Return-Path: Received: from MIXO.SOAR.CS.CMU.EDU by K.GP.CS.CMU.EDU id aa08483; 14 May 93 15:48:48 EDT Date: Fri, 14 May 1993 15:46-EDT From: Richard.Lewis@MIXO.SOAR.CS.CMU.EDU Reply-To: Richard.Lewis@cs.cmu.edu To: bovik@cs.cmu.edu Subject: Comments on Powerbooks and Duos and some PC laptops Message-Id: <737408765/rick@MIXO.SOAR.CS.CMU.EDU> Dr. Bovik: Here is the result of my post about standard Powerbooks vs. the new Duos. I ended up buying a Duo 210, primarily for the great price, Macintosh compatibility, and compact size. -Rick ------------------------------------ In addition to these responses, I also talked to Peter Lee, who has used both the Powerbook 170 and Duo 230. He shifted to the Duo mainly because it has higher memory capacity (maxes out at 24 meg). He likes the Duo's overall size (thought that the slimness was even a bigger win than the reduced weight), but not as thrilled with the screen and keyboard, which are both somewhat smaller than the Powerbook. Also, the active-matrix display, which is a big improvement, is not yet available on the Duo, but is available on the Powerbook 180 (replacement for 170) --but for alot of money. >Date: Fri, 16 Apr 1993 13:57-EDT From: Roni.Rosenfeld@HEE.SPEECH.CS.CMU.EDU To: Richard Lewis Subject: Re: Duo vs. Powerbook? Rick, I just bought a Duo after intensive market research and comparison. I had the same pros & cons as you mentioned, but the light weight (btw it's 4.2, not 4.7 Lbs) dominated. I have 3 pages worth of listings of PC laptops that you can look at. The only ones that were as lightweight were quite esoteric and I did not feel comfortable trusting them. Alternatively, the true-blue IBM thinkpad was quite recommended, but is not as light. Ralf Brown, who is apparently a PC guru and enthusiast, told me that several PCs now exist in this weight range. Specifically he mentioned Zeos (sp?). Btw, Apple reduced the Duo price by 18% this week. It now sells at the comp store for $1485 - quite cheap, I think. Docking: you are probably aware of the 3 apple-made docking options: Dock, mini-dock, floppy adapter. In addition, E-machines makes several types of docs, which differ somewhat in their capabilities. They have a model with NTSC output, but w/out SCSI, and another one with nuilt-in ethernet card. Dock prices are going to come down soon, and new docks (by apple or by 3rd parties are very likely to show up very soon, so I wouldn't buy any dock now if it is not necessary. You can get alone with 2 Phone-net connectors (~$8 each), which will connect you to the mac of your choice. If you want to play with my Duo, stop by my office. -Roni To: Richard.Lewis@cs.cmu.edu Subject: Duo's >Date: Fri, 16 Apr 93 14:22:53 -0400 From: Hank Mashburn Rick, The latest issue of MacWEEK has an article on the Duo's: apparently they aren't selling well & Apple is dropping the price. Reasons cited are the limited selection of docking options and lack of active matrix screen. Anyway, if you decide to go Duo, it might pay to wait a while. -Hank >Date: Fri, 16 Apr 1993 14:29:31 -0400 (EDT) From: Jenny Ladd To: Richard Lewis Subject: Re: Duo vs. Powerbook? Having been given a powerbook by my department, I'm an "uninterested" user per se, but have become *quite* attached to my powerbook. Last night I spent some time watching someone try to use a duo, and I'd favor the powerbook for a couple of reasons: 1) floppydrive & scsi interface. 2) the weight seems to make it a little easier to use as a 'laptop" as you have something a little more solid to rest your hands on when using it in your lap (as I've grown fond of doing....). I'd suggest trying the "lap-top" test yourself with both, as the duo appears a little too little (small and light) to be comfortable, while I *really* like the keyboard on the powerbook and the lap-top-ableness of it. on the table/desk - it's doesn't really seem to be noticible. my $00.02, -jny To: Richard Lewis Subject: Re: Duo vs. Powerbook? >Date: Fri, 16 Apr 93 14:44:23 EDT From: gap@TRICERATOPS.SOAR.CS.CMU.EDU Sender: gap@TRICERATOPS.SOAR.CS.CMU.EDU Just in case you didn't know it, OzTex is a Tex/Latex system that runs on the Mac. I haven't used it so I can't give you any more info. I believe though that it is free from one of the various MAC