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From: gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn )
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c,comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: spiffy terminals
Message-ID: <9365@smoke.BRL.MIL>
Date: 14 Jan 89 12:19:13 GMT
References: <443@marob.MASA.COM> <11067@ulysses.homer.nj.att.com> <408@ispi.UUCP> <9357@smoke.BRL.MIL> <85237@sun.uucp>
Reply-To: gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB) <gwyn>)
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD.
Lines: 27

In article <85237@sun.uucp> swilson@sun.UUCP (Scott Wilson) writes:
>The analogy above to furniture is, as with most analogies, bogus at
>best.  The analogy was chosen to cross a line most would agree would
>be unacceptable.

Hey, if a terminal is an important part of somebody's job, then an
el-cheapo model is as unacceptable as cardboard office furniture.

>I'd say it all reduces to a simple decision of whether the increase
>in expense of the hardware outweighs the increased productivity.

Yes, that's the issue.  But the "obvious" ways to evaluate it are wrong.

>For example, consider a receptionist that mainly answers the phone and
>on occaison sends a phone message by e-mail to someone.

I can think of numerous ways a receptionist could benefit from improved
computational facilities.  In fact I've seen some fancy receptionist
support, and it would have been severely crippled by having to use a
dumb terminal.

Certainly, terminals that are essentially unused need not be fancy.

By the way, I was NOT pushing bitmap displays, but rather spiffy
terminals.  These are not necessarily related.  Happens the 630 is
both, but I've been careful to limit my arguments to features that
do not require bitmap graphics.  Others brought that up.