levy@mtcchi.uucp (2656-Daniel R. Levy(0000000)0000) (10/25/90)
In article <1990Oct11.235154.25565@mtcchi.uucp> I wrote: >I am requesting comments, positive or negative, on the overall quality of NCD >(Network Computing Devices) terminals. We have been testing two demo units (a >NCD16e and a NCD19) for a few days, and so far they have worked nicely X-wise. >However, both units have a skewed monitor display; the raster is not as tall on >the right hand side of the screen as on the left. The sales representatives >told me this is because the units have been bumped around quite a bit during >shipping between demo sites. Given that there is no place I know of to look >at NCD terminals which have not been bumped around (I asked), I am soliciting >comments from other NCD terminal users. Do they go out of alignment easily? >Any other problems? Please send email if you can: ..!uunet!tellab5!mtcchi!levy > >Thank you. Thanks to everyone who responded to my query. I got lots and lots of responses, a few mixed or negative, but most of them were moderately to highly favorable to NCD terminals. Nobody else reported a skewed display. I got email from Doug Klein, VP of technical support at NCD, offering to send us new units. (We decided that wasn't necessary upon seeing the response from the net, especially considering that human nature tends to complain more than praise.) I didn't attempt to twiddle the alignment myself, though at least one person suggested this (NCD tells me they don't align monitors in the field, only in the factory). I have abstracted the responses below, deleting extraneous quotes of my request, headers, and signatures. Some of the negative comments shown may no longer apply (e.g., there are now optional servers that support multiple telnet windows, and the 68020-based 16e's are significantly faster than the 68000-based 16's). Positive responses are shown first. ======== I have one 19,19b,and 17c, and all seem to have flawless workmanship. Screens look good without any skew or other video problems. Now, when we get our 48 15b units, then I will be able to do a more concise Q/A analysis... ======== We've had one for six or seven months -- so far no problems. I remember that we did get one unit that had a horizontal white line that jumped around the bottom part of the screen. NCD replaced that unit and this one has worked since. ======== We have about 30 NCD terminals at our site, mostly NCD19, but a few NCD19b models. We had a demo 16" model before we purchased our 19s. I have never seen any of them with the problem you describe. I work exclusively on an NCD19, and wouldn't trade it in for anything. It is fast, stable, and has good resolution. I find that my terminal tends to be faster than most Sun 3/60s running MIT X11R4 server most of the time. One really great thing about NCD is their support service. They live and die by their terminal sales, and their support organization is the best I have ever worked with. When I run into a problem here, or there, they always respond in a timely fashion. I always converse with them via email, and usually get a reply the same day if I send them the letter at a decent hour. I find that the NCD terminals are very easy to use, and configure. They can be configured from one central location, and if you need to change all the terminals because of a network re-configuration, or whatever, all you have to do is change a configuration file on the host and reset the terminals. Also, with NCDware 2.2 you could make the change to all the terminals on the fly with SNMP. Personally, I highly recommend NCD. ======== We just got an NCD17c a couple of weeks ago. We are happy with the quality of the color display. We haven't experienced any of the skew problems you have but we haven't had it that long. ======== I'm also in the process of evaluating the NCD19 X-Terminal. I ended up with a bad display (shimmered and wavered) and what may have been a bad X-terminal (hardware problem). After talking with the tech support and the sales rep - NCD had a new demo unit sent out by FedEx. The new one appears to be fine. Right now, the last problem encounted may have been by the server software. We're not running the latest and greatest version and apparently it a little buggy. From what I've seen the demo units do appear to get thrashed around a bit. But I would get on your sales rep case about have a fully functional X-terminal to make a proper evaluation. My rep has been great, they're even willing to send out one of their techs and the like to get their software installed, etc... Overall the terminal seems to be fine. Out systems group will probably get their new software loaded within the next week or so, after which I'll make my final evaluation. Everythign things seems to be ok except for the initial problems. But it seems that all my hardware problems disappeared with the new demo unit. Hope that this helps you out. ======== I have an NCD19P2 on my desk, and I've had it for about 8 months. I have not noticed any display skew