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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.

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