On 2017-07-20 20:06, Timothe Litt wrote:
On 20-Jul-17 13:47, Hunter Goatley wrote:
On 7/20/2017 12:31 PM, Timothe Litt wrote:
Gigi was sold - and used - primarily as a graphics terminal, though
it does have a BASIC interpreter. It was used on the DECSYSTEM-20
and VAX. There was some software support; Scribe had a driver for it.
My graphics class in college used Gigi terminals connected to a PDP
11/44. We were all amazed at what you could do with it. Which was a
lot, compared to the VT100s we had. That was in 1984 or 1985.
I didn't mean used EXCLUSIVELY with the the -20 & VAX. They were sold
there because of their price point, but would happily talk on any ASCII
RS232 line. Perhaps your college got a good deal - or a donation.
By 84/85 there were a lot better options for graphics; the VT240(241),
VT340, VAXstation I/II were available, and PCs and Macs all had better
graphics. The DEC items all spoke ReGis, so you could move your
software painlessly.
Uh, the VT300 series were still a few years out in 1985.
And the VT240 was very slow. I never saw or used a VT125, so I don't
know how it compared, but it didn't have color, right?
VAXstation was definitely cool, but the price tag compared to a GIGI
would have been ridiculous, I suspect.
GiGi's only unique feature was its BASIC interpreter, which was crippled
by its lack of mass storage and limited (even for its time) memory.
Given that, a VT125 was a better deal (and IIRC, the graphics was faster).
Still, GiGi was a neat toy, and would have seemed impressive against a
backdrop of VT100s...
Definitely a neat toy, which could be useful in some situations.
But I don't know if the GIGI was even being sold anymore by 1985.
Johnny
--
Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus
|| on a psychedelic trip
email: [email protected] || Reading murder books
pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol
_______________________________________________
Simh mailing list
[email protected]
http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/mailman/listinfo/simh
