Re: Best Terminal Software

[sknkwrks@mayall.cs.unlv.edu (Scott Alfter)]

In article <l542386@pro-newton.cts.com> danb@pro-newton.cts.com (Dan Brown) writes:
>In <CHHzvn.M0G@eskimo.com> lurch@eskimo.com (Erik Kloeppel) writes:
>>rheinze@lrc.edu writes:
>> 
>>>Which would be better for me   ProTerm or ANSITerm?
>
>>having used both/each..I say ANSIterm, hands down. Not only is
>>it color, it has a mondo huge editor, a FANTASTIC macro language 
>>(even better than ProTERM), file transfers are faster, AND, to
>>REALLY make it nice, it's less expensive ($69 as opposed to $90+)
>
> Big editor is very nice, the color is too (but I wish he'd just use a
>true grey, black, and white for VT100 instead of that dithered grey shit).  I
>can't comment on the macro language, except that if GEnie access is
>important, GEM and CoPilot work under ProTERM and not under ANSITerm (though
>that might change, for all I know).  PT sells for <$80 mail order.

There's also the consideration that ProTERM runs in text mode, so the
displays are FAST (even on unaccelerated hardware).  Also, as you
mentioned, ProTERM is one of the three comm packages supported by
GEnie Master (the other two are Talk Is Cheap and Point-to-Point).

File-transfer speed is limited more by the hardware (comm link) than
by the software, and two programs will often yield differing CPS rates
for the same transfer (when sending files between my GS and my clone,
DSZ usually returns a faster CPS value than ProTERM--even though the
transfer time was identical for both machines).  I doubt that the
file-transfer rates for ANSIterm and ProTERM, if different, are
different by a large-enough value to matter.

I couldn't care less about color...my GS drives an old Monitor II
green-screen.  (My clone isn't much better, BTW...it uses mono VGA.)

Editor size isn't particularly crucial...most of what I work with in
the ProTERM editor is small stuff.  If I need to work on bigger files,
I use AppleWorks or ShadowWrite.

As for the macro language...ProTERM's macro language isn't exactly
UltraMacros, but it will control almost any program function.  It's
comprehensive enough for my uses.

Finally, ProTERM will work under ProDOS 8, which is where I spend most
of my time.  Why wait a minute to boot into the Finder when ProDOS 8
and Davex take about 2-3 seconds to boot?  After that, ProTERM takes
another 5 seconds or so to load.  You spend less time waiting on the
computer and more time getting things done...and that's what computers
are supposed to be all about, right?

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