archives. Gary To: rick+@MIXO.SOAR.CS.CMU.EDU Subject: Re: Duo vs. Powerbook? Cc: Bcc: >Date: Fri, 16 Apr 93 14:52:28 EDT From: jblythe@GS26.SP.CS.CMU.EDU Sender: jblythe@GS26.SP.CS.CMU.EDU Hi Rick, I have a powerbook, but I got it before the Duo's came out, so I can't offer any wisdom on that score. However, I use gnu-emacs on CS machines and transfer files a lot, so I can give you a recommendation there: I user a mac emacs-lookalike called Alpha. It's shareware, ftpable from the main mac archive sites. It's customisable, although the syntax is TCL, worse even than emacs lisp. It comes with a reasonable latex mode that loads automatically with .tex files, and in general has the same keystrokes as gnu-emacs. When you save files, it can save in Mac, Unix or MSDOS format, and if the file is in Unix format it keeps it that way. This means you don't have to worry at all about file format when you transfer. At school I hook the pbook up to appletalk and transfer with a Mac ftp program. At home I use the rz set of commands over my modem, just because it's faster than ftp over slip. so there you go, Jim >Date: Fri, 16 Apr 1993 15:16:41 -0400 (EDT) From: "Stephen M. Lacy" To: Richard Lewis Subject: Re: Duo vs. Powerbook? Cc: Excerpts from cmu.cs.general: 16-Apr-93 Duo vs. Powerbook? by Richard Lewis@MIXO.SOAR. > 2) If anybody knows of a PC platform laptop that is just so incredible > compared to the Duo's that I should give up Macintosh compatibility, I'd like > to hear about that as well. (perhaps there are active-matrix displays much > cheaper than the Powerbook model, which I can't afford). > > 3) I don't really intend to switch to a Mac-based word-processor; I'd prefer > to remain with gnu-emacs. So one thing I will be doing alot of is > transferring working text files back and forth between the network and the > laptop. Any thoughts on how to best manage this process would also be > welcome. Rick, Now, I don't want to come out sounding like an OS/2 bigot, but here's my proposed solution, and I'm not sure how much $$$ would be involeved. You can get an IBM ThinkPad 700c, I believe thats the model number, its got an active matrix color display that (I think) runs in XGA-2 resolutions, which are 1024x768x256 and 640x480x65k. I'm sure its a 80486, but I'm not sure on the megahertz, most likely its 33. Now, you would obvisouly get a large hard drive for you thesis work, somewhere >=120 megs and ample RAM, at least 8 megs. Now, you get OS/2 2.0 and/or OS/2 2.1 when it comes out. Depending on what you want to do, it will take 15-30 megs of your harddrive. But, here are the bonuses that it offers you: Runs all/most DOS applications Runs all/most Windows 3.x applications Many gnu utilities have been compiled for it (gcc, and gnu-emacs to name the two most popular) TCP/IP for OS/2 from IBM The last entry is the one that I really want to stress. Its a wonderful product, gives you full network access and makes your PC look more like a workstation on the net instead of this disgusting kludge. Along with the standard TCP/IP functions, it features things like an internet demon so you can FTP and TELNET into your computer! It also comes with a sendmail demon so that you can have e-mail delivered right to your PC. Also, you can get an X11 server for it that runs X applications seamlessly with your OS/2 applications (i.e. on the same screen -- if you wanted to -- you could have MS Word for Windows, DOS games running in a window, Gnu-emacs for OS/2, and an xterm which is a telnet to a CS machine. Mind you, thats on the same screen, at the same time. Oh, the TCP/IP from IBM also supports SLIP, so if all you have is a fast modem, then you'll be just fine. First off, I would warn you that the computer store here knows nothing about PC's and OS/2, so do your own research and don't rely on what they tell you. Make sure you know what you want before you go down there to order. For prices, I'm not really sure. Assume something in the range of $75 for every meg more memory from the base that the machine comes with, $150 for OS/2, $150 for base TCP/IP and $100 for the X11 extension (NFS and Kerberos are also available for another $100) All the gnu utilities are free, of course, and I'll tell you where you can FTP them