kev@voder.UUCP (Kevin Hoskins) (12/11/85)
I am interested in anyone's experiences with *B* clones and
compatibiles. Why did you buy the one you have? What was its price? What
do you like or dislike about the machine? Did you buy a completely
assembled brand name unit or did you buy a collection of parts and
assemble it youself? And, most important, have you ran into any
programs that will not run (even with patches, etc). If so, on what
machine was it on?
Please let me know about anything that would help me in making a
decision on what type of compatible to buy.
If you have undertaken the task of assembling a clone from individual
parts, please let me know how you feel about the quality of the components,
the price, the location where they were bought (is the facility willing to
stand behind its product, is there any support, etc?), and how well the
clone performs.
Thanks.dmt@mtgzz.UUCP (d.m.tutelman) (12/24/85)
> I am interested in anyone's experiences with *B* clones and > compatibiles. Why did you buy the one you have? What was its price? What > do you like or dislike about the machine? Did you buy a completely > assembled brand name unit or did you buy a collection of parts and > assemble it youself? And, most important, have you ran into any > programs that will not run (even with patches, etc). If so, on what > machine was it on? > > If you have undertaken the task of assembling a clone from individual > parts, please let me know how you feel about the quality of the components, > the price, the location where they were bought (is the facility willing to > stand behind its product, is there any support, etc?), and how well the > clone performs. I've built two clones over the last three years. One experience was a healthy education, ending with a machine I still use (I'm sending this from it). The other was a disaster, and I welcome this opportunity to vent a little spleen. 1. Good experience - MicroMint MPX-16 not-quite-compatible. Yup, the company that turns Steve Ciarcia's BYTE articles into kits; remember the IBM bus-compatible (that really ran CP/M-86). Well, they never claimed it would be completely compatible, and it ain't. Since one of my objectives for the project was to learn about PC software compatibility, this was a major success -- my machine contains every subtle way for a program to be incompatible. However, I generally know what won't work and why, and can sometimes patch around the problem. And enough stuff works "right out of the box" that it's a damn useful machine. But I wouldn't recommend it today. Anyone buying a clone can get more compatibility for less money. (Remember that this was almost the first clone; COMPAQ may have beaten them. It was certainly the first clone KIT.) 2. Bad experience - MBE-XT board from Computer Parts Galore. A year or so ago, A friend and I built a couple of XT-clone motherboards from bare boards. One was a SUPER-XT and the other an MBE-XT. The SUPER came up fairly easily, but the MBE doesn't work to this day. After debugging it with pretty sophisticated tools (Biomation with 8088 disassembler), I still saw flaky memory performance anytime I put over 128K into it. Sent it back to Computer Parts Galore for repairs; they changed a lot of chips (including all the memory chips), but it doesn't work any better (that is to say, not well enough to boot). I've heard from a tech who sounds knowledgeable that the MBE is a known problem. The circuit design is much the same as the SUPER-XT, but the board layout was screwed up. I BELIEVE IT! What do I use and really like? On my desk at work I have an AT&T PC6300. It's the fastest clone I've used (8MHz 8086 with full 16-bit memory access), and I haven't used any software that wouldn't run on it. Best of all, it has good (as in monochrome) alphanumerics and IBM-compatible graphics -- best of both worlds. (Hercules graphics aren't compatible with most existing software, and CGA alpha gives me a headache.) If I didn't have so much hardware around the house already, I'd buy one for home. (Yes, I do work for AT&T, so I'm probably biased, but I'm being as candid as I can.) Dave Tutelman Physical - AT&T Information Systems Room 3P432 200 Laurel Avenue Middletown, NJ 07748 Logical - ...ihnp4!mtuxo!mtgzz!dmt Audible - (201) 957 5535 ---------------------------------------------------------------