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From: nfotis@ntua.gr (Nikolaos Fotis)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.hp
Subject: Some complaints (9000/7x0 series)
Message-ID: <1474@theseas.ntua.gr>
Date: 21 Jun 91 15:57:58 GMT
Sender: news@theseas.ntua.gr
Reply-To: nfotis@ntua.gr (Nikolaos Fotis)
Organization: National Technical University of Athens, Greece
Lines: 47


Greetings, NetPeople!

I recently had some experience with a HP 9000/720 demo unit, *no manuals*
and I would like just to add my remarks (I hope that's not too late
for 8.05...):
(machine OS: HP-UX kentayros A.B8.01 A 9000/720 )

pro: its FAST! and it doesn't heat up easily (we notice these things here
	in Greece!)
cons (in no particular order):
 a. Very bad keyboard, especially the escape key and a rather plastic touch.
	NO DELETE key! (very bad) and very small control key.
	proposal: make it a customer option. I would love to have something
		reasonable like a Northgate keyboard.
 b. I don't like (really!) the mechanical mouse. It'll need a piece of paper
	at least in order to stop it from slipping.
	proposal: give us optical mice with flexible mouse pads.
 c. The vi and more don't behave so well when I work with more than
	24x80 text (console, resizing xterms,etc. Neither eval resize
	does the trick). I hope that the solution is just a manual away.
 c. From what I read in this newsgroup, I didn't liked the attitude of
	stripping out all these BSD goodies, especially when the kernel and
	the associated data structures are here (e.g. renice()).
	proposal: make it more BSD 4.3-like where it doesn't collide with
		SYSV, and add the networking code (ping,etc.)
 d. We thought about connecting an Exabyte in the future, but the recent
	posts are discouraging, to say the least. The Exabyte *now* gives
	5 GB, and we'll have to do overnight backups over NFS. Clearly,
	DAT with 2 GB per tape is somewhat behind.
	proposal: enable that feature, or you'll lose customers!

We don't use VUE and the assorted goodies, but the X server we use gives
us some troubles (fonts,etc.). Perhaps when the manuals come in, we'll
know what's the culprit...

That's all for now.

Bye,
Nick.


-- 
Nikolaos Fotis			National Technical Univ. of Athens, Greece
16 Esperidon St.,		UUCP:	mcsun!ariadne!theseas!nfotis
Halandri, GR - 152 32		or InterNet : nfotis@theseas.ntua.gr
Athens, GREECE			FAX: (+30 1) 77 84 578