[comp.sys.ibm.pc] opinions on jameco computer?

randyn@microsoft.UUCP (Randy Nevin) (11/01/89)

i've been thinking about trading in my AT clone for a 386, and also upgrading
from an EGA to a VGA, and from a 360k floppy to a 1.2 Mb. when the BYTE
magazine arrive yesterday, along with it came a catalog for jameco. inside i
found the following machine:
	*  20 Mhz 386 (8/16/20 Mhz selectable) in a "baby" AT case
	*  AMI bios
	*  Miniscribe 40 Mb hard disk, Teac 1.2 Mb floppy, controllers for each
	*  1 Mb RAM
	*  1 parallel, 1 serial, 1 game port
	*  101 key keyboard
for $1600. add to that:
	*  Casper 14" VGA monitor
	*  8/16-bit VGA card
for $600, that's $2200 total for pretty much the system i'm after, and the best
price i've seen so far.

has anyone bought this system, and what do you think of it; what do you think
about jameco in general? what's the trade-off between 8-bit VGA and 16-bit,
just speed? how much memory is required on the VGA card to do 640x480x256
colors? (the card above is sold with 256k, "upgradeable" to 512k; will i be
forced to upgrade to do 640x480x256?) are there any gotchas i should be
looking out for? please send comments to me, and i will forward a summary to
anyone who is interested.

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