PEARSON@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA (11/22/83)
From: William Pearson <PEARSON@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA> There seems to be a pretty general impression out there that although the IBM-PC is good machine, it is overpriced. If you are willing to treat the PC as a kit, prices are quite competitive. To buy a cheap PC do the following: Buy an IBM-PC with floppy disk controller but no drives. List: $1575 (many stores will sell this because IBM drives have been in short supply and they can sell the drive) Get the color graphics adapter : $244. Buy two Tandon TM100-2 drives from a mail order house. Prices range from $240 - $260. A small mail order place that doesn't take out full page ads in Byte may be a little cheaper. Buy 2 - 3 sets of 9 4164 64K RAM chips ($55 from PC mail order houses, sometimes less from chip mail order houses). Buy a B/W monitor $130-150. You now have a 192K, 2 - 320K floppy system for: $2569. Add $135 for serial port and clock/calendar (AST I/O Plus). Add DOS for $40. There is no cheaper machine with similar capabilities (memory, graphics, communications, software support). In addition, some store will discount the IBM prices, especially if you work for a company or school that is getting an IBM discount (which range past 25%, but discount the list price of disk drives.) If you wand a cheaper machine, try the Heath Z-100 kit, (All in one) for $2000 + $250 for the second drive, or $1900 + $250 +$150 for the low profile (requires the $150 monitor). The graphics on the Z-10 are better, (higher resolution, no flashing), but not IBM compatible when I last looked. Z-100's wired are selling for around $2500 at discount, which includes CPM85 (standard 8 bit CP/M), MS-DOS, some BASICs, and for a short time Lotus 1-2-3. The Z-100 also inclues a parallel and two serial ports. The only problem with it is its not an IBM-PC, and Heath/Zenith are very slow releasing software. It has 192K max on the board, additional 256K for $600. (You can get 512K for an IBM at that price). One last comment - putting an IBM-PC together yourself is very easy. I have told several non-computer/hacker/EE types to try it, and they have had no trouble. The PC comes with a diagnostics disk, which you can run for several hours to test the disk drives, the only thing that might be flakey. I have been very surprised that the IBM-PC is both an IBM product, the most popular computer on the market, and very price competitive. Why buy and Eagle or Corona or Columbia when you can build an IBM for the same price. Bill Pearson -------
towson%amsaa@sri-unix.UUCP (11/23/83)
From: David Towson (CSD) <towson@amsaa> Right on! I put together an IBM-PC with 256K memory, a pair of 360K drives, the color graphics adapter and a surplus 19" Conrac color monitor for $3000 including DOS 2.0 and the Technical Reference Manual. The only problem I had was that in addition to the R,G and B color signals I also had to use the intensity signal from the color graphics adapter if I wanted to have the full "sixteen colors" (actually two intensities of each color). The standard color monitor didn't have an intensity input, so I had to make one using three resistive summing networks - simple, but effective. I also needed a composite sync signal, which is generated on the color graphics board, but is not brought out on the rear connector. I brought it out on pin 7, which was unused. It works fine, and I could not possibly have gotten this much PC any other way. I decided to go with a "real PC" because I didn't want to make a career out of doing compatibility analyses on the various PC clones. Dave
jpm@bnl.UUCP (John McNamee) (11/27/83)
You forgot to say that you can also buy a Seequa Chameleon for $2k assembled and it includes a Z80 in addition to the usual IBM-PC compatability. Even has some reasonable software in the package. John McNamee uucp: ..!decvax!philabs!sbcs!bnl!jpm Arpa: jpm@BNL
KLUDGE%mit-mc@sri-unix.UUCP (11/28/83)
From: "James J. Frimmel,Jr." <KLUDGE@mit-mc> I would not even consider buying a Chameleon from Seequa (I did once, ouch)! After 3 ROM changes, several trips to the factory, and lots of aggravation, our Chameleon STILL does not run several major PC software packages, STILL cannot run CP/M, and STILL cannot be carried around without generating lacerated hands from the STUPID sharp-edged handle. There are a few good things to say about the Chameleon, price/performance-wise, but your peace of mind may be depleted severely if you must cope with one. My advise to anyone thinking about the Chameleon is: don't. Best thing to do would be to mark your calendars for March '84, to check into it then, after some debugging time. Ciao...Jim Frimmel