🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <645@pyrnj.uucp> romain@pyrnj.UUCP (Romain Kang) writes:
>The names have been removed to protect the innocent, and who knows what
>might be mythical at this point?

Well, since all but one of these have already been announced, and ALL
of them have been demonstrated at least in prototype form at shows,
let's put the names back and then correct the posting.
("?" means I don't have the specific information memorized; Romain's
information for those items may well be correct.)

Name		 615	      620	    630		5620

>Windows	  3	       6	     6		  7	

Windows		  ?	       ?	     7		  6
					  plus local
					  processes

>Characters    80 x 27	    80 x 27	  85 x 64      88 x 70	
>	      132 x 27			 113 x 73		
>					 146 x 73		

Characters	  ?	       ?	  80 x 60      88 x 70
					     ?
					     ?
					"dumb" terminal mode given;
					actual size depends on
					layer dimensions and on
					(possibly downloaded) font

>Processor	68000	     68000	   68000       WE32100	

Processor	  ?	       ?       68010, I think  WE32001 or WE32100
							(old)	   (new)
					Note: no floating-point processor

>Memory		  -	     128KB	   640KB	256KB	

Memory		  ?	       ?	   640Kb	256Kb
							1024Kb optional
					memory used for many purposes,
					including scroll buffers, fonts,
					downloaded code and data, ...

>Emulations   AT&T 4410	   AT&T 4410	 AT&T 5620	Native	
>	      AT&T 513C	    Tek 4014	 Tek 4014      Tek 4014 
>	      DEC VT220	    GSS CGI	  GSS CGI	HP 2621	 

		  ?	       ?	NOT 5620!
			    tek4014	tek4014, hp2621, other terminal
					emulations available through
					downloaded layer processes.
					630 downloaded applications
					practically source-compatible
					with 5620 (not binary compatible).
					CORE, GKS, X-windows support
					is POSSIBLE (not necessarily
					available), as are a variety of
					specialized interactive interfaces.

All four terminals support the "layers" protocol that is now supplied
with UNIX System V (generally in a "windowing utilities" package).
Layers support for a variety of BSD-based systems is also available
from various sources including BRL.  The 615 is character-only; the
620 supports graphics but not bitmap programs; the 630 and 5620
support bitmap programming via downloaded layer control programs.
The latter are the commercial forms of Rob Pike's "Blit" that has
been described in various UNIX and graphics literature.  The 5620
was also featured in the September 1985 Scientific American
"Computer Recreations" column.  (I have re-implemented "crabs" for
the 5620, and someone else then ported it, with many changes, to
Suns.  If there is enough interest I could post my version.)

I'm not sure what the intended market for the 615 is; the 620 seems
like a nice general-purpose terminal; the 630 is not yet an announced
product but seems like a worthy successor to the 5620.  BRL has lots
of 5620s and some of us like them a lot, especially augmented by Dave
Prosser's "myx" environment available from the AT&T UNIX System
ToolChest.  (The 630 effectively has "myx"'s features built in.)
If you're considering these bit-map terminal models, be sure to get
the necessary support software for the host systems, as they are
not stand-alone (Sun-like) workstations but rather depend on a host
UNIX system with the special layers support environment for multi-
window operation.  This approach (vs. Sun's) has both advantages and
drawbacks; let's not get into a flame war about it.