Re: Green-screen versus browser

["James H H Lampert" <jamesl@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Reeve <rfritchman@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> "The problem with green-screen is that the programmer is 
> limited to a fixed font size, a limited color palette,
> essentially no support for graphics, only 132 columns
> (across), only 27 lines (down), and the requirement to use
> a non-standard, usually non-free terminal emulation
> program (Client Access, etc.), which means you can't 
> talk directly to many new communications devices like PDA's.

Have I ever mentioned how sick and tired I am of people 
(including those at IBM, maybe ESPECIALLY those at IBM) 
trashing the whole "terminal-host" paradigm? Or the phrase 
"green-screen" being used as pejorative and derisive 
nickname for it? (For pity's sake, fifteen years ago, 
cheap terminals had surplus B&W TV tubes, premium 
terminals had green screens, only top-of-the-line ones had 
amber ones, and color screens were reserved for high-end 
graphics workstations, and for the occasional situation 
where color-coding of displays was important.

A real terminal, especially one with an integral display 
screen, rather than one dependent on an external monitor, 
gives one excellent respons time, and better legibility 
(especially in 132-column mode) than anything else out 
there thet can even come close to it on price. Conversely, 
every version of Win-Doze ever released has been a 
bug-ridden kludge, riddled with security holes, and 
5250-emulation software for it is at best little more than 
a mediocre stand-in for the "authentic instrument": to put 
it bluntly, most 5250 emulation software is to a real 
3487-HC as Laurens Hammond's noisome little noisemaker is 
to a real organ.

Even though I wrote the terminal emulation software my 
company includes in our ThinView and Wintouch products, 
and designed it to be as aesthetically-pleasing and as 
hardware-independent as possible, I still keep a 3489 and 
a 3477-FA on my desk, and still have 4 strands of Twinax 
plumbed from the computer cage to my desk, because I know 
that the real thing is better than any emulation.

--
James H. H. Lampert
Terminal-jock, and proud of it.