jng@m.cs.uiuc.edu (02/13/89)
Anybody out in the Netland has experience on the following machines: 1) CompuAdd 286/16 2) CompuAdd 286/12 3) PC Brand 286/12 What I am interested are their compatibility, reliability? Is it wise to own one of these machine? Can they all run OS/2 giving enough RAM, the 286/16 can have Max. of 5 Mb on motherboard, while the 12MHz need expansion boards for more than 1 MB RAM, will that affect the performance of OS/2? or OS/2 just done recognized the expanded memory? Also any comment on both Companies is appreciated. Joseph Ng Department of Computer Science University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign ARPANET:jng@m.cs.uiuc.edu BITNET :jng%m.cs.uiuc.edu@uiucvmd.bitnet
jng@m.cs.uiuc.edu (02/14/89)
Also, at this time of the year, should I buy EGA or go for the VGA. I heard of a rumor that companies discontinue the EGA and push VGA to be the standard. But I see not many VGA application running now. So maybe two year from now, VGA will be the satndard, but by that time, I might have change my PC. So should I go for teh VGA, now. --Joe Ng--
carlson@gateway.mitre.org (Bruce Carlson) (02/15/89)
In article <8000037@m.cs.uiuc.edu> jng@m.cs.uiuc.edu writes: > >Anybody out in the Netland has experience on the following machines: >1) CompuAdd 286/16 >2) CompuAdd 286/12 >3) PC Brand 286/12 >What I am interested are their compatibility, reliability? Is it wise to >own one of these machine? Can they all run OS/2 giving enough RAM, the 286/16 >can have Max. of 5 Mb on motherboard, while the 12MHz need expansion boards >for more than 1 MB RAM, will that affect the performance of OS/2? or OS/2 >just done recognized the expanded memory? PC World did a comparison of OS-2 compatibility and performance a few months ago and I thought the speed results were interesting. In general the 10 Mhz compatibles were slower than the 12 Mhz compatibles, with two exceptions being the AST Premium 286 and one of the IBM PS-2 models (model 60?). I will ignore the PS-2 because I don't remember the details of its configuration. The reason for the AST's speed with OS-2 (it beat the 12 Mhz machines) appeared to be because it could access up to 4 Mbytes of memory at 10 Mhz with no wait states. Most of the other machines could use 1-2 Mbytes with no wait states and the rest of memory was on expansion cards, with wait states. I think that the OS-2 tests needed about 3 Mbytes of memory, so many of the "fast" machines were slowed down by accessing memory with wait states. > >Also any comment on both Companies is appreciated. > I ordered some small items (switch box, keyboard drawer, etc) and software from CompuAdd and everything came through as promised. I even returned one item and although they never acknowledged getting the item back (I had called for a return authorization number) the credit appeared on my Mastercard bill the next month. CompuAdd's software prices are nothing great, but they are very inexpensive for small hardware items. My AB switch only cost $13, compared to $30-50 from other places. >Joseph Ng >Department of Computer Science >University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign >ARPANET:jng@m.cs.uiuc.edu >BITNET :jng%m.cs.uiuc.edu@uiucvmd.bitnet
porges@inmet.UUCP (02/16/89)
I bought a 2400 baud external modem from PC Brand a few months ago. Although
it took me three tries to get one that worked, I would deal with them again because
they gave me no hassles at any point, which I find more important than whether it
works the first time or not. Admittedly it would be harder to rebox and reship
a whole computer than a modem...
-- Don Porges
porges@inmet.com
{...mirror,ima}!inmet!porges