A review of the Sun386i

[Jim Budler]

kahuna!newton at elroy.jpl.nasa.gov (Mike Newton) writes:
> I've just finished brining up a Sun 386i system, and felt that others
> might be interested in a review.  Overall, my opinion is: Dont buy one.
> 
> Why?	(NOT in order of severity!)
> 
> 	1.  The keyboard and monitor and CPU are all hooked together w/
> a special cable (video and keyboard all in one)....

Special?  The monitor portion is 3 bnc's, easily extendable.  The keyboard
portion is DIN-8, as in Macintosh ADB.

> 	2. The keyboard  _SUCKS_.  I've used/managed Sun2's, Sun3's and
> (briefly) Sun4's.  None of them had such bad keyboards....

I disagree. And no mention of the fact that the cable from the keyboard to
the CPU, and the cable to the mouse are interchangeable:

	CPU<------------------>KEYBOARD<-------->MOUSE
or
	MOUSE<---------------->KEYBOARD<-------->MOUSE

so that they are on opposite ends of the keyboard, don't interfere with
each other, and you can arrange them for left or right handed people.

> 	3. There is only 1 serial port as opposed to two on the older
> suns.

True, but minor. Add two $79 PC AT compatible serial ports if you wish,
giving you three serial ports. You also didn't mention that there was a PC
compatible parallel printer port standard.

> 	4. The one serial port that exists is BUSTED.   It cant handle
> 9600, let alone anything faster (say, a telebit).

Then how am I getting my full news feed through my attached Telebit
Trailblazer Plus? True it cannot handle 19.2Kbps, so I have to run it at
9600, but can't handle it?

> 	5. For tip and similar work, you cant even run at 2400 baud!!!!!
> Having tip send 2400 baud from ttya to the console will cause the console
> to send ^g's   to the  ttya -- even for one short 70 character line.
> ("Fixed in 4.0.1").

I run tip and xcomm just fine through the Telebit. I also ran both, plus
uucp mail and news (not a full feed then) using a hayes compatible 2400
for two months before the telebit arrived.

> 	7. Sun OS 4.0 is brain-dead....

Buggy, yes. But 4.0.1 is already out, so many of these may be fixed. I
haven't installed it yet, so I don't know at this point.

> ps: in all fairness, i should also point out that i have an _extreme_ bias
> against anything that has ...86 in the parts list.

It shows.-- 

Jim Budler   address = uucp: ...!{decwrl,uunet}!eda!jim OR domain: jim at eda.com