tgsmith@sundc.East.Sun.COM (Tim Smith - Consultant Sun Baltimore) (12/22/89)
Anyone out there want to answer a few questions for me?
I have a good old government issue Z-248 that I am beginning to get
sick of and thought I would ask around and see how other folks feel
about their machines before I dump mine.
I have spent a fair amount of time working with Zeniths and have
always had problems with the serial hardware. I have never been able
to convince myself that the serial ports were worth a damn.
My favorite gripe is the COM3 boondoggle that Zenith perpetrated on
the government - the machine had to have 2 serial ports so Zenith
provided COM1 and LPT1 on one card and COM3 and LPT2 on another card.
Sounded great except for no one I know of has ever been able to get
the COM3 port to work. Of course Zenith was more than happy to sell
the govt. a COM2 card for about $30.00 which seemed pretty reasonable
until you got the COM2 and noticed that it had a chip count of about 2
and must have cost Zenith a whole $5.00 to make. Most of the folks I
worked with when I was with the Navy just pulled the COM3/LPT2 to save
real estate and BTUs. Has anyone ever been able to get COM3 to work?
COM1 was no work of art either. I never could get the FOSSIL serial
drivers to work nor could I get any of the SLIP packet drivers for the
ka9q package to work. I also had more than one occasion when code
that ran absolutely fine on the serial ports of a true blue IBM AT
crashed and burned on the Z-248. One problem was so bad my former
boss shipped a Z-248 to a vendor so that they could figure out what
the heck was busted and fix it- I have not heard if the problem ever
got fixed. Has anyone else had serial problems like this? Anyone find
a way to fix them? Anyone using the new NS serial chips in a Z-248?
I also had similar problems with Ethernet cards. Cards and drivers
that worked fine in the old TB IBM AT were strictly crash city on the
Z-248.
Now for disks... I had a very nice Fujitsu 327MB SCSI disk that came
with a host adaptor. Worked AOK on a true blue IBM AT. Of course on
the Zenith it was cold boot time as soon as the machine woke up and
saw the SCSI host adaptor. Anyone else out there using any SCSI
devices on a Z-248? I would really like to get a SCSI host adaptor and
a CDROM unit that I can use on my Zenith so that I can use the MS
Bookshelf but I am not about to shell out a kilobuck for the drive,
controller, and disk only to have the Zenith live up to its old
reputation. So can anyone tell me this will work?
I also had lots of fun getting my Zenith to get along nicely with a
telebit tb+. I can't prove that my touble was with the Zenith as
tb+'s are a bit flakey but with the Z-248's history of being "sorta AT
compatible" I blamed the trouble on the Z-248. Maybe I am being a bit
hard on the Z-248 but it was brought to us by those wonderful folks at
Heath/Zenith who also were responsible for the WWV receiver that was
"almost RS232 compatible".
While I am bothering you all... Has anyone used Zenith's MS-DOS 3.3+?
Is it worth the price? (I seem to recall being quoted $149.00 for it
since I did not send in $49.00 upgrade offer card that Zenith
supposedly sent me in March but that I, of course, never received.)
Has anyone been tracking the ROM releases? I stopped wasting my time
after about 4 replacements with no noticable improvements.
So what do you all think? Is my Z-248 about ready to become a
doorstop? Has anyone else had this much "fun" with there Z-248s.
I am really beginning to think that it is time to pitch the Z-248 and
hope that I have been a good enough boy this year that Santa will
bring me a SPARCstationI for Xmas (or least a 386i) and I will be able
to put my Zenith out of my misery as all it is good for is to run
Telix so I can log into a computer that works.
Any and all flames, sympathy notes, hints, RTFM's, or whatever will be
appreciated.
Tim Smith - Technical Consultant
US mail:Sun Microsystems E-mail:
6797 Dorsey Road internet:tgsmith@east.sun.com
Suite 4 uucp :sundc!tgsmith
Baltimore, MD 21227
MaBell :(301)379-5000drezac@dcscg1.UUCP (Duane L. Rezac) (12/23/89)
From article <10826@sundc.East.Sun.COM>, by tgsmith@sundc.East.Sun.COM (Tim Smith - Consultant Sun Baltimore): > > Anyone out there want to answer a few questions for me? > > > My favorite gripe is the COM3 boondoggle that Zenith perpetrated on > the government - the machine had to have 2 serial ports so Zenith > provided COM1 and LPT1 on one card and COM3 and LPT2 on another card. >............(stuff deleted) > Tim Smith - Technical Consultant I think that the COM3 board is a piece of Junk too. The tech data is propraitary, so tech data for writing your own drivers is basically non- exsistant. But don't gripe to Zenith about it. If my memory serves me right the reason for the funky com3 board was a *GOVERNMENT* requirement for a special port configuration ( I think it was to enable connections to certain gov. owned systems) and the com3 board is what was needed to meet that requirement. Duane L. Rezac -- Verse of the Hour: "Blessed is the man whom God corrects; so do not despise the discipline of the Almighty." Job 5:17 -- +-----------------------+---------------------------------------------------+ | Duane L. Rezac |These views are my own, and NOT representitive of my place| | dsacg1!dcscg1!drezac drezac@dcscg1.dcsc.dla.mil of Employment. | +-----------------------+---------------------------------------------------+
tom@tnc.UUCP (Tom Buchsbaum) (12/24/89)
The Zenith Z-248 model which was sold to the Department of Defense was part of a contract for computer SYSTEMS, not 'IBM PC's or equivalents'. The systems had to perform many functions required by the government, and Zenith provided a very broad suite of pripherals and software to satisfy these requirements. Being able to turn to a large list of compatible items, government users found it extremely easy to configure a SYSTEM to accomplish a need, with no worry about compatibility and no need for a computer expert to study volumes of manuals to figure out how to integrate peripheral equipment and software. The COM3 port on the Z248 is a syncronous port which is used by a wide variety of communications software provided to the government under that contract to allow terminal emulations for attachment to various government owned mainframes and minicomputers. The successs of the concept of a full suite of compatible items can best be measured by the great numbers of computer systems ordered from this contract during its three year life: over 400,000 systems. Complaining that COM3 is not equal to COM2 is moot. COM3 accompishes its unique mission. Curiosity: How did you, as a member of private industry, come into posession of a government issue Z248? Your complaint of not receiving an upgrade offer for MS-DOS 3.3+ -- Are you the registered owner of your DOS, did you mail your end-user license agreement? Tom Buchsbaum tom@tnc.UUCP Disclaimer: The above is my personal opinion.
