A review of the Sun386i
Jim Budler
jim at eda.com
Thu Dec 22 07:12:48 AEST 1988
kahuna!newton at elroy.jpl.nasa.gov (Mike Newton) writes:
> I've just finished brining up a Sun 386i system, and felt that others
> might be interested in a review. Overall, my opinion is: Dont buy one.
>
> Why? (NOT in order of severity!)
>
> 1. The keyboard and monitor and CPU are all hooked together w/
> a special cable (video and keyboard all in one)....
Special? The monitor portion is 3 bnc's, easily extendable. The keyboard
portion is DIN-8, as in Macintosh ADB.
> 2. The keyboard _SUCKS_. I've used/managed Sun2's, Sun3's and
> (briefly) Sun4's. None of them had such bad keyboards....
I disagree. And no mention of the fact that the cable from the keyboard to
the CPU, and the cable to the mouse are interchangeable:
CPU<------------------>KEYBOARD<-------->MOUSE
or
MOUSE<---------------->KEYBOARD<-------->MOUSE
so that they are on opposite ends of the keyboard, don't interfere with
each other, and you can arrange them for left or right handed people.
> 3. There is only 1 serial port as opposed to two on the older
> suns.
True, but minor. Add two $79 PC AT compatible serial ports if you wish,
giving you three serial ports. You also didn't mention that there was a PC
compatible parallel printer port standard.
> 4. The one serial port that exists is BUSTED. It cant handle
> 9600, let alone anything faster (say, a telebit).
Then how am I getting my full news feed through my attached Telebit
Trailblazer Plus? True it cannot handle 19.2Kbps, so I have to run it at
9600, but can't handle it?
> 5. For tip and similar work, you cant even run at 2400 baud!!!!!
> Having tip send 2400 baud from ttya to the console will cause the console
> to send ^g's to the ttya -- even for one short 70 character line.
> ("Fixed in 4.0.1").
I run tip and xcomm just fine through the Telebit. I also ran both, plus
uucp mail and news (not a full feed then) using a hayes compatible 2400
for two months before the telebit arrived.
> 7. Sun OS 4.0 is brain-dead....
Buggy, yes. But 4.0.1 is already out, so many of these may be fixed. I
haven't installed it yet, so I don't know at this point.
> ps: in all fairness, i should also point out that i have an _extreme_ bias
> against anything that has ...86 in the parts list.
It shows.--
Jim Budler address = uucp: ...!{decwrl,uunet}!eda!jim OR domain: jim at eda.com
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