jkg@gitpyr.gatech.EDU (Jim Greenlee) (06/12/87)
Now that I have finished my Master's and will be making some real money
again :-), I am interested in adding some more peripherals to my AT&T
PC 6300. Anybody who knows anything about the following is welcome to
e-mail their { experiences | impressions | opinions } to me. If enough
others are interested, I'll summarize to the net (really! :-).
My system is a PC 6300 with 640K on the motherboard, 20 Meg HD, color
monitor, and a Microsoft Bus Mouse (v5.03). I have installed a NEC V30
and an 8087-2, and have recently reformatted the hard disk for PC-DOS
3.1 (many thanks to George Wilkin and Peter Fales for their collective
assistance on getting my clock running).
I'm looking at the following peripherals:
1. A Display Enhancement Board
This is probably the top priority item on my list. Are these readily
available? How much do they cost? I've been piddling around with MS
Windows (v1.03) and would like the 16 color capability, particularly
for PC-Paintbrush. Will software that supports the EGA also support
the DEB, or will I have to hack everything myself?
2. A bigger disk (everybody needs one of these :-)
I'm interested in getting MINIX up on my hard disk, but I'm not
willing to give up any of my precious 20 Megabytes to do it. Since
desk space is at a premium at my house, I'd like to go with either
an internal half-height to replace the existing disk or a hard-card.
I'm thinking that 40 Meg ought to do it (for now :-); 30 Meg for DOS
and 10 Meg for MINIX. Plus Systems has released a 40 Meg hard-card
that looks really interesting. Can I just drop in a bigger disk or
is it more complicated than that? I remember reading something about
version 1.43 of the BIOS ROMs having better hard disk support. Is it
worth upgrading? (I have version 1.21 now) I also recall hearing that
some hard-cards won't work right with the PC 6300. Can anyone confirm
or deny this?
3. A tape back-up (to go with the bigger disk, of course :-)
"PC" magazine just ran a pretty good series of articles about tape
backups. I have used some of the DC600 units at work, but found
them clunky and awkward to use. The DC2000 units look good, but
to preserve my desk space (see above), I'd have to go with a hard
card and an internal tape unit. Is anybody using one with the PC
6300? Another possibility is a Videotrax board (I have a portable
VCR). The board by itself is about $400 (much cheaper than tape
units that I have seen), but I'm concerned about drop-outs on a
regular videotape. I understand there is some redundancy built in
to circumvent this problem, and that a standard 2-hour VHS tape
will hold about 80 Megabytes. Anybody out there using one?
4. Extended or Expanded Memory
I know there's a difference, but I'm not sure what it is. What are
the various advantages or disadvantages of Lotus/Intel/Microsoft
vs EMS? I'd like to set up a huge RAM drive as a swap space for
"Windows" (or possibly MINIX, if I get adventuresome). The "Windows"
documentation mentions Intel's "Above Board" and a couple of others.
I also have a copy of DR's "Concurrent PC-DOS" that I would like to
monkey around with. I could probably check recent back issues of "PC"
and "BYTE" for more info and reviews, but I thought a little first-hand
knowledge would be useful, too.
5. Slots
I posted this once before and never got a satisfactory answer. Is
it possible to use PC-AT cards in a PC 6300 by recabling the 16-bit
slots? I have this crazy idea that you could use a ribbon cable
and a couple of connectors to attach the auxiliary bus connector
of an AT card to the small slot on the 6300 mother-board. I have
never been able to get a technical reference manual for the PC 6300,
so I can't verify this, but I can't believe that the two connectors
would have radically different pin-outs. Has anybody tried this?
Any and all comments are welcome. We now return control of your newsgroup
to you :-).
Jim Greenlee
--
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