new Sun type-4 keyboards

[Matt Landau]

In comp.sys.sun (<40172 at bbn.COM>), wbe at bbn.com (Winston Edmond) writes:
>Let me make it even clearer, in case Sun is willing to listen.  

Well, as long as we're entertaining the possiblity that someone from Sun's
product design group is ever going to see these opinions, I suppose the
more voices, the better :-)

>been happy with the older keyboard layout (e.g., the one on my Sun 3/50).
>However, I, too, do not like the keyboard on the Sun 386i or the
>DECstation 3100, and this dislike was sufficient to cause me to cease
>considering purchase of these machines 

Let me make a somewhat stronger statement.  The Type-4 keyboard used on
the Sun-386i and the SparcStation (and apparantly on new Sun-3's!) is a
wretched abomination.  

Sun took something that worked very well in the Sun 3 keyboard, and broke
it horribly.  The Type-4's Return, Delete, and Backspace keys are poorly
sized and placed, the keyboard feels "mushy", and it's virtually
impossible to type on it without making tremendous numbers of typing
errors if you're used to the old Sun-3 keyboard (which has, by the way,
the best layout and feel of any keyboard I've ever used).

>The only exception so far is that I find the SPARCstation 1 interesting
>enough that I'm considering it despite the report that it has this
>irritating keyboard (I haven't actually seen a SPARCstation 1 yet, but I'm
>assuming it has the same keyboard as the 386i).

I would also strongly resist buying any machine with a Type-4 keyboard,
even a SparcStation, but the only price/performance competition at this
point is from the DECStation-3100, and DEC VT-220 style keyboards are even
WORSE than Sun's Type-4!

>Why is a company that claims it's interested in selling *engineering*
>workstations switching from a keyboard that engineers like to one that
>more often than not isn't liked, without even offering the option of
>having the old layout?  

I was told that the new keyboard was necessary for internationalization of
the keyboard, and to make the DOS emulation work on the 386i, and
subsequently on other Suns (via the DOS software emulation package that
was announced last month).  

That's all well and good if you care about those things.  I don't.  I want
a keyboard I can type confortably on, using SunOS, in English.  Sun used
to have such a keyboard.  Not offering that keyboard on new machines is a
serious mistake, and one that could cost Sun.  (If Solbourne, for example,
were to build a competitively priced SparcStation clone with a decent
keyboard I'd choose it in a minute over the Sun.)

Wake up and smell the coffee, Sun folk.  You're alienating your existing
customer base.  That's not a good idea. . .

>(Opinions expressed are my own, and not officially endorsed by BBN.)

Yeah, what he said :-)
--
 Matt Landau		           Life is uncertain -- eat dessert first.
 mlandau at bbn.com