Costs of terminals and economic factors of using them.

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Newsgroups: comp.unix.sco.misc, comp.terminals
Message-ID: <9lc3gd$g70$1@crcompany.com>
Organization: CRC
Date: 14 Aug 2001 20:59:57 GMT
From: Don Kuenz <NOSPAMcrcmail@home.com>
Subject: Using a PC in place of a terminal

Does anyone else find it absurd that a brand new (not rebuilt)
Wyse-325 terminal costs over $600.00 USD?

Am I shopping at the wrong place?

It seems to me that you could buy a PC for about the same price,
and use it instead. 

In fact, it seems that you could use a diskless PC that boots
from a NIC.

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Newsgroups: comp.unix.sco.misc, comp.terminals
X-NNTP-Posting-Host: 65.2.196.6
X-NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2001 14:58:41 PDT
References: <9lc3gd$g70$1@crcompany.com>
Message-ID: <3B799F48.A82AEBDC@attglobal.net>
Organization: Ben Rosenthal Consulting
Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2001 21:58:41 GMT
From: Ben Rosenthal <bcrosen@attglobal.net>
Subject: Re: Using a PC in place of a terminal

Don Kuenz wrote:

> Does anyone else find it absurd that a brand new (not rebuilt)
> Wyse-325 terminal costs over $600.00 USD?

Sure its absurd.  Very few people are installing terminals any more, so
the demand should be low and the resulting price should be much lower.
The problem seems to be that there are very few manufactures these days.

You can get used terminals from various places (ebay) where the price is
greatly reduced.  You do have to wait sometimes for them to become
available.

>
>
> Am I shopping at the wrong place?

Try ebay.  Some wyse dealers sell used equipment.  If you send me a
private email I will send you some dealer names.  I personally have
about 10 Wyse 150 and 160 terminals that are destined for the dump as I
can not find any interest.

>
>
> It seems to me that you could buy a PC for about the same price,
> and use it instead.

You certainly can.  With good terminal emulation software you can make
quite modest PCs into terminals.

Terminals are as reliable as any electronic device could be.  PCs carry
that nasty "cost of ownership" issue.


> In fact, it seems that you could use a diskless PC that boots
> from a NIC.

You could if the terminal emulation was stored on the host/server and
downloaded to the workstation.

It is also possible to boot off a Linux diskette.

Ben Rosenthal


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Newsgroups: comp.unix.sco.misc, comp.terminals
References: <9lc3gd$g70$1@crcompany.com> <3B79C537.FC462C75@idealgroup.com>
Message-ID: <GI43sK.CuC@news.boeing.com>
Organization: The Boeing Company
Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2001 13:50:44 GMT
From: Jeffrey L. Susanj <jeffrey.l.susanj@boeing.com>
Subject: Re: Using a PC in place of a terminal


"Darryl Krasman" <darryl@idealgroup.com> wrote in message
news:3B79C537.FC462C75@idealgroup.com...
>
> Don Kuenz wrote:
> >
> > Does anyone else find it absurd that a brand new (not rebuilt)
> > Wyse-325 terminal costs over $600.00 USD?
>
> Yep
>
> > It seems to me that you could buy a PC for about the same price,
> > and use it instead.
>
> Sure but then you have the M$ tax and the fun of having Windoze around.
>

I have an old IBM PS/2 running DR DOS 7.03 and Kermit.  There isn't any M$
here and no windows either.


> > In fact, it seems that you could use a diskless PC that boots
> > from a NIC.
>
> Indeed.   See   http://www.ltsp.org/
> --
> Darryl Krasman
> Ideal Computer Group Inc.



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Newsgroups: comp.terminals, comp.unix.misc, comp.unix.sco.misc, comp.periphs
References: <9lc3gd$g70$1@crcompany.com> <3B799F48.A82AEBDC@attglobal.net>
Message-ID: <20010815235050_rshu@stratagy.com>
Organization: Stratagy Users Group
Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2001 23:50:50 EDT
From: Richard S. Shuford <shuford(at)list.stratagy.com>
Subject: Re: Using a PC in place of a terminal

Ben Rosenthal <bcrosen(at)attglobal.net> and Don Kuenz <crcmail(at)home.com>
together lamented:
>
> Does anyone else find it absurd that a brand new (not rebuilt)
> Wyse-325 terminal costs over $600.00 USD? ...
> It seems to me that you could buy a PC for about the same price,
> and use it instead.

| Sure it's absurd.  Very few people are installing terminals any more,
|                    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
| so the demand should be low and the resulting price should be much lower.
|        ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^         ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
| The problem seems to be that there are very few manufacturers these days. 

