sherouse@unc.UUCP (George W. Sherouse) (02/21/84)
The saga continues... I wrote earlier that DEC is giving away Rainbows, presumably because that was the only way they could get rid of them, but that I for one would be glad to get a free terminal. (For the uninitiated, the Rainbow is one of DEC's pc-type thangs and has a built-in VT10* emulation mode.) Well, it's here. My enthusiasm for the Rainbow even as a free terminal is on the wane. For the faint of heart, I am about to scorch the Rainbow keyboard. You may want to look away. The goddam ESC, BS, and BREAK keys are on the row of function keys *ABOVE THE NUMBER ROW!!* Clearly DEC has taken IBM's lead in producing keyboards for the extraterrestrial market - i.e. for users other than people. Try using vi with the ESC key at 2:00 and a full 2 inches above the home row. And the backspace is smack up against it for minimum ease of use and maximum chance of accidental mistyping. At the risk of being a little fair, there is a large, conveniently-placed key with what appears to be the intergalactic symbol for backspace but vi clearly has other ideas about the codes that key generates - probably something that could be sorted out in the termcap. PLEASE, someone tell me that the VT2** terminals don't use this same awful key layout. We just ordered a bunch (sigh). I ordered an amber screen for this Rainbow. It's marvie. I'm still not sure about this funny CRT-shaped monitor but it's growing on me. The machine itself seems to be quite solidly built. We were impressed by the apparent quality of most everything when we took it apart to install the extra 192k memory board (which by the bye is a royal pain). The only software, aside from OSs, we have is the "Learn Rainbow" tutorial which seems to be designed more to impress you with the features of the monitor than anything else, though it is sufficiently informative I suppose. Enough sniping for now, but stay tuned... << The views expressed are my own and are thus indistinguishable from >> << absolute truth. >> (the real) George W. Sherouse <decvax!mcnc!unc!sherouse>
perelgut@utcsrgv.UUCP (Stephen Perelgut) (02/22/84)
While we are picking on the Rainbow, why did they "improve" on the
directional keys by moving them from the numerical keypad and ordering
them
^
< v >
At least TI got it right. They have the directional keys separated and
it looks sorta like: (H => HOME)
^
< H >
v
P.S. The TI also has all the nasty keys away from the normal key positions.
Has anyone worked out the exact termcap/COMTTY.COM or termcap/XTALK.COM
combinations to make the TI-Professional talk nice with UNIX? I would
appreciate a look at anything along these lines.
--
Stephen Perelgut
Computer Systems Research Group University of Toronto
Usenet: {linus, ihnp4, allegra, decvax, floyd}!utcsrgv!perelgut
CSNET: perelgut@Torontoriber@uicsl.UUCP (02/23/84)
#R:unc:-679900:uicsl:7000054:000:538 uicsl!riber Feb 22 15:17:00 1984 Unless you plan on keeping one terminal/pc for life, you might as well get used working with different style keyboards. They will keep changeing. Some people like to play with buttons and some don't. So you can't please everyone. As for the Rainbow and other D.E.C. pc's, I have heard others give high praise of these keyboards as well as some who agree with you. Also, I asked around about the free Rainbows and found your statement to be untrue around here! You seem to have found a nice salesman. pur-ee!uiucdcs!uicsl!riber
willcox@ccvaxa.UUCP (02/25/84)
#R:unc:-679900:ccvaxa:9400009:000:1546 ccvaxa!willcox Feb 23 08:47:00 1984 Re: the Rainbow. I have had one for about a month now. I agree with you on some points, but not others. > The goddam ESC, BS, and BREAK keys are on the row of function keys > *ABOVE THE NUMBER ROW!!* Clearly DEC has taken IBM's lead in > producing keyboards for the extraterrestrial market - i.e. for > users other than people. Try using vi with the ESC key at 2:00 > and a full 2 inches above the home row. And the backspace is > smack up against it for minimum ease of use and maximum chance > of accidental mistyping. At the risk of being a little fair, > there is a large, conveniently-placed key with what appears to > be the intergalactic symbol for backspace but vi clearly has > other ideas about the codes that key generates - probably something > that could be sorted out in the termcap. Yes, the location of ESC, BS, and BREAK is strange. I have quickly gotten used to them, though. As for the key with the "intergalactic symbol for backspace", it generates a DEL. Given that DEL is used for character erase in a number of systems (e.g. VMS and the Rainbow's own MS-DOS and CP/M), its location and labeling is reasonable. In Unix, I found it easy to set my backspace character to DEL, and map DEL to backspace in vi, so we get along fine. That objection aside, I find the Rainbow's keyboard to be the most pleasant I have ever had to work with. It is FAR better than the PC's (yuk) or the PC Jr's (double yuk). My monochrome monitor (I got white) is also as crisp as anything I've seen. David A. Willcox ccvaxc!willcox