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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!gatech!seismo!mo
From: mo@seismo.UUCP (Mike O'Dell)
Newsgroups: net.micro
Subject: AT&T 7300
Message-ID: <1830@seismo.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 2-Apr-85 08:35:08 EST
Article-I.D.: seismo.1830
Posted: Tue Apr  2 08:35:08 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 3-Apr-85 03:19:55 EST
Organization: Center for Seismic Studies, Arlington, VA
Lines: 60

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.