[5] in 1993-clients
initial impressions
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (hoffmann@MIT.EDU)
Wed Mar 4 10:26:00 1992
From: hoffmann@MIT.EDU
Date: Wed, 4 Mar 92 10:25:45 -0500
To: 1993-clients@MIT.EDU
I've logged in to both the Digital and IBM candidates.
- Personal DecStation
Display
Color is nice. My window layout is somewhat cramped on
the reduced real estate. The "adjustments" look like
a cluster nightmare and what's more, they fix everything
but the one thing I needed: FOCUS. Perhaps this is a
problem with the test sample but the image sharpness varied
greatly across the screen... I wouldn't want to work with
that particular screen for a prolonged period of time.
Keyboard
It feels better than the LK201s. Nice that they have a
distinctive click near the bottom though still not up to
the feel of an IBM keyboard. It does look and feel somewhat
flimsy (not much weight to it) and for some reason DEC went
and changed the connector on their mouse AGAIN.
Overall
The machine is certainly fast compared to the VS3100 on my
desk. My environment works without much adjustment; this
is more a tribute to the local integration of the system
software than the machine (but see my comments later on the
"other" competitor). The major adjustment for me was the
window placement and geometry. Personally, I think the
tradeoff of screen real estate to speed and color is worth it.
- IBM PowerStation
Display
It's BIG... lots more space than my VS3100. It is also
well adjusted and properly focussed. I'm guessing that
it's a Sony monitor (from the faceplate lines). Certainly
comfortable.
Keyboard
It has a fine feel but is missing some keys that I would
need to use for software I run as part of my job. I'd have
to remap some keys.
Overall
My environment didn't fare as well on this machine. I can't
say why or whether this is a valid criticism but it may be
indicative of the difficulty of getting this one "right" from
an integration standpoint. My window manager didn't seem to
work correctly; I couldn't move, resize, or iconify windows
with the expected bindings (I use uwm). Also, inside my emacs
I couldn't use the large <-- key to delete characters, instead
I had to hunt down the DELETE key off to the right of the main
section of the keyboard.
The machine seemed to take an enourmous amout of time to do
network I/O. I ran rmail and I thought I was using a VS2000
it took so long to write out my rmail file. On that point,
I have a feeling that it abused me. Today, logging in to
my regular workstation, I find that I'm missing all my mail
between 2/25 and last night. I haven't a clue where it might
have gone.
I've never tried one of the public RS6000s so I don't know if
these are problems with the integration in general.
