NCD TERMINALS

[Carl S. Gutekunst]

In article <1688 at esquire.UUCP> wynkoop at esquire.UUCP (Brett Wynkoop) writes:
>     Has anyone else out there bought any NCD terminals from pyramid.  If
>so how has ... reliability been?

My *PERSONAL OPINION* of the reliability of NCD terminals is: if you compare
them to other terminals (Wyse, Televidio, Qume, Ampex, Visual), very good. If
you compare them to PCs or workstations, poor to fair. This is true whether
you buy them from Pyramid, NCD, or any other OEM. I think your three out of
four failures is unusual, but certainly well within the realm of statistical
probability. NCD seems to have a higher infant mortality than other terminals,
but are better over the long haul. Wyse is the opposite -- terminals work
great out of the box, but die after a few years, especially if you have bad
line power. In all seriousness, some of the longest-lived terminals I've seen
are old DEC VT-52's and VT-100's. Of course, the early failures were weeded
out a decade ago. :-) 

I was just having a fascinating discussion with one of my manufacturers sales-
reps on the pricing and manufacturing quality of X servers. He pointed out
that to build a 80386 PC X server you have to spend something around $10,000;
yet X server "terminals" are selling around $2000. His feeling was that the
X server vendors were convinced that they had to compete with the mainstream
"dumb" terminal market, and had hence reduced costs to the point that quality
was hurt. But on the other hand, how much are you willing to spend per desk? 
Most companies I've ever seen go apoplectic at the suggestion of spending over
$2000 for a "terminal," regardless of how much productivity they might gain.

>When I called RTOC they wanted the serial number of my 98x before they would
>talk to me.

Of course. That's how they locate your database entry so they can report that
you had a problem. (The company really does keep track of those statistics.)
Also can verify that you bought the terminal from Pyramid.

>BTW the pyramid person who called knew nothing about the terminal.... [NCD]
>figured out I had a sick terminal and said contact Pyramid about sending it
>back and getting a new one. I did, it has been two weeks and no new terminal.

Did someone from RTOC contact you stating when you would get a replacement? If
not, then someone may well have dropped the ball, or maybe you are just diffi-
cult to reach by phone. Did you call and ask RTOC when it was going to be
shipped? It could be that Pyramid is having trouble getting the terminals from
NCD, although one would hope that priority would be given to existing custo-
mers with dead terminals, over new customers with no machines or terminals....

As I've said before, this is the sort of problem you should escalate within
RTOC. Posting to the net may relieve frustration, but it will do nothing to
fix your problem. (I'm in R&D, and just read the net for funsies. The company
disavows knowledge of anything I say here, although my VP will call me out on
the carpet if I say something controversial anyway. :-))

<csg>