phco@ecsvax.UUCP (John Miller) (05/22/85)
According to BUSS #106 (May 9, 1985), Zenith has announced five new computers.
The Z200 is an IBM AT compatible with an 80286 running at 6 MHz and 256k RAM
chips that allow from 512K to 16Mbytes RAM. "ZDS claims that by avoiding the
need for wait states during memory access it has produced a machine one-third
faster than the IBM PC AT." Like the Z150, the Z200 has a backplane rather
than a motherboard and has ten slots (four used by video, memory, CPU, and
disk controller cards). Prices begin at about $4,000, and delivery is
supposed to begin this summer.
Four modifications of the IBM PC XT-compatible Z150 have been announced.
Shipment of these is slated to begin in June or July. The
Z158 can be run at either 4.77 MHz or 8 MHz. Prices begin at $2500. The
Z148 ($1900+) has more limited expansion capabilities (1 slot and 100 watt
power supply instead of 165 watts). The Z138 ($2300) is a portable version
of the Z148 with a 7" CRT. The Z171 weighs less than 15 pounds, has two
5.25" drives, a backlighted LCD display supporting graphics and 25 lines of
80 characters, optional battery pack, one parallel and one serial port, 256-
640K, and starts at $2700.
Considering Zenith's history of producing high quality items, these new
machines should be attractive alternatives to Big Blue's "standards."
(I have no connection with Zenith Data Systems except as a satisfied
customer.)
--
John Miller (ecsvax!phco)
Dept. of Pharmacology, Univ. of N.C.-Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill, NC 27514 (919) 966-1153dgary@ecsvax.UUCP (D Gary Grady) (05/22/85)
I am told the new Zenith machines (which do sound interesting, in
particular the AT clone) will be out this August. One note on the AT
clone: the keyboard is not to my knowledge plug compatible with the
AT but rather with the PC. This means that, unlike the lights on the
AT, the keyboard lights on the Zenith Z-200 can sometimes get out of
sync with the shift state in software. This is based on preliminary
documentation, so I may be wrong.
--
D Gary Grady
Duke U Comp Center, Durham, NC 27706
(919) 684-3695
USENET: {seismo,decvax,ihnp4,akgua,etc.}!mcnc!ecsvax!dgary