nelson_p@apollo.uucp (02/26/88)
A while back I posted: > I am in the market for a personal computer with which > to do document (especially manuscript) preparation. > No doubt, I will also want to write the occasional > programs on it but that is of less importance. > What I would mainly like to get is the following: > > o A clear crisp, monochrome display of at least > 80 x 25 well-formed characters. I would prefer > a display of > 12" but I understand that this is > not common in monochrome. > > o Reliability, good quality of construction, ease > of service if something does break. > > o At least one 3 1/2" diskette and at least a 20 > megabyte hard disk. > I have made a tentative decision to buy the Leading Edge Model 'D' from a local dealer. It would be configured with a 3 1/2" drive, a 5 1/4" drive and a 20M hard disk. I chose the Leading Edge because it is a successful, local company with a sufficient market share so I expect it might be around for a while to back up it's 20 month warranty and it had a lower price than IBM, Tandy, etc. I chose a local dealer to minimize the hassles involved with mail-order and so I will have somebody to deal with face to face if there are any problems. The system price, including monitor is about $1400. I know I could get more power for that price by going mail-order or buying an unknown brand but freedom from hassles and lack of surprises is of paramount importance. The text processing package I plan to use is XYWrite which is inherently fast enough so the 8088 processor of the 'D' will not be overburdened. It also has the advantage of creating pure ASCII files so I can use it for all my editing. One thing I am loathe to do is learn more than one editor. The use of 2 different floppy drives allows me to accomodate a larger percentage of the current floppy 'standards' conveniently and another advantage of a 3 1/2" drive is that its larger capacity (than the 5 1/4) makes backing up the disk easier. Several people commented that I should consider an EGA color system instead of the Hercules interface on the Leading Edge motherboard. There's nothing to stop me from buying one in the future but my application will run just fine with the Hercules and I have no plans for any application involving color. I don't think I've ever seen a color monitor under $1K that I thought was as sharp and crisp as a good monochrome monitor. Along these lines I should point out that computer graphics programming is what I do for a living (I implement PHIGS for Apollo Computer). From this perspective, it is hard to think of EGA or VGA as 'serious' graphics. VGA, for instance, if I understand it right, maxes out at 640 x 480 by 4 bits per pixel, which is probably OK for pie charts. There is only so far you can upgrade a given system. I have some work I need to do *now* but I know that any system I buy today will be hopelessly outclassed by what's coming down the pike. That's why I want to invest the minimum I need today to get my job done. Comments, anyone? --Peter Nelson