forrest@sybase.com (03/20/89)
I just joined the crowd and ordered a 386 clone. Since I haven't
gotten it yet this posting will just describe what I ordered.
Future postings will describe how (and if) it works.
I talked to a guy at work who does a lot with 386 machines and he
recommended that I talk to a clone house called HQ Computer's
(408-245-5836, in Sunnyvale CA) that he and some friends had dealt
with. I did and I got the following deal:
"DataExpert" motherboard with a 386-20 running at 25Mhz. All the
circuits on the motherboard except the 386 are rated at 25Mhz, including
the Chips and Technology chipset. The motherboard can accept either
a 387 or a Weitek chip. This is a Taiwan-made board.
4 megabytes of memory consisting of 36 80nsec 1 megabit chips.
These chips will allegedly be either Seimens or Motorola and go
on a 32bit memory board. The extra 3 megs appears as extended memory
so I'll have to buy QEMM.
Adaptec 1:1 ESDI controller. (I don't know the model number. Does
this matter?)
Fujitsu 150 Megabyte 23 msec hard disk
1.2 Megabyte floppy disk
1 serial port
Maxiswitch 101 key keyboard
I deliberately didn't get any video stuff because I'm going to stick
with the Hercules clone board and monitor I already have until either
VGA gets cheaper or until > 1000x1000 (mono) gets really cheap.
Anyway, now for the good part. I got all this for $3079 which
seems like a pretty good price. Since everything except the motherboard
is from a known manufactorer I'm pretty confident that everything
will be OK. I've also seen a working system using the same
motherboard and it looks good to me. My main concern is that,
in spite of the year warentee, if something happens to the disk
I may have trouble getting it replaced since HQ got it on some kind
of special deal and says they won't have anymore for a couple of months.
I'm going down to get it next weekend. I'll post a summary of what
happens and how well it works.
Jon Forrest
forrest@sybase.com
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