anderson@uwmacc.UUCP (Jess Anderson) (08/02/86)
First, let me ADVANapologizeCE to those who have already seen this,
were not interested, and are therefore bored by it. Next, let me
apologize to those to are incensed that something relevant to PCs
was posted to net.micro *and* net.micro.pc; this is about Zenith
computers, and as far as I am aware, there is no net.micro.zenith.
Next let me apologize to those who may have wished to respond by
sending EMail, but had no adequate path; better information is now
available at the end of this posting. Lastly, let me apologize to
*anyone* who's in a grump today; may your mood improve -- soon!
I had posted the following, asking for EMail responses, which I
would be happy to summarize and post to the net if it seems of
sufficient interest. I have in fact already received two kind and
generally very positive responses (thanks to the senders). I'm
encouraged by what they say.
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Educational discounts for the Zenith 158 make it a very attractive
alternative to the IBM XT. For $1599 one gets a Z-158 that runs at
4.77/8 MHz (switchable), 256K RAM on system board, one 360K 5.25"
floppy drive w/ controller, one 20 MB hard disk w/ controller, one
serial and one parallel port, battery-powered clock/calendar, a
Paradise Hi-Res video card, and a hi-res TTL amber monitor. In this
configuration, 5 expansion slots remain.
Although I have worked in the field for 31 years, this is my
first computer purchase, and I'm a bit nervous. The primary uses
will be word-processing a/k/a personal publishing (60%), terminal
access (via modem & Bell switched network) to my office mainframes
and various bulletin boards (25%), and software development (15%).
I have several questions that I hope those on the net who are
more experienced/knowledgeable than I can answer. Please E-Mail
responses, and I will summarize to the net if there is enough
interest.
1. There have been reports of problems with the video board
in graphics mode. Know anything about that, how it can be
handled/fixed/lived with?
2. My office XT has a Mircosoft bus Mouse, which I use mainly
with MS Word. I like Word real well, and wonder if the mouse
will work well with a Z-158.
3. The office XT has 640K on the motherboard. It also has a
Tall Tree JRAM-2 memory expansion board w/ 2 MB, which gives
me lots of RAMdisk space (*fast*!). Anyone used JRAM boards
in a Z-158? What experiences did you have. Note well: I'd
naturally like to drive at 8 MHz. Could I get away with
150 nsec RAM chips, or would I have to go to 120 nsec chips?
4. Eventually (though not right away) I'll probably want to go
to color. The EGA board situation is changing fast, I know,
but relevant accounts/recommendations/etc. would be useful.
5. The Z-158 is said to have excellent compatibility. Reports
on compatibility failures would be helpful.
--
=========================================================================
The best thing to do is to look beyond right and wrong. (Chuang Tsu)
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UUCP: {harvard,seismo,topaz, \ Jess Anderson
akgua,allegra, >!uwvax!uwmacc!anderson 1210 W. Dayton
ihnp4,ucbvax} / Madison WI 53706
ARPA: anderson@unix.macc.wisc.edu 608/263-6988
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More words count less. (Tao Te Ching)
=========================================================================sandersr@ecn-pc.UUCP (Robert C Sanders) (08/04/86)
I am going to respond to the following having just purchased a Zenith 158 w/20Meg for our studio and office (Purdue's Continuing Engineering Education), of course at educational discount. At home I have used an H151 (-20) for 1.5 years. I cannot get mail through, and this may be of general interest to others. Note that the lack of a net.micro.zenith or net.micro.heath is mentioned; There are a LOT of Heath/Zenith users out there, as attested by the membership in HUG (Heath users group) and the publishing of Remark magazine by them, but apparently not enough of them work with UNIX. First, the machine was shipped with MS DOS 3.10, MS WINDOWS, the normal 4.77/8 MHz 8088 cpu switchable, a single CGA/Floppy controller card, Zenith's own hard-disk controller, and an extra Paradise video card that has MONO, Hercules graphics, and CGA capability. We