Xref: utzoo comp.windows.x:5357 comp.terminals:904
Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!rutgers!gatech!bbn!milliken@bbn.com
From: milliken@bbn.com (Walter Milliken)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x,comp.terminals
Subject: Re: X-Windows terminal from Wyse ?
Summary: Visual 640 mini-review
Keywords: X Terminals
Message-ID: <30215@bbn.COM>
Date: 28 Sep 88 16:18:48 GMT
References: <215@ists> <16248@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU>
Sender: news@bbn.COM
Reply-To: milliken@bbn.com (Walter Milliken)
Followup-To: comp.windows.x
Organization: BBN Advanced Computers, Inc.  Cambridge, MA
Lines: 32
In-reply-to: casey@admin.cognet.ucla.edu (Casey Leedom)

In article <16248@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU>, casey@admin (Casey Leedom) writes:
>In article <215@ists> mike@ists.yorku.ca (Mike Clarkson) writes:
>> I've heard that Wyse may be planning to introduce an X-Windows terminal
>> with built-in Ethernet soon.  Costs around $3000.  Does anyone have any
>> information on this ?
>
>  I've heard rumors of some X terminals also and likewise would be
>interested in any solid reports.  However, they better come in under $3K
>or they're looking at a product that just isn't going to sell.  (Any
>manufacturers listening?)

I don't know anything about a Wyse terminal, but Visual just gave us a
demo yesterday.  Their terminal lists for $1995, and looks fairly
good.  It did evidence a few minor display bugs, however.  They have a
rather nice way of handling fonts (it can get them through NFS or a
special font server they supply to run under Unix).  The screen is
a bit small (14", 1024x800), and they currently use an interlaced
monitor, which flickers visibly with some bitmaps.  Performance is
better than a Sun 3/50 running the souped-up R2 server (maybe twice as
fast) -- not amazingly fast, but good enough to be usable.  The
terminal can run over SLIP (up to 38kbaud) as well as thin- and
thick-wire Ethernet.  The terminal can also run as a conventional
VT100-style ASCII terminal running TCP/IP telnet over the Ethernet.

The Visual people said a new software release was in the works, and
that they would shortly have a non-interlaced monitor version of the
terminal (which I would definitely prefer).  If the next software
release fixes the few bugs I saw, I'd say this terminal is a good buy.
It's not quite like having a Sun 3/50-sized screen, but it should be
reasonable as an X server for the cost-conscious.

---Walter