local terminal people feel that we have some early revision ROM's. >They gave me the numbers for the latest ROMs and we do indeed have these >ROMs installed. I tried to contact Walt Hanza (sp?) at Zenith Data Systems >but he has yet to return my (four, to date) calls :-( > >To close, if you have any information on this problem that you feel >might be useful I would appreciate hearing from you. If there is any >interest I will summarize to the net. > >Thanks, > >-- >John Sambrook Work: (206) 545-7433 >University of Washington WD-12 Home: (206) 487-0180 >Seattle, Washington 98195 UUCP: uw-beaver!uw-nsr!john Having recenlty purchased a Z-49, the above was most enlightening as I have seen both problems that are described. At first I thought it was a bad "z29" termcap entry (the documentation claims it is Z-29 compatible) but that would not appear to be the case. Also, the sales glossy for the terminal describes the Z-49 as DEC VT10x compatible, but the set-up only provide for ANSI and ZENITH modes. ANSI is close to VT10x but not close enough for things like emacs and vi. On other point, as BSD 4.3 is sent out the termcap entry for an ANSI terminal is some what less than useful. Once again the phrase "buyer beware" appears to be applicable. --Daniel Ehrlich UUCP: {burdvax,cbosgd,cmcl2,pitt,ihnp4}!psuvax1!ehrlich CSNET: ehrlich@penn-state.csnet USPS: The Pennsylvania State University INTERNET: ehrlich@psuvax1.psu.edu Department of Computer Science BITNET: ehrlich@psuvax1.bitnet 333 Whitmore Laboratory BELL: +1 814 863 1142 University Park, PA 16802 Quote: "The sky is blue so we know where to stop mowing." Judge Harold T. Stone Disclaimer: The opinions expressed herein are my own and do not reflect the opinions, or policies, of The Pennsylvania State University or the Department of Computer Science.