Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!ncis.tis.llnl.gov!helios.ee.lbl.gov!pasteur!ucbvax!BRL.MIL!moss
From: moss@BRL.MIL ("Gary S. Moss", VLD/VMB)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Re:  Windows
Message-ID: <8905161626.aa16739@VMB.BRL.MIL>
Date: 16 May 89 20:26:16 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 28

< Phil Dydstra [Dykstra] makes sense on all but one sentence. "It is ridiculous to
< have to log into the console to use the graphics."  I find the sentence
< ridiculous.  The IRISes are so fast because you use the console.  Doing
< graphics with a dumb graphics terminal would slow things down substantial[l]y.
< Maybe he didn't say what he meant?

It made perfect sense to me; you 'rlogin' from a terminal or a window on
your Sun workstation which has a *decent* keyboard for those of us that
learned to type correctly (i.e. don't stare at the keyboard), and use the
IRIS to display graphics.  If you don't think that we can type faster on
a Sun, DEC, AT&T, Visual, etc. keyboard than on an IRIS, then you probably
either look at the keyboard when you type or learned on an IRIS.  [Remapping
the keys only helps for the Esc, Ctrl and Caps Lock; it still leaves ~,`,|,\,
Backspace, and Delete to name a few all *screwed* up because the layout and
shape of the keys prohibits doing a complete fix.]

[My guess is that the 4d keyboard sells more Suns than Sun Ads.]

The other *big* reason for not using the console, is that 4Sight does not
allow you to direct the input focus to a window other than the one under
the cursor.  This has broken all of my applications that manipulate the
graphics cursor from keyboard commands typed in a text window *and* there
is no work-around other than using 'rlogin' from another workstation/terminal.

I much prefer 4Sight to Mex (in general), but problems as fundamental as
these tend to alienate the developer types.

-moss