 
The cost of a new character-cell terminal is "absurd" only if you
forget the economic factor called "economy of scale".

This same general idea comes up in "comp.terminals" from time to time,
as people ask, "Why not use current technology to make a new product
that is just a VT100-type terminal in a handheld form factor?"

An example may help.   Suppose I'm a manufacturer of computer-related
hardware, and I am choosing which of two products to make.

One proposal is a new, state-of-the art design for a character-cell
video terminal that fits in your hand. Let's call it the "TinyVT".

The other proposal is a general-purpose computing device; let's call
it the "CPUmarvel".

I have various costs in bringing any digital-electronic product to market:

    engineering design time
    prototyping
    testing
    debugging
    PCB etching   
    ASIC design/verification/wafer fab
    passive component selection/stocking/inventory
    outer-case injection molding, including tooling and setup
    final assembly
    inspection/QA
    warehousing
    shipping
    advertising
    recruiting dealers and sales channels
    training support staff
    training sales staff
    (other costs that I can't think of right now)
 
Let us further (unrealistically) suppose that all these costs come out
to exactly $1,000,000 for both proposed products.  The company owner
tells me that he wants to recover the costs in 2 years.

The product must be priced to give the dealers some profit, otherwise
they won't bother to carry it.  Also, the warehousing/shipping/
distributor types must have their share.  Let us keep this really
simple, by saying that the retail price is 3 times our cost-per-unit.

Now.  My projected sales, during the next 2 years, are this:

   TinyVT:       1,000 units first year
                 1,000 units second year

   CPUmarvel:   12,000 units per year
                 8,000 units second year

Do the math.
    
The cost to bring the widely used CPUmarvel to market is

    $1,000,000 / 20,000 =  $50 per unit
    
So the retail price of a new CPUmarvel can be $150.
    
Whereas, the cost to bring the less-popular TinyVT to market is
    
    $1,000,000 / 2000 = $500 per unit

So the retail price of a new TinyVT must be $1500.
    
In the real world, the details differ, and the CPUmarvel would
incur some increased costs for handling more stockkeeping units,
but the general principle is still the same.

Since I'm a participant in a (mostly) free-market economy, I'm likely
to decide that it looks easier to succeed in business by making and   
selling the CPUmarvel.  But, if I decide to make the TinyVT, the only
way I can stay in business is by pricing it higher than the CPUmarvel.


      [Epexegesis:  Of course, the CPUmarvel is perfectly
       capable of running terminal-emulation software, and
       therefore it can do all the jobs that the TinyVT
       could do...]


Now, if our factory is still churning out new specimens of a
video-terminal product whose design dates from several years ago, some
of our original costs have already been recovered by previous years'
sales.  But not all costs disappear:  there are still some continuing
expenses for keeping the product in the catalog:  stocking parts,
finding new sources for obsolescent components, inspecting units,
training new support staff, heating the warehouse, motivating the
salesmen, etc.  The difference between low and high product volume
still shows up.

(Note that politicians often "forget" such economic factors, and
subsequently promote government regulations that demand economically
infeasible market transactions.  Such attempts to enforce artificial
valuations on goods and services generally have bad effects.  Note
the situation with electricity in California!)

 ...Richard S. Shuford
    shuford(at)list.stratagy.com


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Newsgroups: comp.unix.sco.misc, comp.terminals
References: <9lc3gd$g70$1@crcompany.com>
Message-ID: <GI5FF1.BuG@wjv.com>
Organization: W.J.Vermillion - Orlando / Winter Park
Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 06:59:25 GMT
From: Bill Vermillion <bill@wjv.com>
Subject: Re: Using a PC in place of a terminal

In article <9lc3gd$g70$1@crcompany.com>,
Don Kuenz  <NOSPAMcrcmail@home.com> wrote:

>Does anyone else find it absurd that a brand new (not rebuilt)
>Wyse-325 terminal costs over $600.00 USD?

>Am I shopping at the wrong place?

>It seems to me that you could buy a PC for about the same price,
>and use it instead. 

The nice thing about terminals is that it's a HW solution with no
moving parts [except the keyboard] and if it hiccups a power-off 
power-on will get it up quickly.  Far sooner than most PCs.
Usually they are far more compact that an PC too.

>In fact, it seems that you could use a diskless PC that boots
>from a NIC.

