Talk:IBM 3270 PC

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Incorrect photo?[edit]

I think the photo used on this page is incorrect.

I worked with a 3270-PC back then. One of the features used in selling it to our company was that it used the 3270 keyboard, which was already familiar to our staff. But the photo used on this page seems to show a standard PC, not a 3270-PC. Note the lack of the 24 PF keys.

Also, the photo doesn't show much detail -- nothing to indicate how this differs from a standard PC. So what does it contribute to the page at all? T-bonham (talk) 03:02, 8 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, indeed the keyboard isn't a 3270 keyboard. It is, however, a 3270 PC. You can notice that if you zoom in at the emblem. But you're right, maybe it's better to place a close-up picture of the emblem showing the model name. I'll see what I can do. - Rderijcke (talk) 21:45, 9 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I also worked on the IBM 3270 PC (at IBM Kingston, NY) and the box in the picture is NOT a 3270PC. It may have been in the past but it certainly isn't now. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.212.29.94 (talk) 10:26, 14 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Given that the cases were similar and the writing actually illegible on the photo disputed here, I've removed it It would be informative to have a photo with the 3270 keyboard, but this one is pretty pointless. Someone not using his real name (talk) 02:16, 6 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I should add that the (monochrome) display in that photo was also not the 14" color one that came with 3270 PC. Someone not using his real name (talk) 04:44, 6 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I've added a picture which does exhibit the 3270-specific hardware. HungryHorace (talk) 20:02, 21 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Just so we're certain about this...[edit]

The greater amount of this article text has been shamelessly ripped, more or less verbatim apart from some strange alterations, from the referenced 1985 edition of PC Magazine (which I believe is still copyright Ziff-Davis group?), by someone who doesn't seem to have the hugest amount of understanding of the subject matter, read-around it at all, or applied much thought ... right?

Because that's sure what it looks like. With the reference to 14-color monitors and the "3270" PC's inability to *fully* emulate a high-end 3279 high-rez graphics terminal (which probably cost almost as much as the PC did itself at the time) apparently being a big black mark against it, even though it did regular 80 x 24 display just fine.

PC Mag was probably being a bit nitpicky there, by the way, seeing as a lot of that kind of emulation of the era (and even through to the early 90s) generally required you to scroll a physical window on your low-rez user device around a higher-rez virtual display on the emulated one, amongst other visual and usability downgrades (mainly it was considered a Very Good Thing that you could do it at all, and a slightly imperfect version was better than nothing). Sometimes there was a crunched-down, smoothed-off full-screen option, but they didn't really come until later, and if the thing you were downsampling had fine (especially horizontal) lines, e.g. the crossbars of text characters or the axis of a graph/an aliased part of a shallow trendline, they had a habit of going missing. Giving a full 3279 *graphics* display (a 32-line text mode would have been child's play on an MDA-class monitor...) would have required a load of additional circuitry on the add-in card and a whole different, rather more expensive monitor to cope with the higher scan frequency and extra line count.

They're a review magazine, their job is to find holes, regardless of whether they're significant in the wider context. Ooh, I can't see the entire graphic on my remote terminal sitting in my home lounge, but only 3/4 of its vertical dimension and have to scroll from time to time... such hardship. Don't see anyone complaining in a similar fashion about having to do so all the time on websites, in word processors and spreadsheets, et al. Don't overexaggerate the importance of a lone journalist reviewer's *opinion* in these things. Stick to the facts. It's an encyclopaedia, not a retrospective biography of the PC landscape. 193.63.174.211 (talk) 15:48, 5 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]