also aquired MS WORD and the Programmer's tool kit (MASM, SYMDEB, LIB, MAKE, and several UNIX-like utilities) In article <112@uwmacc.UUCP> anderson@uwmacc.UUCP (Jess Anderson) writes: >Educational discounts for the Zenith 158 make it a very attractive >alternative to the IBM XT. For $1599 one gets a Z-158 that runs at >4.77/8 MHz (switchable), 256K RAM on system board, one 360K 5.25" >floppy drive w/ controller, one 20 MB hard disk w/ controller, one >serial and one parallel port, battery-powered clock/calendar, a >Paradise Hi-Res video card, and a hi-res TTL amber monitor. In this >configuration, 5 expansion slots remain. We did NOT get a clock/calendar. > Although I have worked in the field for 31 years, this is my >first computer purchase, and I'm a bit nervous. The primary uses >will be word-processing a/k/a personal publishing (60%), terminal >access (via modem & Bell switched network) to my office mainframes >and various bulletin boards (25%), and software development (15%). We use WORDSTAR, MS WORD for word processing; PC/InterComm for terminal emulation into our UNIX network (9600 or 19200 baud, VT102 emulation); MASM and SYMDEB for programming (it is mostly a functional machine -- I use CII-C86 for C language at home, UNIX at work). > I have several questions that I hope those on the net who are >more experienced/knowledgeable than I can answer. Please E-Mail >responses, and I will summarize to the net if there is enough >interest. > 1. There have been reports of problems with the video board > in graphics mode. Know anything about that, how it can be > handled/fixed/lived with? We experience no problems with the Zenith video; the Paradise video has MONO display problems -- it jitters. Extra fonts do load up fine though. > 2. My office XT has a Mircosoft bus Mouse, which I use mainly > with MS Word. I like Word real well, and wonder if the mouse > will work well with a Z-158. It works perfectly -- I use an MS mouse at home with WORD, no problem. > 3. The office XT has 640K on the motherboard. It also has a > Tall Tree JRAM-2 memory expansion board w/ 2 MB, which gives > me lots of RAMdisk space (*fast*!). Anyone used JRAM boards > in a Z-158? What experiences did you have. Note well: I'd > naturally like to drive at 8 MHz. Could I get away with > 150 nsec RAM chips, or would I have to go to 120 nsec chips? I use AST's RAMPAGE at home in the 4.77 Mhz H151, no problem. According to an article in PC Magazine, 150 nsec should work, at least it does in AT clone they tested. Try it and see -- it's the only way. > 4. Eventually (though not right away) I'll probably want to go > to color. The EGA board situation is changing fast, I know, > but relevant accounts/recommendations/etc. would be useful. See the review of many EGA cards in PC magazine (August). We tried to put a QuadRam EGA in our Z158 -- no dice, it wouldn't even boot-up. > 5. The Z-158 is said to have excellent compatibility. Reports > on compatibility failures would be helpful. Originally, when IBM was dropping the PC in favor of the XT, rumors abounded (and I think were substantiated) that Zenith paid a *BIG* sum to be an IBM real-close clone; Zenith won the privilege of indentifying itself in ROM as an XT; nobody else won that privalege (Kaypro bought the privalege for their AT clone). I have used many, many programs for the XT, and the Zenith (even the H151) has had no problems with any of them, Lotus, Dbase, and Flight Simulator included. In fact, I have several ill-behaved BIOS dependant programs that run perfectly fine. The Zenith is probably the most IBM compatible there is. Note too, that the Zenith also made things much more erogmatic than IBM, keyboard, startup time (same diagnostics, 10 times faster), and video (true grey- scaling). If you look inside, the machine is even more rugged AND repairable (CPU card as a card, not a mother board), and included diagnostics and some DEBUG capabilities in ROM instead of BASIC. You have to purchase BASIC separately -- allowing more utilities to be distributed on the main DOS disks. >-- Jess Anderson Replys to net.micro.pc, please. -- Continuing Engineering Education Telecommunications Purdue University ...!ihnp4!pur-ee!pc-ecn!sandersr Let's make like a BSD process, and go FORK-OFF !! -- bob (and "make" a few children while we're at it ...)