[comp.terminals] HP 2621?

mjs@j.cc.purdue.edu (Mike Spitzer) (12/13/86)

I have an opportunity to buy a Hewlett Packard 2621 (actually a HP
2621P-K45) for a very reasonable price, and I was wondering what kind
of experiences people have had with this terminal.

How good of a terminal is this for talking to Unix?  Any problems with
vi or other screen related programs?

Can anyone give me some information about this terminal?

		Thanks,

		Mike Spitzer
		Purdue University Computing Center

		mjs@j.cc.purdue.edu    		(ARPANET)
		pur-ee!j.cc.purdue.edu!mjs	(UUCP)

andrew@hammer.TEK.COM (Andrew Klossner) (12/22/86)

[The old story: I tried replying with mail and the network slimed me,
so I'm entrusting the message to news.]

I have an HP2621A (like the 'P' but with no printer).  It's an
excellent terminal for Unix use; it has insert/delete line/character so
it's good with slow-speed modems, it doesn't need to do any handshaking
at 9600 baud, and the extra page of scrollable memory is very nice.

The things I don't like are:

  -- Power up condition is with no tabs set.  Every ^I sends the cursor
     to the beginning of the next line.  Don't "stty tabs" until you
     have "tset", and be sure that your termcap sets up the tabs.

  -- The caps lock key is in an awkward place, and you can't tell by
     examination whether it's on or off -- no LED, no detented position.
     It takes a while to quit hitting it when searching for the CONTROL
     key.

  -- You'll hate it if you hit RUBOUT a lot.  It's shift-ESCAPE.

If I had it to do over, I would buy it again.  Rock solid; in four
years I've only had to replace a keyboard encoder chip.  HP parts
supply was responsive.  (There's a sales office across the street from
where I work.)

I used to work at a place with lots of 'A's and 'P's.  The printers
were not very useful and the paper is expensive.  But you can use a 'P'
as a terminal, ignore the printer, and still win.

I have an improved termcap (better than 4.2BSD); if you buy the
terminal, let me know and I'll forward it.

  -=- Andrew Klossner   (decvax!tektronix!tekecs!andrew)       [UUCP]
                        (tekecs!andrew.tektronix@csnet-relay)  [ARPA]