myself, but of course it has hardly moved since it arrived. I have never used a Sun for any length of time, but the display seems to be of higher resolution than most if not all of the Suns we have here, and given the choice I would keep this over a Sun. The only thing I'd change is to get a UNIX keyboard (somehow I ended up with an IBM PC style keyboard). One thing. My terminal has 2 meg of memory. A friend working elsewhere has one with only 1 meg, and this appears to be too small a memory for the fonts he wants to work with. Presently my terminal says it has 900k free, and I'm not doing anything fancy fontwise. Beware of the 1 meg version. We have 6 of these terminals, and the only complaints we've had are due to the load they impose on the servers and workstations. I don't think it is bad myself, we need another server anyway and are getting one. I also suspect that people like to pick on the Xterminals (as opposed to diskless workstations) as being responsible for slower systems because they are an easy target. ======== We bought 9 of the NCD16 (c vs. e, I think) and are happy as clams with them. Price was good, no hardware problems, and when calling into or e-mail'ing support@ncd.com, response was some of the best I have ever seen. We never really checked out X terminals from other vendors - we got good prices from NCD and they seem to have their act together and look to be in the market for the long term ======== We've got a 16 and a 19 here and I haven't noticed any alignment problems. I wish the 19's screen was as big as a Sun's, both in bits and in inches, but that's my only complaint. -- Paco the satisfied customer ======== We have three NCD-16 Xterminals which have been running non-stop for a little more than a year now. There have been no problems with the machines. The displays, in particular, are as sharp and as square as they were when we set them up. Don't skimp on memory. ======== We have several NCDs, both 19s and 17cs and they are great! We have had to send one two back after the video unit blew, but they were replaced with no problems. We love'em! ======== We have 22 NCD Terminals of all types (NCD16, NCD16E, NCD17C, NCD19). We are very happy with this units. The quality of the display is very good. I think the deskewed display must be because of the bumping. We got most of the units two months ago, there was only one unit dead on arrival. It was replaced in a short time. One unit has a failure in the power supply after 5-6 weeks of operation. All other units are working very well. 2 of the displays we own since 8-9 months, no problems with them. we bought them with the lowest possibly memory configuration, and upgraded them ourselves with 1MB SIMM Modules. You can use standard 1M*9 SIMM's. You can get them cheaper as the 1M*8 SIMM's. ======== We have 9 of them (6 ncd16, 2 ncd19, and a ncd17c) None of them have the problem you describe. We had one that arrived with a bad Ethernet interface. NCD replaced it within a week. And just recently one of the NCD16s died. Like, there no life at all in it. The unit has been in constant use for about 11 months. One out of 6 in almost a year isn`t too bad (we just got the ncd19s last week, and the ncd17c has been here for about 4 months) ======== We have about 25 NCD 16's here and have had no problems whatsoever with them (aside from one that failed in the first week, and was replaced by NCD the next day). We are very pleased with them. Fair warning: Make sure that you get them with plenty of memory. If you get the download version, you need at least 2 megabytes of memory (we initially got the 1 megabyte versions, and we have subsequently added 1/2 megabyte to each (standard simm's)) - but I still occasionally cannot open a window due to a lack of memory (but then, that is with 10-15 windows already opened (or iconified)). (The server uses between 600-900 kb which leaves about 1/2 megabyte for windows in our 1 1/2 Mb terminals...) If you get the prom-based versions, 1 megabyte should be plenty (for monochrome). The server is based on X11R3 with some X11R4 extensions (XDMCP, shape) added. It performs fairly well. Hope this information is of some help to you. ======== I have used several different NCD terminals on several different occasions (mainly in "terminal" rooms at conferences) and the quality has been quite high. We don't own any, but I have not seen your problems in my sampling ======== We have tested 8-12 X terminals over the last year. Overall quality is steadily improving throughout the industry, but NCD was complete and solid long before anyone else. Others are catching up in quality, and some have surpassed NCD in performance, but, for me, NCD is still "The Rock" of X terminals. This is strictly my personal opinion. BTW: Video alignment is a trivial matter that really doesn't have much to do with the quality of their product. If it really bugs you, find somebody who knows their way around inside the monitor and have them fine tune it for you. It should take about 2 minutes with a