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From: andrew@hammer.TEK.COM (Andrew Klossner)
Newsgroups: comp.terminals
Subject: Re: HP 2621?
Message-ID: <2715@hammer.TEK.COM>
Date: Mon, 22-Dec-86 12:46:06 EST
Article-I.D.: hammer.2715
Posted: Mon Dec 22 12:46:06 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 23-Dec-86 18:40:04 EST
References: <2744@j.cc.purdue.edu>
Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Wilsonville, OR
Lines: 35

[The old story: I tried replying with mail and the network slimed me,
so I'm entrusting the message to news.]

I have an HP2621A (like the 'P' but with no printer).  It's an
excellent terminal for Unix use; it has insert/delete line/character so
it's good with slow-speed modems, it doesn't need to do any handshaking
at 9600 baud, and the extra page of scrollable memory is very nice.

The things I don't like are:

  -- Power up condition is with no tabs set.  Every ^I sends the cursor
     to the beginning of the next line.  Don't "stty tabs" until you
     have "tset", and be sure that your termcap sets up the tabs.

  -- The caps lock key is in an awkward place, and you can't tell by
     examination whether it's on or off -- no LED, no detented position.
     It takes a while to quit hitting it when searching for the CONTROL
     key.

  -- You'll hate it if you hit RUBOUT a lot.  It's shift-ESCAPE.

If I had it to do over, I would buy it again.  Rock solid; in four
years I've only had to replace a keyboard encoder chip.  HP parts
supply was responsive.  (There's a sales office across the street from
where I work.)

I used to work at a place with lots of 'A's and 'P's.  The printers
were not very useful and the paper is expensive.  But you can use a 'P'
as a terminal, ignore the printer, and still win.

I have an improved termcap (better than 4.2BSD); if you buy the
terminal, let me know and I'll forward it.

  -=- Andrew Klossner   (decvax!tektronix!tekecs!andrew)       [UUCP]
                        (tekecs!andrew.tektronix@csnet-relay)  [ARPA]