AT&T's Safari Notebook Computer

[John Canning]

Earlier this month, AT&T announced its entry in to the portable
world of computers.  Their entry is named the Safari NSX/20, and
contains an 80386SX 20MHz processor, 2MB of RAM and a 40MB hard
drive -- all in a notebook sized package that ways less than 8
pounds.  That 8 lbs includes the weight of the two batteries,
which will keep the machine running for up to six hours.

The machine comes loaded with MS DOS, Windows, and associated
programs and games.  Seeing as we are a Unix house, we promptly
erased all of that stuff, and decided to try out Unix.

Our distributor tested the machine with AT&T's Unix 3.2.3, and had
no difficulties with it.  However, to run 3.2.3, the NSX/20 must
have 4MB of RAM.

Since our machine came with only 2MB of RAM, Unix 3.2.3 was not an
option.  Because of this, we loaded Unix 3.2.2 with Maintenance
Update #2 on the machine, and are quite happy with what we've found.
The modem works (although you have to create your own entry for it
in Dialers), and the machine boots Unix in under a minute.

We even set the hard disk to timeout in a minute, to see what effect
it would have on the system performance.  The answer is - you have to
wait a few seconds every once in a while when the disk starts up
again.  But, if you're going to be in vi or Lotus for a while,
the disk seems quite happy being shut off.

With 3.2.2, we've noticed the following:

    In setup, you must disable the keyboard timeout feature.  If not,
    the keyboard will sometimes go out to lunch and not come back.

    Under Unix, it ignores the Function keys for Setup, Reverse
    Video, Alternate Monitor, and so on.  The trick is to access
    them right after POST.

    The most anoying feature is that it switches in to an odd character
    set when it first boots up.  The end result is that the bottom row
    of dots is left out of the characters on the screen.  This is most
    apparent with the letters g and j, in that their tails get snipped
    off a bit.  We've tried different STTY modes (ENH_B80x25 and
    VGAMONO80x25 in particular), but no such luck.

    If you use the built in screen, VGAMONO80x25 works best.

    If you use the VGA 324 external monitor, ENH_B80x25 works best.

I am anxious to find out about other experiences with Unix and the
Safari NSX/20.

John Canning					  john at banzai.PCC.COM
The People's Computer Company		...!uunet!uvm-gen!banzai!john
Williston, Vermont			      ...!attmail!banzai!john