jmaynard@thesis1.hsch.utexas.edu (Jay Maynard) (11/06/90)
In article <13143@encore.Encore.COM> jcallen@encore.Com (Jerry Callen) writes: >[Aside: won't those $#@ 3270s EVER die the death they deserve???] The 3270 may be complex and difficult to use for the average Unix hacker who's used to a VT220, or an X terminal, running at high speeds. For their designed purposes, though, they're actually very efficient and do the job well...it's just that that designed job isn't general terminal use. In particular, the 3270 is unsurpassed at fill-in-the-blank forms usage; the hardware has the necessary functions designed into it, and they're very fast. In addition, the channel architecture and 3270s get along very well together. Just try to imagine what would happen if it was done character-at-a-time, interactively, at typing speed, on a channel. Channel busy percentages would go right through the roof. Yes, a 3270 makes a lousy VT100 (I know from firsthand experience...you haven't lived until you've used EMACS on a PC emulating a 3270 emulating a VT100! :-( ), but for its intended use, it does very well indeed. I would be greatly surprised if it were replaced by async terminals, or something of that nature. -- Jay Maynard, EMT-P, K5ZC, PP-ASEL | Never ascribe to malice that which can jmaynard@thesis1.hsch.utexas.edu | adequately be explained by stupidity. "With design like this, who needs bugs?" - Boyd Roberts
thesis1.hsch.utexas.EDU@TMC.EDU (Jay Maynard) (11/06/90)
In article <13143@encore.Encore.COM> jcallen@encore.Com (Jerry Callen) writes: >[Aside: won't those $#@ 3270s EVER die the death they deserve???] The 3270 may be complex and difficult to use for the average Unix hacker who's used to a VT220, or an X terminal, running at high speeds. For their designed purposes, though, they're actually very efficient and do the job well...it's just that that designed job isn't general terminal use. In particular, the 3270 is unsurpassed at fill-in-the-blank forms usage; the hardware has the necessary functions designed into it, and they're very fast. In addition, the channel architecture and 3270s get along very well together. Just try to imagine what would happen if it was done character-at-a-time, interactively, at typing speed, on a channel. Channel busy percentages would go right through the roof. Yes, a 3270 makes a lousy VT100 (I know from firsthand experience...you haven't lived until you've used EMACS on a PC emulating a 3270 emulating a VT100! :-( ), but for its intended use, it does very well indeed. I would be greatly surprised if it were replaced by async terminals, or something of that nature. -- Jay Maynard, EMT-P, K5ZC, PP-ASEL | Never ascribe to malice that which can jmaynard@thesis1.hsch.utexas.edu | adequately be explained by stupidity. "With design like this, who needs bugs?" - Boyd Roberts
eric@sejnet.sunet.se (Eric Thomas, SUNET) (11/06/90)
One of the really nice properties of 327x is that the application developer does not have access to keys like TAB, DELETE WORD, NEW LINE, etc. This means that it is impossible for each and every PC hacker to try to impose his religious perception of what these keys ought to do to the poor end-user; in other words, I never need to worry about what will happen when I hit the INSERT MODE or ERASE EOF key, in fact I know that the application does not have any way to know how I moved from the screen it presented me with to the final screen it will retrieve from the terminal when I hit the ENTER key. This also means that these functions will be available regardless of the laziness of the application developer, but after having used multiple PC packages for several months in a university the thing that really drove me crazy was the way you could never know what a given key would do in a particular package unless you are familiar with that package... Eric