Which then means reconfiguring to get rid of serial and installing
network devices.  

There are certain places where terminals are preferred.

An interesting side note when looking at terminals in a
manufacturing area for an old customers is that many industrial
terminals for manufacturing do not have a standard keyboard
but use an alphabetically laid out keyboard, e.g., keys go 
from left to right  A B C D E F ... etc.

The reason is that in some major installations there are union
requirements and that if keyboard were standard those using them
would have to be classified/paid at data rates and not what they
got paid for whatever their job was on the shop floor.
-- 
Bill Vermillion -   bv @ wjv . com

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Newsgroups: comp.unix.sco.misc, comp.terminals
References: <9lc3gd$g70$1@crcompany.com> <GI5FF1.BuG@wjv.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.A41.4.05.10108161046120.36912-100000@srv1.calcna.ab.ca>
Organization: Calgary Community Network Assoc.
Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 10:51:51 -0600
From: Hubert Mak <hmak@calcna.ab.ca>
Subject: Re: Using a PC in place of a terminal


Very interesting discussion. Thanks everyone for the informations.


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[With years of hindsight, how does the following 5-year projection still look?]


Newsgroups: comp.terminals
Path: cs.utk.edu!gatech!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!crl.dec.com!crl.dec.com
      !nntpd.lkg.dec.com!dial20_port2.mro.dec.com!user
From: sichel@hannah.enet.dec.com (Peter Sichel)
Subject: Re: Future of Terminals
Date: Tue, 15 Aug 1995 17:51:36 -0400
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Message-ID: <sichel-1508951751360001@dial20_port2.mro.dec.com>
References: <40otrh$57m@cronkite.ocis.temple.edu>

In article <40otrh$57m@cronkite.ocis.temple.edu>, rt@astro.ocis.temple.edu
(Voyager) wrote:

> I would like to get a scope of where terminals will be in 5 years. I
> mean, it seems as though many people are using PCs as clients. I find
> that terminals are a cheaper and more efficient way.

Though the market for terminals is clearly changing, they are not
going away for exactly the reasons you like them.  They are a low-
cost, efficient solution for a range of applications ("transaction
processing", most "knowledge workers" have moved to other platforms).

As for what's happening in the market and what to expect:

- The market for serial asynchronous text terminals is declining
  at around 10% per year.  Somewhat faster in the U.S., but slower
  in Europe.  Depending on whose forecast you favor, the rate of
  decline could increase (faster migration to PCs) or decrease
  (most appropriate apps have already migrated leaving a mature
   installed base).

- Market is 2-3 million units this year.

- Digital eliminated the price umbrella for ANSI terminals when it
  announced the VT510/Dorio10 in September of 1993 with a *list*
  price starting under $400.

Lower prices, lower margins, and lower volume are driving industry
consolidation.  There is only room for a small number of large
profitable vendors and some smaller niche vendors.  Expect most others
to get out of the business.

Expect engineering investment/development for basic text terminals
to slow since the products are already mature and feature rich.
The business is still profitable and important to the remaining
large vendors which will ensure good prices and availability
for several years to come.

I don't see PCs quickly replacing text terminals at the low end
for these reasons:

(1) basic economics - terminals are a lot less expensive for
    comparable displays;
(2) Simpler and more durable; average service life is 6 years for VTs
    versus 3 years for PCs (before being upgraded or replaced);
(3) Even though PC prices are falling, PC software is driving hardware
    requirements up (mainstream DOS and Windows apps are requiring more
    and more RAM).

On the other hand, PCs benefit from low software cost, strong mind share
and availability, and low entry cost for smaller systems.

-- 
- Peter Sichel
  C&P Video Terminals Architecture
  Digital Equipment Corporation


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Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2001 07:52:08 -0400
Organization: Trailing Edge Technology
Newsgroups: comp.unix.sco.misc, comp.terminals
Message-ID: <3B875928.16F1B5F6@trailing-edge.com>
References: <9lc3gd$g70$1@crcompany.com>
From: Tim Shoppa <shoppa@trailing-edge.com>
Subject: Re: Using a PC in place of a terminal

Don Kuenz wrote:
> 
> Does anyone else find it absurd that a brand new (not rebuilt)
> Wyse-325 terminal costs over $600.00 USD?
> 
> Am I shopping at the wrong place?
> 
> It seems to me that you could buy a PC for about the same price,
> and use it instead.

With a much higher cost of ownership.  There's no software to upgrade
for a terminal, no virii to scan for, etc.