screwdriver, once the cover is off. ======== We have 13 NCD16's and 2 NCD19's. None of them exhibit a skewed monitor. We are very happy with them. ======== I have been using my NCD17c for a few months now and am delighted with the performance and quality of the machine. I had some difficulties with getting specialized fonts I needed to work on the MIPS 3240 that I have the Xterm connected to and NCD was very helpful in sorting out my difficulties. Positive on all points. I have not seen any problems of the sort you describe. ======== We have purchased approximately 250 NCD 17c X terminals for our educational program for seven local area high schools. We have also tested the Tekexpress (Tektronix), the Princeton (16 color model) and a monochrome Visual. The NCD is by far the best hardware and software of the lot. The next runner up is the Tektronix where you get more hardware for the same price but the software has a lot to be desired. Our NCD terminals never have to be rebooted, and always work well. Out of the total number of terminals we have purchased we have had to send back somewhere around 10 and of those five had to be returned because the shelf they were sitting on collapsed and they fell three feet. The terminals still worked (except the keyboards which were crushed) but the phosphors we badly bruised and the colors were off in those spots. Out of all our other hardware the NCD 17c is the most reliable. I know this probably sounds like a sales pitch but I don't work for NCD and they won't even give me an X terminal for home (but I did ask). As far as I know the are the best in the X terminal industry but you have to pay for it. ======== Your query on NCD X Terminals: We have a couple in house and so far (about a month) they have performed reasonably well. We have seen no skew display problems and I find it hard to believe that physical bumps to your terminal during shipping resulted in skewed monitor display. Just today we had some major, major power glitches and while all computers in our organization stumbled and had to reboot, the NCD terminal handled it just fine. Hope this is of some help ======== We have a couple 19's, a 19b and have had for eval, a 16 and 15b. We have seen no troubles with the monitors at all. The 15b that we had for demo had been used for UL, CSA and a few other standards org. testing which included drop testing. If that any thing is going to knock something loose, that should. We took a couple apart to do memory upgrades. It was very easy. Remove two screws, and the top lifts off. No banging or prying involved. We are happy enough with NCD that we are ordering more. Hope this helps. ======== We have used the NCD's extensively over a period of time and have found that the monochrome displays have a tendency to lose "FOCUS" over a period of time. The letters get fuzzy after a while. They were also too slow. The color displays were just wonderful and would recommend them to anyone. They are fast and fairly inexpensive. I would recommend the higher price over the monochrome. ======== We had quite a few NCD's at the University of Waterloo (when I was a system administrator there) and I found that: 1. The latest NCD's have suffered from higher infant mortality in my particular lab. 2. Most NCD's are wonderful and mostly maintenance-free. This includes a couple of other labs around the university that I had contact with. ======== We have been having fairly bad problems with the 19inch ncd's. We have none over 1 year old, and the 2 oldest units have both been replaced twice so far. In addition we have about a 20% doa rate, and when we send a brand new doa back, it takes them about 1 month to get a replacement, and it is usually refurbished unit that is about 1 year old. I am so dissatisfied that I have frozen all future orders for ncd's until something can be resolved or we find a replacement vendor. On the other hand, when they work, they are very nice, silent and fast. ======== We too received the same comment when we remarked about the heat output of our NCD 16 (feel the top). They blamed it on being a demo unit. The shortcoming of the unit we evaluated was that it only allowed one telnet window, and that window prevented other things from going on at the same time (like X applications). We are now evaluating an NCR X-Station. Nice unit but more expensive. It allows you to run a window manager in the unit along with local terminal emulation (vt220). Assuming 1 WM and 2 TEs per desktop, that saves you 3 Unix processes on the host per station. Multiply that times 20 and you save 60 unix processes. Not only that but mouse events stay local (instead of going over the net) and you don't have to worry about your WM going away if a host goes down. The pricing is about 35% more though depending on your discount. -- * Daniel R. Levy * uunet!tellab5!mtcchi!levy * | * These views not on behalf of MTC * --+-- "Because we love a world other than this one, we love even this | world better than those who know no other" -- C. S. Lewis |