🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <147@uw-apl.UUCP> cel@uw-apl.UUCP (Curtis Lacy) writes:
>
>I could benefit from someone's experience with the ISI workstations,
>either the Optimum V (16 MHz) or the Series 400 (25 MHz).  I'm
>interested in any comments you may have, but particularly in
>reliability (hardward AND software), level of technical support,
>
>Curtis Lacy
>Applied Physics Laboratory
>University of Washington
>{allegra,microvax,decvax,ucbvax!lbl-csam}!uw-beaver!uw-apl!cel

I'm currently writing some software for the Integrated Solutions
Optimum V8 Workstation, and I have a few observations to offer.

The code I'm writing makes frequent use of the ISI "toolbox" library
for things like form menus (a mechanism for gathering user input
which is similar to, but not as general as, Macintosh dialogue boxes)
and button fields.  The tools library isn't bullet-proof.  But
they're working on it.  The technical support has been very good so
far -- I've notified them of the bugs I've found and gotten
workarounds for some, and assurances that others will be taken care
of in the next release.  The problem here seems to be that there just
haven't been that many people doing programming of this sort on the
station as yet.

As far as the environment itself goes, it's pretty nice.  It's a
curious but fairly effective mix of the Macintosh and SunWindows
environments.  The only application software I've had any trouble
with is a program that informs the shell that you're using a non-
standard window size.  If you turn a window into a graphics window,
then back into a tty, things get confused.  (But this is also an
artifact of my programming activity.)  The one thing I really wish
they'd done differently is the mouse -- it's mechanical, not optical.

I guess my final (for the moment) evaluation of the software is that
it isn't quite a mature windowing system, from the programmer's point
of view -- from the application oriented user's point of view it's
fine, and has some quite nice features -- the desktop stack comes
immediately to mind here.  (You're allowed to have multiple
'desktops,' each of which has a user definable appearance and set of
program/document icons.)

If anyone else out there is hacking on one of these stations, I'd be
pleased to hear from you to swap tales!


Lewis Barnett,CS Dept, Taylor Hall 2.124, Univ. of Texas, Austin, TX 78712

-- barnett@im4u.UTEXAS.EDU, barnett@im4u.UUCP,
      {ihnp4,harvard,seismo,gatech,ctvax}!im4u!barnett