Of course, if your IT department's main goal is to increase
headcount, replacing hundreds of terminals with PC's is the perfect
way to do it.  You'll have to hire dozens of new techs!

Tim.

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Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2001 14:11:56 GMT
Organization: A.P. Lawrence
Newsgroups: comp.unix.sco.misc, comp.terminals
Message-ID: <3B87B235.3CABBF38@pcunix.com>
References: <9lc3gd$g70$1@crcompany.com> <3B875928.16F1B5F6@trailing-edge.com>
    <3B87AC77.4463@post5.tele.dk>
From: Tony Lawrence <tony@pcunix.com>
Subject: Re: Using a PC in place of a terminal

"Mikkel C. Simonsen" wrote:
> 
> Tim Shoppa wrote:
> >
> > > It seems to me that you could buy a PC for about the same price,
> > > and use it instead.
> >
> > With a much higher cost of ownership.  There's no software to upgrade
> > for a terminal, no virii to scan for, etc.
> >
> > Of course, if your IT department's main goal is to increase
> > headcount, replacing hundreds of terminals with PC's is the perfect
> > way to do it.  You'll have to hire dozens of new techs!
> 
> Is you install a small Linux or BSD system on a floppy or a small flash
> disk, why would the TCO be higher compared to terminals?


Because there's more to go wrong--disk drive, controller.  Terminals are also
tougher--knock a running terminal off a desk and if the picture tube
survives, it's very unlikely to have anything wrong with it--not so with a
PC.

Support is easier, and therefor less expensive--a terminal generally works or
it doesn't--you usually don't have the kind of flaky "sorta works" you get
with PC's.

Also, the reason companies get forced into PC's is usually because they need
Windows software.  That means Windows ( or at least an emulator like Win4lin:
http://pcunix.com/Reviews/win4lin.html ).  And that, of course, opens up the
virus problem that Linux or BSD would avoid.

It's really a shame.  I've had people have to do this because of Mas90
switching to a Windows GUI client--first they had the expensive of buying all
PC's and networking, then the expense of re-training, and now every other
month or so some new virus sneaks through and causes a days worth of
disruption and cleanup work.

And now Mas90 is dropping the Unix server product.  Idiots.  The customer
referred to above plans NOT to switch--as he says, the only reason he went to
the GUI version was because he needed the E-Business module that it includes--
otherwise he would still be running terminals on the old version..

    http://www.mas90.com/

-- 
Tony Lawrence (tony@aplawrence.com)
SCO/Linux articles, help, book reviews, tests, 
job listings and more : http://www.pcunix.com/


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Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2001 14:29:20 GMT
Organization: W.J.Vermillion - Orlando / Winter Park
Newsgroups: comp.unix.sco.misc, comp.terminals
Message-ID: <GIMo8w.5rq@wjv.com>
References: <9lc3gd$g70$1@crcompany.com> <3B875928.16F1B5F6@trailing-edge.com>
    <3B87AC77.4463@post5.tele.dk>
From: Bill Vermillion <bill@wjv.com>
Subject: Re: Using a PC in place of a terminal

In article <3B87AC77.4463@post5.tele.dk>,
Mikkel C. Simonsen <mcs@post5.tele.dk> wrote:

>If you install a small Linux or BSD system on a floppy or a small flash
>disk, why would the TCO be higher compared to terminals?

Terminals being hardware just run and run and run.  No install
time except to put in place.   

At one place years ago, when people would get stuck in a program,
I had set every terminal up on the modem control ports, and on the
terminal I moved the DTR to CD, so that if a user got locked up in
their program, a quick power-off and power-on automatically killed
their logins and they got a new login prompt.  This cut down
support calls from users by over 90%.  From that time on there were
no more "I xxxxxx and now I can't get back to my program" or "the
power flickered and I can't log back in".   

A flash booting system might be a reasonable alternative for speed
on bootup, but taking the time for a Linux/BSD system to boot up,
then login into that system, and then estable a login to the far
system would take far longer.

The three cord solution, 1 AC, one serial, and one keyboard is also
less of a clutter than a PC based solution.  Often trying to save a
few dollars in one place will cause more money to be spent
elsewhere.  The poster to whom you are replying talked about the
site needing more techs to support them.

One advantage of terminals is there is almost nothing a user can
screw up - particulary if you can run at default terminal settings,
where holding down one key at a repower takes you back to ground
zero.  I surely wish I could have done that on some computers users
had managed to dink with.


-- 
Bill Vermillion -   bv @ wjv . com

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