tgsmith@sundc.East.Sun.COM (Tim Smith - Consultant Sun Baltimore) (12/27/89)
In article <244@tnc.UUCP> you write: >The Zenith Z-248 model which was sold to the Department of Defense was >part of a contract for computer SYSTEMS, not 'IBM PC's or equivalents'. >The systems had to perform many functions required by the government, >and Zenith provided a very broad suite of pripherals and software to >satisfy these requirements. Being able to turn to a large list of >compatible items, government users found it extremely easy to configure >a SYSTEM to accomplish a need, with no worry about compatibility and no >need for a computer expert to study volumes of manuals to figure out how >to integrate peripheral equipment and software. The COM3 port on the >Z248 is a syncronous port which is used by a wide variety of communications >software provided to the government under that contract to allow terminal >emulations for attachment to various government owned mainframes and >minicomputers. The successs of the concept of a full suite of compatible >items can best be measured by the great numbers of computer systems ordered >from this contract during its three year life: over 400,000 systems. > >Complaining that COM3 is not equal to COM2 is moot. COM3 accompishes >its unique mission. Well that is an excellent explanation which actually makes sense and sounds completely reasonable. I know of quite a few people with the government who were never given a an explanation like this to explain why their Zenith's were not IBM compatible and would have loved to have it. The supply department at my former Navy employer REQUIRED that all IBM PC type machines be purchased from the Zenith contract. If the supply department had provided accurate detailed information to the people who they were supposed to be supporting maybe we things would have worked out better and I would not gripe so loudly. As it turns out the Zenith was "advertised" by management and supply to me and my co-workers as a "fully compatible IBM AT clone with superior performance at a significant cost savings to the Navy". If we had know that the Z-248 was not "compatible" we would have made damn sure we spec'ed something that was. Of course supply would not have let us buy anything not on the Zenith contract and we still would have been screwed but at least we would know why things did not work with the Z-248. >Curiosity: How did you, as a member of private industry, come into posession >of a government issue Z248? Your complaint of not receiving an upgrade offer >for MS-DOS 3.3+ -- Are you the registered owner of your DOS, did you mail >your end-user license agreement? As a former employee of the US Naval Academy I was given the opportunity to purchase a Z-248 through the Navy. Yep, I am a registered owner and as a matter of fact did upgrade to MS-DOS 3.21 via an upgrade coupon from Zenith. I had hoped that 3.21 would make life happier. I am still interested in hearing from anyone who knows how to make a SCSI interface card work with the Z-248. I want to hook up a SCSI CD-ROM to my machine. I have heard rumors that Zenith is readying a new BIOS for release sometime next year that will allow more disks to work with the Z-248-anyone out there able to confirm/deny this? Does anyone have a good source of tech info on the Z-248 (yes I do have the tech reference book)? BBS's? Anyone know of a dealer who will sell me stuff that they can guarantee will work with the Z-248? I would like to get the above mentioned SCSI interface card and would also like to see if new ROMS will help any of my woes but I would like to find someone who KNOWS the answers in advance instead of someone who has lots of things to try that may or may not help. Where is everyone getting their good technical info? --tim std disc: If the opinions above were not my personal, private opinions you would be paying to hear them. PS: Once again the net.world has had the answers for me. Even though I am a ~5 year net veteran I am always amazed at how great a resource the net is.
MICHAEL_DUANE_SETZER@cup.portal.com (12/28/89)
I have a Zenith Zenith Z-386, and a Zenith 241 (the 6 mhz version of the 248) and it has 19 com ports (the standard COM1 and 18 special ports) and it has worked great for 3 years running 6 days a week, generally from 8am to 9:30pm. It is a servor on an EZLAN network with 10 Z-148s, 1 Z-158, and 6 - Z-159s. Have never had any problems with any of the zenith'z other than one that arrived with a dead power supply. Sorry, to hear your having problems with your 241. Michael Setzer II, COmputer Science Instructor, GUAM
jthomas@NMSU.EDU (01/01/90)
Tim> While I am bothering you all... Has anyone used Zenith's MS-DOS 3.3+? Tim> Is it worth the price? (I seem to recall being quoted $149.00 for it Tim> since I did not send in $49.00 upgrade offer card that Zenith Tim> supposedly sent me in March but that I, of course, never received.) How about a survey? Did anyone receive this "notice"? I sure didn't! Jim
oconnell@unmvax.cs.unm.edu (Pat O'Connell) (01/10/90)
Yes, I got the upgrade--I talked to the Zenith factory rep at a school computer fair, and was put on a mailing list, I guess. When I got my Z286, I didn't get the registration card for the DOS (3.21), and told the rep of this fact. If there's any reps out there--I never did get the computer manual for my old style Z286 (looks like a Z159). And the dealer was never successful in getting a copy from Zenith (he _did_ try). Comments from Zenith people would be appreciated (email OK). Pat O'Connell