from. Steve "I may be mad, I may be blind, I may be viciously unkind, but I can still read what you're thinking." -Annie Lennox To: rick+@MIXO.SOAR.CS.CMU.EDU Subject: Re: Duo vs. Powerbook? Cc: Bcc: >Date: Fri, 16 Apr 93 15:49:45 EDT From: cmaeda@KONA.MACH.CS.CMU.EDU Sender: cmaeda@KONA.MACH.CS.CMU.EDU If you are a die hard gnu-emacs person, get a 486 clone laptop. I got a 25mhz 486SX, 8mb ram, 200mb disk for about $2k. I also got an ethernet adaptor that plugs into the parallel port for $300. No messing around with serial cables or floppies. I hook it up to the net, configure TCP/IP, and use ftp. On the downside, the box I got is a bit on the heavy side and burns batteries pretty fast. I got it to get work done on long trips; I don't use it on planes and leave the battery at home. Also, TCP/IP can sometimes be a hassle to configure if you don't know what you're doing. 386 laptops are usually cheaper and the low power models don't burn batteries as fast. You can run Berkeley Unix or dos. There is a gnu-emacs clone that runs under dos and I think there is a version of gnu-emacs that runs in 32bit mode under dos. It's also much easier to get drivers for the ethernet widgets if you run dos. From: Michael Gleicher >Date: Fri, 16 Apr 93 17:24:04 EDT To: Richard Lewis Subject: Duo vs. Powerbook? Rick, I was an avid Mac user, but I bought a PC notebook a ways back (I couldn't wait the 3 month delivery time for a Powerbook). Macs are certainly more pleasant to use, but you can make the PC look much more like a unix environment. On my little screen, I don't want to waste any space on windows, for example. On PCs there's this thing called EPSILON which is a great emacs clone. You program it in a C like language, rather than LISP, but I haven't done much of that. I have the bindings set up to look exactly like gnu on my workstation. The other cool thing is I can switch fonts on the fly and get 50 lines of text on the screen at once. It's pretty small on the 9" display, but its readable (just wouldn't want to do it for a long period of time). A disadvantage to WYSYWIG things on the Mac is its harder to change fonts. There's this Mac thing called ALPHA which is sortof emacs like. Lots of people around like it. The advantage to PCs is that the hardware is generally more bang for the buck. One I think is interesting is the Dell 320???, which only weighs 3 poinds. I saw it at Price Club in New Jersey for $1200. If you only want a machine to run emacs, you don't need much computes (I think the 320 has a 386SL though). I personally find the Powerbooks (170s & 140s) way too big and heavy. Size is really important to me. The 180 screen is really nice though. (I find the Duo screen underwhelming). Good luck. Mike To: rick+@MIXO.SOAR.CS.CMU.EDU Subject: Re: Duo vs. Powerbook? Cc: Bcc: >Date: Sat, 17 Apr 93 19:23:19 EDT From: landay@WYSIWYG.GARNET.CS.CMU.EDU Sender: landay@WYSIWYG.GARNET.CS.CMU.EDU In article you write: > >I'm considering getting a laptop, and I have a few questions: > >1) The big question is: Duo or standard Powerbook? I favor the Duo, since it >seems to excel at being a portable laptop: it's only 4.7 lbs. vs. 6.8 for the >Powerbook. I really intend to use it as a laptop (should make the transition >from intense thesis-writing to napping and back again nearly effortless). >Drawbacks, as I see them, are no internal floppy, and the Duo configuration >is somewhat more expensive. I have a PB 140. I think that the Duo is the way to go. Unless you need printing and floppy from remote locations (where you won't be carrying a dock.) I think I would drag mine around more often if it was that size (almost half as thick -- this is actually more important to me than the weight.) >3) I don't really intend to switch to a Mac-based word-processor; I'd prefer >to remain with gnu-emacs. So one thing I will be doing alot of is >transferring working text files back and forth between the network and the >laptop. Any thoughts on how to best manage this process would also be >welcome. I do this all the time. I use the Alpha text editor on the Mac, that is pseudo-emacs like (not really, but has tcl!). I use either the modem (when transferring at home) or a program called "Fetch" when plugged into the network... no probs!