roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith) (11/26/86)
How about instead of griping about the worst terminals we've ever
seen, we talk about the best we've ever seen. I'm not talking about the
most featureful, but ones that FOR THE TECHNOLOGY AVAILABLE AT THE TIME,
were really nice pieces of engineering.
My nomination is the good old ADM-3. It's entire command set
consisted of set cursor position and clear screen (did I miss any?). Sort
of the RISC of the terminal world. This pre-VLSI glass tty was such an
improvement over hard copy terminals that fights use to break out in the
terminal room over who got to use them. OK, so it didn't do reverse video
(that was added to the ADM-5, yes?) nor could it do double-high, blinking,
reduced-intensity, underlined letters, but it worked. No micro in it meant
it was easy to fix with just a TTL handbook and a 'scope. And, how many
micro-based terminals do you know that can keep up with a steady 19.2
kbaud? Not that most machines can send a steady 19.2 anyway...
In the hard-copy department, I'll vote for DEC's LA-120. Fast (by
late 1970's standards), built like a tank, and even had both upper and
lower case! Why DEC ever killed them in favor of the LA-100 is one of the
great mysteries of the world.
--
Roy Smith, {allegra,cmcl2,philabs}!phri!roy
System Administrator, Public Health Research Institute
455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016
"you can't spell deoxyribonucleic without unix!"henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) (11/30/86)
> How about instead of griping about the worst terminals we've ever > seen, we talk about the best we've ever seen... > ...ones that FOR THE TECHNOLOGY AVAILABLE AT THE TIME, > were really nice pieces of engineering. ... > In the hard-copy department, I'll vote for DEC's LA-120. Fast (by > late 1970's standards), built like a tank, and even had both upper and > lower case! ... To my mind, the hard-copy department has a clear-cut winner: the DEC DECWriter 2, aka LA36. DEC hasn't built a good hardcopy terminal since, in my (biased) opinion. I'm still amazed that the DW2 got so many things right, especially since the DW1 was a turkey. The only thing badly wrong with the DW2 was that it was slow: 300 baud. On the other hand: - It ran at 300 baud at a time when 110 baud was all too common. - It printed full dualcase ASCII at a time when uppercase-only was still widespread. - It ran at a true 300 baud: no padding, no delays, no handshake. - It used standard line-printer paper rather than the esoteric variations that were all too common. A side effect of this was that it was 132 characters wide. - Keyboard feel was very light, which took getting used to but was excellent once you did. - Ribbon changes were simple, paper changes were utterly trivial. - Utterly reliable, never broke. It did have problems, like the cruddy descenderless font and the visibility problems caused by the printhead getting in the way. Undoubtedly there have been better hardcopy terminals since (although not from DEC, at least not the ones I've tried), but none has ever been such a startling breath of fresh air compared to the competition. When UofS got its 11/40 in late 1974, we were a little nervous about getting the unknown DW2 rather than the ASR33 that we knew all too well. Once we found out what the DW2 was like, we were utterly delighted that DEC had finally done so many things right! Like the ADM 3, the DW2 wasn't bright, but what it did, it did well. Utzoo is an 11/44, soon to become a Sun-3/180. Our console terminal is, and if humanly possible will remain, a DW2. -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henry
guido@twitch.UUCP ( G.Bertocci) (12/01/86)
In article <2516@phri.UUCP>, roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith) writes: > How about instead of griping about the worst terminals we've ever > seen, we talk about the best we've ever seen. I'm not talking about the Without saying too much I place a vote for the AT&T DMD 5620. -- Guido Bertocci ...!ihnp4!houxm!twitch!guido AT&T Bell Labs Holmdel, NJ
gene@cooper.UUCP (Gene Kwiecinski @ the Cooper Union) (12/03/86)
My vote for the best terminal(s) are for the ADM11 and the ADM11+. Easy on the eyes, pretty nice keyboard, workable in terms of available functions, and (most importantly) the keys are in the right place! Gene Usenet (UUCP) Address: ...!allegra!phri!cooper!gene !, !, you're dead. (Get it?)
mouse@mcgill-vision.UUCP (der Mouse) (12/13/86)
Best terminal? Probably a TeleVideo 950. One of the old ones, with
gray phosphor and the barely-sculpted keys. Intelligent enough to run
fast (insert/delete line/character), not so intelligent it breaks every
month. The most reliable keyboard I've seen (most of our terminals are
TVI950s and out of all the failures I've seen I don't think *one* has
been the keyboard). The only keyclick I've heard that *sounds* right
(not too (VT52), not too chirpy (Sun3), etc). No tactile keyboard
"click". An all-around winner.
Second choice would be a Sun-3 (not a Sun-2, the keyboard doesn't
measure up). Smarts to beat the band. Big screen (I'm running on a
55x142 "terminal" now). Fast (no serial line "baud rate" to slow it
down). *Completely* soft keyboard (no more "but backslash belongs over
*here*!" gripes). Good feel. Regrettably, poor keyclick.
der Mouse
USA: {ihnp4,decvax,akgua,utzoo,etc}!utcsri!mcgill-vision!mouse
think!mosart!mcgill-vision!mouse
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ARPAnet: think!mosart!mcgill-vision!mouse@harvard.harvard.edu
[USA NSA food: terrorist, cryptography, DES, drugs, CIA, secret, decode]rh@mit-eddie.MIT.EDU (Randy Haskins) (12/23/86)
In article <511@twitch.UUCP> guido@twitch.UUCP ( G.Bertocci) writes: > How about instead of griping about the worst terminals we've ever > seen, we talk about the best we've ever seen. I'm not talking about the Back when BBN still made them, BitGraph's were pretty nice terminals. They had 3/4 M pixels (portrait) and a 68000 that could have small programs downloaded to run in them. Of course, the resolution wasn't as nice as it could be. Ann Arbor Ambassadors, however, are the nicest I've ever seen. They support all the capabilities I think a good terminal should have, you can change the size and aspect of the display, you can have a lot more than the loss-oriented 80x24 standard (assuming your OS isn't too losing), and the display is a nice soft green. What more could you ask for? Random -- Randwulf (Randy Haskins); Path= genrad!mit-eddie!rh