Layers-compatible windowing terminals for AT&T 3B2/700 recommendations?

[Greg A. Woods]

In article <1991May30.042351.3582 at agate.berkeley.edu> et at plague.Berkeley.EDU (Eric Thompson) writes:
> Hi.  I need to find out what make and model of windowing terminal
> will work with a 3B2 running layers.  I'm sure there are models from
> AT&T, I just don't know what they are.  Also, I'm sure other terminal
> manufacturers produced similar terminals...

I don't know of any other makes of layers compatible terminals.  I
even harassed Wyse people on several occaisions.  Their answer was
that they'd have no trouble reverse-engineering the protocol if
necessary, but they didn't think it was worth it.  I tried to point
out that almost every true and decent UNIX System V Release 3.0 or
greater comes with layers (i.e. the AT&T Windowing Utilities), but
that didn't seem to help any.  HDS weren't any more enthusiastic.

Anyway, here's my off-the-top-of-the-head list:

	TTY 5620 DMD (perhaps others of the tty-5600 series too)
	AT&T 630, 615MT, 610 (but *not* the 605)
	AT&T 730, 705MT

> So, the basic prerequisites for these terminals are:
> 
>   * black/white (color not necessary, probably will be unused)
>   * preferably >= 14" screen size

You'll find the 705 is quite nice, and very competitively priced, but
only supports two layers, and has only a small screen with a max of 42
lines, 132(?) columns.  You can either split the screen horizontally,
or flip back and forth, all with the function keys.  It does not
support any graphics or downloading.

The 730 is quite expensive (~$4000CND), but has an X-Window option, a
very large screen, Starlan NI, etc.

Everything else is out of date...  i.e. look for used units!

None of these models have colour screens (unless you count green or
amber :-).

>   * must be able to keep jobs in background windows running
>     (i.e. jobs in non-selected windows should not stop)

That's what layers is all about.

> If you have experience with them, info on that would be great too.
> Thanks for any leads.  I appreciate it.

I *really* like the 5620.  It's the original commercial version of the
Bell Labs blit (or jerq, as some know it by).  They have a WE32000
CPU, and usually 1 Mb of RAM.  They're not fast, and they only support
6 active layers, but since they have the same CPU as a 3b2, no
cross-compiler is needed to compile downloadable applications (the 630
& 730 have mc68000 cpu's) when your host is an AT&T 3B2.  You do need
the developer's package though, since it contains the relevant tools,
libraries, and header files.

We use 5620's here a work (attatched to our 386), and I have a couple
at home on my 3b2/400.

There are some fairly nifty applications available as source from the
AT&T Toolchest that run on 5620's, 630's, and 730's; if you should
happen to be able to compile and download them.
-- 
							Greg A. Woods
woods@{eci386,gate,robohack,ontmoh,tmsoft}.UUCP		ECI and UniForum Canada
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