ralf@cad.cs.cmu.edu (Ralf Brown) (01/10/87)
I recently bought an AT clone and I would like to share my
favorable experience. I saw the company's ad in _Computer
Shopper_, their basic system is a 6/10 MHz AT clone with 1024K,
1.2M floppy, Western Digital dual floppy/dual hard disk
controller, a Hercules compatible mono graphics board with
parallel port, and a 12" amber monitor for $1375.
The system I ordered replaced the 1.2M floppy with a 360K floppy
drive, and added a serial port and a Seagate ST4051 40MB hard
disk. The monitor is a Samsung with tilt/swivel base. The
system unit is quite sturdy, and includes cutouts for three half-
height devices, and space for two internal half-heights (the 4051
is a full-height drive, though). The system unit also includes
the AT standard keyboard lock/power indicator/drive access light,
three cutouts on the rear for D-25 connectors, and a 200W power
supply.
The motherboard is made by Smartek, Inc. It is very well
designed and all the chips are socketed. There is an on-board
battery for the clock, but the motherboard also includes a
connector for an external battery backup, which is present (a
holder for 4 AA batteries strapped to the side of the power
supply). There are the usual 6 16-bit and 2 8-bit expansion
slots, of which the controller uses a 16-bit slot and the video
board (about 7" long, so not quite a short card) uses an 8-bit
slot but would fit in a 16-bit slot. The serial board (a short
board) takes the other 8-bit slot. One unusual, but very nice,
feature is the presence of a connector for a reset switch--I
installed a reset switch three days after getting the computer--
so there is no need to go mucking about with the "Power Good"
line from the power supply or soldering a wire to the
motherboard.
The hard disk came preformatted and partitioned, with a driver to
access the second partition as drive D. I reformatted and
repartitioned the hard disk to get a 32M and 8.5M partitions.
The disk is rated at 40ms access time and has automatic head-
parking on power-down.
The keyboard is sort of a hybrid between the standard AT
keyboard, a Keytronics 5151, and the new AT keyboard. Start with
the standard AT keyboard, and move the function keys above the
typewriter keys in two groups of five (like the 5151). Then move
the number pad to the right to make room for another cursor pad.
This second cursor pad, however, is not like the Keytronics one,
(3 by 3 cursor movement keys like on number pad, with Ins and Del
above them), but more like the new AT keyboard. The arrow keys
are in a diamond with the Home key in the middle, and two rows of
three keys immediately above the up arrow, containing Ins, Del,
PgUp, PgDn, End, and PrtSc. My only complaint is that the Esc
key is on the number pad, waaayyy over on the right, and can't be
switched over to the left where it belongs. However, I can
handle that in software, by modifying a keyboard buffer extender
to swap the two sets of return values on reading the buffer.
Overall, I am quite impressed by this machine, and have had no
problems running at either 6 or 10 MHz. For the price, this
system is hard to beat, but there is one caveat: the
documentation is almost nonexistent. The only documentation
which came with the system were separate writeups on the
motherboard, keyboard, video board, and serial board; each by the
manufacturer of the respective item. Of course, I don't mind
using DEBUG or something similar to poke around, so it is not a
problem for me, though it might be for someone else.
The company provided very prompt service. The order was placed
on December 22 (the Monday before Christmas) and arrived on
December 30 (the Tuesday after Christmas). Quite impressive
considering that this was over the Christmas holidays. The
company's address and phone number are:
Orcim, Inc. (pronounced Or-sim)
1133 Broadway, Rm 618
New York, NY 10010
(212) 242-0457
Standard Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with this company in
any way except as a *very* satisfied customer.
--
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