mo@seismo.UUCP (Mike O'Dell) (04/02/85)
I played with a 7300 for an hour or so and came away relatively unimpressed. It seems overly large, and the 20 meg disk is small, with the 10 meg disk just silly. It runs Convergent's paging version of System V and 1/2 meg isn't enough memory, or at least, something was doing a LOT of needless I/O if it wasn't paging. Also, the disk is quite noisy, making a gurgling sound (Bubble Memory!!) most of the time, with occassional sawing noises. It is noisier than an IBM PC/XT or AT. The office environment is a nice try, but to me, a clear swing and a miss. The machine can't decided what the interface paradigm should be: it has a mouse and tries to do windows (more about that later) but it also has as many special function keys as alphabetics! Some things you get with the mouse, but some things it seems you can only get with the function keys. It was not obvious which is which, and being a Macintosh owner, I am very sensitive to clarity and consistancy - using someone elses attempt makes me marvel all the more at the transparency and consistancy of the Mac user interface guidelines. Which brings me to the window system. Some of the ideas are well done. Windows have resize boxes, drag boxes, and help boxes. Clicking them does the appropriate thing, with the help box being particuarly useful - it explains, or tries, what is in that window, either what program is painting it, what the text might mean, or even trying to explain the last error message generated in the window. This is a nice contribution. The system suffers mightily, however, because of its rotten performance. From clicking on the drag box to the appearance of the dragging outline was SEVERAL SECONDS, replete with frantic paging activity!!!! Another problem is that most windows have scroll buttons in the form of up and down arrows which can be clicked with the mouse, or pressed using the arrow keys on the keyboard. The problem is they appear whether there is anything to scroll or not! On the Macintosh, if the scroll controls appear in the window, it means they do something!! On the 7300, you just have to poke and wait to see if anything happens. Coupled with this is the problem of not having any idea where you are relative to the bounds of the window contents (the Mac elevator box in the scroll control). This seems like a detail, but it really does a lot of damage to the consistancy of the interface. The mouse is curious, also. The pointer is GIGANTIC, and "hot" all the time. This means you point at something and touch the button, just like in other systems, but as you move around the screen without touching the button, things select and deselect as you move by, possibly changing things you didn't want changed - you still have to click in the window to acknowledge, but I found it annoying. Probably chalk that one up to the "different from what I am used to" column and I could adjust pretty quickly. One kudo: they use a 3 button mouse, and have assigned functions pretty well. The first button always selects and does, and for fields where there are multiple choice values, the third button rolls through the alternative choices. My memory of the second button isn't very clear. All taken, the button paradigm is well done. FInally, a conclusion: I suspect the window system is not really a window system but a keyboard menu frontend. I base this on the observation that the windows always seem to align on a CRT character and only the outlines seem to be graphics, and the distinct impression that menu interactions were dropping commands into a shell somewhere. FInally, when you tried just typing a command on they keyboard, it echoed in a special place until carriage return, at which point it disappeared and was usually replaced with a message to the effect "You can't run more than one program at once" and I didn't see any obvious programs, other than possibly the menu interpreter.
