Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!ames!xanth!nic.MR.NET!hal!ncoast!allbery
From: allbery@ncoast.UUCP (Brandon S. Allbery)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: modern terminals (was: printf, data presentation)
Message-ID: <13332@ncoast.UUCP>
Date: 14 Jan 89 19:38:09 GMT
References: <19@xenlink.UUCP> <7328@chinet.chi.il.us> <144@bms-at.UUCP> <11072@ulysses.homer.nj.att.com> <2664@ficc.uu.net>
Reply-To: allbery@ncoast.UUCP (Brandon S. Allbery)
Followup-To: comp.unix.wizards
Organization: Cleveland Public Access UN*X, Cleveland, Oh
Lines: 36

As quoted from <2664@ficc.uu.net> by peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva):
+---------------
| In article <11072@ulysses.homer.nj.att.com>, ggs@ulysses.homer.nj.att.com (Griff Smith) writes:
| > I'll repeat Doug's reply: the AT&T 630 terminal is available for less
| > than $2k.  Support software for either System V or 4.3BSD is also
| > available.  I don't think Doug is dreaming; if you're stuck with an old
| > 24x80 non-windowed terminal, it's more like a nightmare.
| 
| Most of the UNIX systems in the world run Xenix, not System V or BSD. I
| strongly suspect the majority of these Xenix systems are still running
| System III-based kernels.
+---------------

It's worse than you think, Peter:  Xenix 3.x runs a *V7* kernel.  Some, but
not all, of the System III functionality has been added, but it's still
basically V7.

As for Doug and the other fancy-terminal lovers:  Add the cost of the
support software for your fancy terminals (one-time cost per CPU, admitted)
and people in the real world won't be interested.  Case in point:  none
(well, maybe *one* out of all) of our clients are interested in a windowing
setup we've been looking at, to see if it's worth selling.  If you can show
these people a complete setup *and* a way to retrofit all of their
precompiled applications to use it effectively (that does *not* mean a
"terminal emulator" window in the X style, people!), for a cost equivalent
to a handful of WY-50's, *then* they will be interested.

++Brandon
(P.S. Just in case I'm confusing people:  the "our" above refers to
Telotech, which is not related to ncoast in any way [except that I work for
one and administer the other ;-) ].)
-- 
Brandon S. Allbery, moderator of comp.sources.misc    allbery@ncoast.org (soon)
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