ecp@mbunix.mitre.org (Eric C. Pivnik) (02/04/89)
Does anyone have some experience with the TELECAT-AT from Televideo Systems? Is it a reliable machine? How much should one expect to pay for such a system? They claim it is IBM compatible. Has anyone found contradictions to this? Will Microsoft Quick-C / 5.0 run on it? Thanks in Advance, Eric
joss@uhura.cc.rochester.edu (Josh Sirota) (02/07/89)
In article <44315@linus.UUCP> ecp@mbunix.mitre.b.org (Pivnik) writes: >Does anyone have some experience with the TELECAT-AT from Televideo >Systems? Is it a reliable machine? How much should one expect to pay for >such a system? They claim it is IBM compatible. Has anyone found >contradictions to this? Will Microsoft Quick-C / 5.0 run on it? I have a Televideo AT sitting right here. This is from before it hit the retail market - a company that I used to work for bought 'em for OEM purposes. Anyway, so it's been terrific. The machine is 4 years old now and still as good as new (except for 1 disk controller failure). Our company bought in bulk and had several failures of the controllers, but reported them all back to Televideo and they claim they've fixed 'em. The only other problem that we've had is with the BIOS. The latest revision is Rev H of this BIOS (or so I'm told), but I'm still using Rev D because Rev H doesn't seem to work with WordStar 5.0. Rev F, the only other one I've seen inbetween, didn't work with something but I don't remember what. I have no complaints with Rev D though ... I don't know what they've tried to fix. I have never had any problems getting things to work. I'd say it's IBM compatible with the right BIOS (we've heard nothing back from Televideo on the Rev H situation yet). I'm also making an assumption that the retail Telecat-AT is the same machine. I suppose it might not be. Josh -- Josh Sirota INTERNET: joss@uhura.cc.rochester.edu BITNET: joss_ss@uordbv.bitnet sirota@cs.rochester.edu UUCP: ...!rochester!sirota
pavlov@hscfvax.harvard.edu (G.Pavlov) (02/07/89)
In article <796@ur-cc.UUCP>, joss@uhura.cc.rochester.edu (Josh Sirota) writes: > In article <44315@linus.UUCP> ecp@mbunix.mitre.b.org (Pivnik) writes: > >Does anyone have some experience with the TELECAT-AT from Televideo > >Systems? Is it a reliable machine? How much should one expect to pay for > >such a system? They claim it is IBM compatible. Has anyone found > >contradictions to this? Will Microsoft Quick-C / 5.0 run on it? > Note that Televideo is not in great shape financially....
lth@uoregon.uoregon.edu (Lars Thomas Hansen) (02/10/89)
In article <44315@linus.UUCP> ecp@mbunix.mitre.b.org (Pivnik) writes: >Does anyone have some experience with the TELECAT-AT from Televideo >Systems? Is it a reliable machine? How much should one expect to pay for >such a system? They claim it is IBM compatible. Has anyone found >contradictions to this? Will Microsoft Quick-C / 5.0 run on it? I used the TeleCat for a while and liked it generally well. In particular, it has a great screen and keyboard, and it is reasonably quiet (put it _under_ the desk, _not_ on it). I don't know if MSC will run on it; I expect it will. I had few compatibility- problems with the Cat; I noticed that a particularly popular PC CGA-game ("digger") would not run properly (bad graphics). This suggests some incompatibility with the graphics card. This is two years ago, and they might have fixed that by now. I did run a bit of other software, and expreienced no trouble. Granted, not all of that software was PC-compatible. I have used Televideo CP/M and MS-DOS products since '82 or so and I've generally been pleased; however, they're "Just another clone". If you can afford the money, I'd rather buy a Wyse. --lars
lth@uoregon.uoregon.edu (Lars Thomas Hansen) (02/10/89)
I wrote: >I did run a bit of other software, and expreienced no trouble. Granted, >not all of that software was PC-compatible. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Where was my mind??? I ment to say, of course, that not all of that software took advantage of the PC's special features, like VIDEO RAM access, sound, ports and whatnot. Sorry about that. --lars
ward@eplrx7.UUCP (ward) (02/10/89)
In article <44315@linus.UUCP> ecp@mbunix.mitre.b.org (Pivnik) writes: >Does anyone have some experience with the TELECAT-AT from Televideo >Systems? Is it a reliable machine? How much should one expect to pay for >such a system? They claim it is IBM compatible. Has anyone found >contradictions to this? Will Microsoft Quick-C / 5.0 run on it? I had the misfortune of programming for a company which had just started repairing Televideo computers. As a result, I had to program on Televideo At's for about 10 months(then I quit). The screen is very nice on the Televideo and the keyboard is better than average; HOWEVER, the hard disks stink. We bought about 30 Televideos for the project I was working on, and at least five of the hard disks(20M) crashed within the first month. I think one monitor was bad in the lot. The general consensus was that Televideos are unreliable. The company still repairs Televideos, but they use Compaqs for there projects. I also seem to remember that there EGA card was not 100% compatible. Rick -- Rick Ward | E.I. Dupont Co. uunet!eplrx7!ward | Engineering Physics Lab (302) 695-7395 | Wilmington, Delaware 19898 Just Say When. | Mail Stop: E357-302