misko@abhg.UUCP (William Miskovetz) (02/03/88)
There seems to be a large number of low priced PC-AT clones on the market
lately. A friend of mine is interested in picking up an AT clone and wondered
if anyone has had any experience with any of these. Most of the following
are around $1,600 with a 40 Mb hard disk. Any information or experience
you have would be appreciated. If you know of other low price clones that
would also be appreciated. Thank you.
Low cost PC-AT's
Rose Hill's ATROSE
ATC Pro-286
Transnet's TransAT
Nordic Computers 286
EXP 80286
Zeos Intl. 286
Star AT 286
Clone Computers Clone 286
Pro Serve AT TURBO
Proteus 286
The Standard-286
PC Prime 286
etc.
Replys can be mailed to:
{uunet!lll-winken, lll-lcc, pyramid}!abhg!misko
or
{ames, research, sun!tundra, abhg!ssiwest}!ssi!gdkgalvin-peter@CS.YALE.EDU (Peter Galvin) (02/03/88)
There always seem to be lots of requests like this but far fewer replies. So, I bought one. A Standard-brand 286/12 from CompuAdd to be precise. I ordered and received it before the latest issue of PC Magazine came out, so I don't know what their delivery time is like. (PC Mag rated their 286/10 a best buy out of 22 clones). No problem with the order, and the computer arrived intact 7 working days after placing the order (via standard UPS). There was confusion over which display card I ordered, and in fact the old CGA board from by Columbia PC worked in the AT (even at 12mhz), so I called them as instructed (under their 30 day money-back guarantee) and sent it back. I haven't gotten a statement on my credit-card yet, but I assume they credited me. If not I'll post a follow-up, of course. I also ordered a Miniscribe 40MB hard disk (5063 I think) and a combo serial/parallel I/O board. I believe the hard disk was formatted with an interleave of 3 (which is the default in the setup software they provide) and I thought it was running slow (a Norton of 2.5 on the hard disk) so I reformatted at low and high level and repartitioned. Viola, a norton of 3.5 and a noticable improvement. I supposed I should call their tech support and tell them about this... So there you have it. The system has been running perfectly ever since (2 months now) and is very fast (at least in comparison to my Columbia (:-)). Glad I did it, but still having a few thoughts about the 386 systems coming out. But, if Intel really does announce a 386 chip that fits in a 286 slot, and it works in my Standard, then I'll be sitting pretty... --Peter galvin@cs.yale.edu
jamesd@percival.UUCP (James Deibele) (02/06/88)
In article <139@abhg.UUCP> misko@abhg.UUCP (William Miskovetz) writes: > >There seems to be a large number of low priced PC-AT clones on the market >lately. A friend of mine is interested in picking up an AT clone and wondered Catch the February 16th, 1988 (Volume 7, Number 3) issue of PC Magazine. It's got reviews of 21 systems under $2000. A newer issue is out already, so you'd better tell your friend to scramble if he/she wants it from a bookstore. The local library may subscribe, although mine doesn't. -- James S. Deibele jamesd@qiclab or jamesd@percival TECHBooks: The Computer Book Specialists (800) TECH-BKS 3646 SE Division Portland, OR 97202 (503) 238-1005 TECHBooks One BBS (#1:105/4.0); 3/12/24 (503) 760-1473