ARRITT@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu (What a waste it is to lose one's mind.) (01/05/90)
Thanks to all who responded to my inquiry regarding a motherboard swap from
an XT clone to a 286 system. (As for the flippant subject line, I was getting
tired...) It does seem quite feasible, so I looked into
this a bit more, and selected parts for a hypothetical 12 MHz 80286-based
system. The prices below are from the current (12 Jan 90) issue of "PC"
magazine. In most cases I chose name brand components but not top of the
line. (You may want VGA, an 80287, different hard disk, etc. but this
serves the purpose of illustration.) The resulting basic, but quite
serviceable, system works out as follows:
AMI 286/12 MHz motherboard 220 (add 50-100 for 386SX?)
640 KB, 100 ns DRAM 72
200 watt power supply 99
Keytronics 101 keyboard 95
mono graphics card 45
Samsung 14" amber monitor 99
CompuAdd AT hard/floppy controller 149
Seagate 251-1 hard disk (40 MB, 28 ms) 319
TEAC 5.25", 1.2 MB floppy drive 78
I/O card (serial, parallel, game) 49
case 50
----
TOTAL 1275
(A bit more shopping around would probably reduce the bottom line some
more.) This compares to $1499 for the CompuAdd 212 system, which is
configured almost identically, and prices of < $1200 for no-name clones
similarly equipped. It appears that clone vendors essentially buy
components at wholesale; assemble them into a system; then charge retail
for the components, plus a very nominal fee for assembly.
The bottom line for anyone thinking of building your own system is that it
seems difficult to justify on the basis of cost alone, if you're starting
from scratch. But if you can salvage components from the system that
you're upgrading from, the savings are worthwhile. For this reason, I
suspect that the most cost-effective upgrade would be from a 286 to a 386SX
or perhaps to "real" 386. The least cost-effective upgrade would be from
an 8086 to a 286 (or higher), because you would be able to (or would want
to) re-use fewer of the old parts.
In my own instance, the floppy controller and video drivers are built into
the Leading Edge's system board. Virtually nothing (except the monitor)
will be salvageable, perhaps not even the case. :-(
Again, thanks to all who responded to my original posting! If you have any
comments on the above, I'd appreciate hearing from you (or post to the net
if you think it'd be of general interest).
___________________________________________________________________
Ray Arritt |
Dept. of Physics and Astronomy |
Univ. of Kansas |
Lawrence, KS 66045 |
arritt@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu |
arritt@ukanvax.bitnet |