daly@masscomp.ccur.com (Patrick Daly) (02/06/90)
In article <26325@cup.portal.com> Don_C_Rudolph@cup.portal.com writes: >The Wall Street Journal has an ad for a Packard Bell "PACKMATE 286 >computer with VGA color monitor." This system is sold through an >outfit called DAMARK out of Minneapolis. Features include: > > 30 MB hard drive > 12 MHz 80286 > 1 3 1/2" 1.44 MB floppy 1 5 1/4" 1.22 MB floppy > 1 MB RAM on mother board > VGA card > 480x600 256 colors monitor > MS-DOS 3.3 + GWBASIC > 2 serial ports 1 parallel port > >$1499. 1-yr warranty. Factory New & Perfect. > >Questions: Is this a good buy for a novice computer user? I think so. > Does anyone have experience with DAMARK? > Would the Packard Bell be a true IBM clone? I have a fair amount of software loaded and thus far have not run into any incompatibilites. > Is there enough information here to go ahead with the > purchase? Just for comparison.... I just bought a Packard Bell Legend V a week ago. The difference I can see is that I got: o 60 Meg HD o VGA is on the motherboard o Separate mouse port so as to not use a serial port o Borland stuff thrown in (sidekick), and DOS manager, and other stuff... For my purposes, I didn't find these software 'freebies' all that useful. The rest of the features is the same as you listed. I paid $1699. If you look hard you can go a little cheaper. I was satisfied with the price and didn't feel like shopping around any more. I could have gone mail order and saved a few more bucks.