Re: AS/400 vs. NT -- MIDRANGE-L

One of the biggest drawbacks in windows programs is a lot of them require
you to use the mouse.  When I have to take my hands away from the keyboard
and reach over for the mouse to do something, I'm wasting time.  Then I have
to move my hands back and find the home row again.

A quality windows product, however, will have key emulations for just about
all mouse events.  I can either click the Print Icon or I can hold down <Alt> 
and

then press F, release both and then press P.

Anyone who does data entry knows that they are productive when they are typing,
not when they're waving a mouse around.  There was one product we were
evaluating and the data entry screens for one order required dozens of mouse
events, and dozens of fields to type in.  So it would be type, type, move to
mouse,
click, move back to key board, type, move to mouse, type, etc...

Needless to say, this product didn't fly.  And this was a Windows GUI for an
AS/400 package.

Regards,

Jim Langston

"Draper, Dale" wrote:

>         Snip1>  and the AS/400 itself is way to complicated for most shops
> today.
>
>         Snip2(dean)The difference between the AS/400 and any LAN/WAN is that
> any idiot can run an AS/400.  With an idiot running it, the AS/400 might not
> be as fast as it could be, but it will still run without going down unless
> there is a hardware problem.  With an idiot running NT, Novell, Banyan,
> etc., uptime is a question mark.
>
> I'm proof of that! Had a consultant set up the system, and had experts
> available for the occasional call, and ran the 400 for 9 months without a
> hitch. I am also nominally in charge of 2 NT servers as we own them but
> outsource the administration. Having watched what it takes to administer an
> NT server, and all the holes available in it's set up, etc. etc.. I would
> take the 400 any day.
>
>         Snip3(Dean)Talk to your users, and ask them what they want.  The
> _REAL_ users, not the
>         one that's in charge of them and never touches a terminal.  I've
> seen
>         "visual" work well when the application was developed in concert
> with the
>         users (using touch screens), but I've more often seen it fail
> because it
>         implemented what "management" wanted to see.  GUI is good, but GUI
> for GUI's
>         sake is destined for failure...
>
> Hear! Hear! Have seen 3 client server implementations, all three groups came
> from 5250 interfaces. All three were chosen by top executives without "real"
> user input. The end users for all three hated their new interface. And the
> executives that chose them never use it of course.
> One one these groups had to move from their new system, when asked what they
> wanted in a new software system, they asked for green screen. Executives
> were not directly involved in the decision, they got a green screen product.
>
> Why can't we get a GUI interface that has green screen like input? While
> keeping the reporting and inquiry strengths of the GUI interface?
>
> Dale Draper
> Sega Enterprises, Inc. (USA)
> Dale.Draper@seu.sega.com
>
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