eric@osiris.UUCP (Eric Bergan) (04/03/85)
> I played with a 7300 for an hour or so and came away relatively unimpressed. We were one of the Beta sites for the 7300, I have had one for about 4 months, and would like to comment on some of the statements. > It runs Convergent's paging version of System V and > 1/2 meg isn't enough memory, or at least, something was doing a LOT > of needless I/O if it wasn't paging. Certainly true, and AT&T is aware of it. Supposedly, they are to recommend 1M for all "serious" users. The impact on windowing and general system performance has to be seen to be believed. I struggled with a 1/2M system for about a month - and the difference is very noticeable. > The machine can't decided what the interface paradigm should be: it has > a mouse and tries to do windows (more about that later) but it also has > as many special function keys as alphabetics! Some things you get with > the mouse, but some things it seems you can only get with the function keys. I have not found this to be the case. The middle mouse button pops up the menu that displays the commands which are replicated by the keys. It is true that it is often faster to hit the keyboard key for a command than the menu, particularly in the word processors. > Windows have resize boxes, drag boxes, > and help boxes. Clicking them does the appropriate thing, with the > help box being particuarly useful - it explains, or tries, what is in > that window, either what program is painting it, what the text might > mean, or even trying to explain the last error message generated in > the window. This is a nice contribution. The system suffers mightily, > however, because of its rotten performance. From clicking on the drag > box to the appearance of the dragging outline was SEVERAL SECONDS, replete > with frantic paging activity!!!! See above comment on memory - it makes a definite improvement. > The mouse is curious, also. The pointer is GIGANTIC, and "hot" all the time. > This means you point at something and touch the button, just like in > other systems, but as you move around the screen without touching the > button, things select and deselect as you move by, possibly changing > things you didn't want changed - you still have to click in the > window to acknowledge, but I found it annoying. I am not sure I follow you on this one. The pointer on mine is not "hot" all the time - it works just like the Macs I have used - i.e. nothing happens until you click. The one exception is in "forms", where the pointer also highlights the current entry field. I really have not found that annoying. > The first button always selects and does, and > for fields where there are multiple choice values, the third button > rolls through the alternative choices. My memory of the second button > isn't very clear. All taken, the button paradigm is well done. As I said - the middle button brings up the menu of commands that are applicable - mostly duplicating the special keys on the keyboard. > FInally, a conclusion: I suspect the window system is not really a window > system but a keyboard menu frontend. I base this on the observation that > the windows always seem to align on a CRT character and only the outlines > seem to be graphics, and the distinct impression that menu interactions > were dropping commands into a shell somewhere. FInally, when you > tried just typing a command on they keyboard, it echoed in a special place > until carriage return, at which point it disappeared and was usually replaced > with a message to the effect "You can't run more than one program at once" > and I didn't see any obvious programs, other than possibly the menu > interpreter. The window system is a true window system - windows can be created anywhere. Also, a quick jaunt into business graphics will demonstrate that there is more there than just a menu frontend. As for the echoing - that has to do with what application is being run. It does allow a command line oriented shortcut to the menu system. But if you are in a Unix shell window, or the editor, it works exactly as you would expect. Just to wrap up, I think it is a pretty good box for the money. It seems to have a pretty good Unix underneath it, although I could ask for more documentation of some of the special interfaces (phone, windows, etc). It has some nice applications available for it, particularly graphics, which are fairly well integrated into the system. And so far, AT&T has been very responsive to comments and requests for enhancements. -- eric ...!seismo!umcp-cs!aplvax!osiris!eric
david@ukma.UUCP (David Herron, NPR Lover) (04/04/85)
