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From: gwyn@brl-smoke.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards
Subject: Re: Eighth Edition and job control (was Re: UNIX Futures)
Message-ID: <59@brl-smoke.ARPA>
Date: Wed, 16-Apr-86 15:47:39 EST
Article-I.D.: brl-smok.59
Posted: Wed Apr 16 15:47:39 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 19-Apr-86 08:16:03 EST
References: <3289@sun.UUCP> <57700002@hpcvlo.UUCP> <127@sering.mcvax.UUCP> <559@basser.oz> <71@utecfc.UUCP> <1586@ism780c.UUCP>
Reply-To: gwyn@brl.ARPA
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL)
Lines: 49

In article <1586@ism780c.UUCP> tim@ism780c.UUCP (Tim Smith) writes:
>In article <71@utecfc.UUCP> dennis@utecfc.UUCP (Dennis Ferguson) writes:
>>I am typing this on a rather dumb 24x80 terminal.  Approximate
>>value is $400.  I have showed your message to just about everyone
>>arund here with funds but no one has volunteered to provide me
>>with the $9000 or so I would need to buy a 5620.

The last price I could find for a 5620 is $3300,
$3000 for the Core host software (which applies
to any number of 5620s on the host), $2000 for
the Text+Graphics software.  (These prices have
probably come down a bit in the meantime.)  It
is more cost-effective to have several DMDs on
the same host than to have just one.  The
asymptotic average price of a 5620 was $3300,
not even allowing for quantity discounts.

I don't want to make this into a commercial, but
the $9000 figure is misleading.

>There is no reason one can not make 5620 technology available at a
>very low cost.  Look at some of the computers that are now available
>with bitmapped displays: Macintosh ( 512k goes for around $1300 ),
>Atari 520ST ( $800 ), and Amiga ( ~$1200? ).
>
>There is no reason one can not turn any of these into a reasonable
>5620 emulator.  The large screen of the 5620 is nice, but I think one
>could live with the smaller screens of the above computers.

The 5620 does far more than provide windows.  There is a large amount
of work involved in developing the cross-SGS, libraries, etc.
Indeed, I've had to do considerable work just to port the existing
code to a new host.  (To be fair, I should admit that much of this
work should not have been necessary if portable coding practices
had been used and if the target host had had a better C compiler.)

Similar software using Macs etc. would be nice, all right,
but providing it is not a trivial task.  Looks like a viable
commercial product idea to me..

>Anyone care to predict how long the dumb terminal will last?  Unless
>it is real cheap ( i.e., almost free ), I can't see any reason to get
>one when for maybe twice as much I can get a computer and run a terminal
>emulator.

My Branch has quit buying dumb terminals.
I don't see much advantage in using something like an IBM PC
as a terminal emulator (unless you happen to already have one),
but the Blit/DMD (Xerox, Sun, etc.) approach is another story.