jca@pnet01.cts.com (John C. Archambeau) (12/01/89)
torkil@psivax.UUCP (Torkil Hammer) writes: >The beastie arrived last Friday, right on schedule. > >Here is the good, the bad and the ugly, all mixed up: > >The case is a desktop full size AT, with 3 halfsize bays for external >access (5.25" and 3.5" floppies plus optional tape backup) and a full >size internal bay for hard disk. Good. > > [Assorted comments about the Gateway 386SX...] I have found that the best way to guarantee that you get an ideal system configuration is to piece it together yourself. A wise user with experience in swapping out parts armed with the Computer Shopper can often times beat any local dealer. If you do the building from the component level you are guaranteed to have the system YOU want. I'm not saying that the Gateway 386SX is a piece of crap or anything, sounds like you came out ok. But everyone should have a caveat emptor attitude with respect to purchasing, assembling, or upgrading a system. I personally would yell and scream if I didn't have a mouse port on the video card. I have gotten accustomed to having my video cards to having a built-in bus mouse port, so I expect one to be there. Know exactly what you are buying and what you will receive or that's it. A lot of dealers that sell systems and hardware do have this clause on the invoice "all sales are final." So as a result, it's better (for me anyway) to buy the system in pieces, get the case/power supply here, motherboard there, memory here, FD/HD controller there, etc. Dealers very rarely have the exact hardware in the machine I want, so I get under their skin by purchasing everything at the component level. // John C. Archambeau /* **--------------------------------------------------------------------------* ** Flames : /dev/null (on my Minix partition) **--------------------------------------------------------------------------* ** ARPA : crash!pnet01!jca@nosc.mil ** INET : jca@pnet01.cts.com ** UUCP : {nosc ucsd hplabs!hd-sdd}!crash!pnet01!jca **--------------------------------------------------------------------------* ** Note : My opinions are exactly that...mine. Bill Gates couldn't buy ** my opinion...but he could rent it for a few nanoseconds. :) **--------------------------------------------------------------------------* */