> From: mo@seismo.UUCP (Mike O'Dell) References: <1830@seismo.UUCP> I've also gotten a chance to play with one here for a few hours. I'll take some of his comments and expand on them, then add my own. -------------------------------------------------------------- > ..... Also, the disk is quite noisy, > making a gurgling sound (Bubble Memory!!) most of the time, with occassional > sawing noises. It is noisier than an IBM PC/XT or AT. The first time I heard one turned on, I remarked that it sounded a lot like a train whistle. We were told they would be putting a different disk in the production model. > The office environment is a nice try, but to me, a clear swing and a miss. > ... I agree. Most of the windows seem to be centered around phone and electronic mail management. But that isn't what I do all day. Same holds true for the other people around here. > ... > The machine can't decided what the interface paradigm should be: it has > a mouse and tries to do windows (more about that later) but it also has > as many special function keys as alphabetics! Some things you get with > the mouse, but some things it seems you can only get with the function keys. > ... I found that the mouse functions had equivalent keys on the keyboard. So if you like keyboards then you use that, if you like mouses you used the mouse. The AT&T reps all used the keyboard. > Some of the ideas are well done. Windows have resize boxes, drag boxes, > and help boxes. Clicking them does the appropriate thing, with the > help box being particuarly useful - it explains, or tries, what is in > that window, either what program is painting it, what the text might > mean, or even trying to explain the last error message generated in > the window. This is a nice contribution. ... I wasn't impressed by the help windows. They never answered the question I was asking. And it was confusing, mainly because most of the other help functions were accessed through the pf keys. But I didn't see them for a long time. Then once I did see them they didn't make much sense. The information itself was much like the AT&T manuals. LOTS and LOTS of talk but no calories. > ... The system suffers mightily, > however, because of its rotten performance. ... We ran some simple to moderately complex benchmarks. For compute bound tasks it was as fast as our Vax-11/750. FP was slower, but then we have the accelerator on the Vax. The disks though are S L O W. > ... Another problem is that most windows > have scroll buttons in the form of up and down arrows which can be clicked > with the mouse, or pressed using the arrow keys on the keyboard. The problem > is they appear whether there is anything to scroll or not! On the Macintosh, > if the scroll controls appear in the window, it means they do something!! > ... The only time I remember this happening is for the main window. The others had scroll icons as needed. > ... > FInally, a conclusion: I suspect the window system is not really a window > system but a keyboard menu frontend. I base this on the observation that > the windows always seem to align on a CRT character and only the outlines > seem to be graphics, and the distinct impression that menu interactions > were dropping commands into a shell somewhere. FInally, when you > tried just typing a command on they keyboard, it echoed in a special place > until carriage return, at which point it disappeared and was usually replaced > with a message to the effect "You can't run more than one program at once" > and I didn't see any obvious programs, other than possibly the menu > interpreter. They really are shell scripts. At least some of them. Look in /usr/bin next chance you get. > As for the rest of the system, it seems pretty crisp running simple > commands. I didn't try any cpu benchmarks, but if run as a single user > (or even two user) timesharing system without the office system, > it should work pretty well. Again, with the paging activity I observed, > however, I wouldn't buy it with less than a megabyte, and again, the 20 meg > disk is too small to last too long. It appears that someone has already > started marketing a 40-meg upgrade, which should make it a very hospitable > machine for 2 or even 3 people if they don't all do nroff's at once! One thing we did was run a direct uucp connection to it. We were getting 5000 baud throughput on a 9600 baud line. But it kept dying. We couldn't figure out why. But with a uucp chugging away in the background performance was still acceptable at the console. > Lastly, keep in mind this assessment was based on about an hour > of messing around without reading the manuals. But since I learned > to use my Mac without reading anything (and knowing how to use Unix!), > I sort of expect Window Systems to be that simple. If I were to use > it longer, I suspect I would get used to its quirks and come to like it. > But you better have a BIG desk if you want to make it a desktop! > > -Mike O'Dell I managed to use it (or watch others use it) for most of a day. The software is buggy as all get out. But our machine had been in the field for some months and I don't know if it had had any software updates. I also was trying to learn it w/o looking at manuals. But parts of it were hard to work out. For instance. You can use the builtin phone system to make calls to other people, or other computers (using the builtin 1200 modem). It wasn't clear what the machine meant when it told me to go set up a "profile", and it didn't tell me where to go to set one up. By invoking all the menus I could find I eventually found it. But it tool awhile. I had a manual available. But it was depressing to look at. Lots and lots of talk and no calories. But I'm still thinking about buying one for myself. It's tempting. -- --- David Herron --- ARPA-> ukma!david<@ANL-MCS> or david%ukma.uucp@anl-mcs.arpa --- Or even anlams!ukma!david@ucbvax.arpa --- UUCP-> {ucbvax,unmvax,boulder,oddjob}!anlams!ukma!david --- cbosgd!ukma!david "The home of poly-unsaturated thinking".