jtw@cbnewsh.att.com (jui-tai.wang) (03/19/91)
Following is edited and "beautified" summary on my experiences on two BSR 386 machines from DAK I responsed to a netter, and he suggested that maybe this may be interesting for some of you netters: BACKGROUND ---------- I have bought two (:-) BSR 386 machined from DAK. One for home use and one for my wife's office (which at this moment is also at home :-) I've my home BSR with the internal CD-ROM driver also. The other is the plain BSR 386 with 2 floppy drives. I got the one without CD-ROM first around last July, and then the one for my home use around last August. Right after I got my CD-ROM BSR 386, I got the catalog from DAK later and notice they then offered an external version of the CD-ROM also, and the bundle CD changed a little bit too. THE SOFTWARE ------------ 1. Bundled software: Most of the software are up to date: Windows, Quattro Pro, and Reflex are definitly of current version. I find the KeyFormDesigner less useful (boy, use function keys, Alt-keys and Ctrl-keys for drawing!!) I don't think the (separate) PC PaintBush is useful, because Windows has an almost identical one, and it is not a "window application" (also, this is not the latest version.) PC USA is neat, but the statistic info are not very current. (I doubt if there is an "up to date" PC USA available on market anyway. Wordstar is now up to 6.0, but 5.5 (which is what I got from the bundle) is pretty good. If not because I have settled on WordPerfect, I would have used the Wordstar (the only reason I settle on WordPerfect at this moment is just because my church use it also, and i don't want to waste time to convert files when I need to type up anything for my church.) (At this point I also want to give credit to BorLand: DAK offer Quattro Pro 1.0 at that time, and within half year BorLand came out with Quattro Pro 2.0. I called Borland at that time, explain to them, and they shipped the update free of charge to me very promptly...just as they advertised! Although I didn't bought the Quattro Pro from them, and don't even have an itemized invoice that show "Quattro Pro 1.0" from DAK - packing list from DAK only shows a bundle of software, not itemized for each software package.) A reminder: most of the "free" software are "OEM" type - you basically send registrations back to DAK. The Windows does NOT have the "DayKook" as you will get from Microsoft through direct/mail order stores - and in fact, I still can't find the registration card for Windows with the 2 packages I have received! I believe the only "original from vendor" is Wordstar - you send registration to Wordstar's company - forgot the name for now :-(). Grammatic, PC PaintBrush, Backup Pro, and the typewriter trainer may be kind of original from vendor also, since their menus looks like those you get from street. All other has a "BSR" lable on the disks also (such as Windows and Quattro Pro; not sure about Reflex) and the menus are not those "colors" version from the street. I didn't notice any functional difference though. 2. Installation: I think DAK(BSR? not sure who did it) has put in a lot of effort to make the installation very simple. I like their installation program a lot(include the installation of DOS 3.31), and it seems their followup is very good also: when i order the CD ROM version of BSR, they didn't have the Language CD and the Reference Library CD yet, so they shipped without them and insert a letter saying they will ship it to me later. They kept their word (though may be a bit long when i was waiting...but I was in no hurry also anyway.) Also, they sent me an update of VGA driver for my BSR (the one without CD-ROM drive), which include a fix/enhancement. I didn't use it since I didn't notice any problem in my case, and I don't need the enhancement the new driver provide anyway...but they seems to care for their reputation and therefore their customer. However, since I want a better(and thus means different) directory structure than DAK/BSR recommanded, I blow their installation program...Well, can't blame them because I'm now "hacking" instead of following instruction to install, although they could have improved the installation to allow flexible directory structure. (This seems to me that their target customer of this BSR computer is not some computer programmer/power user, but some people thus like to jump onto the computer bangwangon without detail knowledge of computer stuffs, such as archeticture, operating system, programming etc.) 2. Bundled CD-ROMs: I won't really say the CD is very out of date - its like your school library, books are never most up-to-date, but still provide a good wealth of information and knowledge. If I want to use it for "marketing research" type of application, then forget it...I need to shell out thousands of dollar to get stuff from Lotus (BTW, I've used those Lotus marketplace CD ROM also to find financial info of some industries and companies also, and find them not very up-to-date either...If I really want to get hot fresh news and information, Dow Jones Retrieve or newspaper is probably still the best source, unless I work for Wall Street :-) I've read from net that BSR is working on or will distribute an improved CD player software (well, maybe what you will get if order now is already the better one?)...I do experience some odd behavior with that CD Player software: things like no response if "press" the CLOSE or PLAY "botton" on the screen. Netters, mentioned a Sony CD player software that come with the package behaves better. Remember, when I order the CD-ROM, it was almost like first from DAK. I believe the Sony CD Player is bundled with the current CD-ROM. (DAK - do you read me? Will you send me the Sony CD Player also?!!) THE HARDWARE ------------ 1: VGA monitor: IMHO, the VGA hype may be a bit overdone, but weed out the "emotion" part and they do have a technical point. I haven't see those "bad" monitors myself, but compare with a other VGA monitors I've used at work, their VGA does look good. I find my eyes are better served by monochrome then color... after playing games on windows for a while, i'll find my eyes really "strangled!" I also find my eyes feel less stress after reading text for long time from monochrome monitor them from these VGA (or for that matter, workstation 19" screen!) monitors. I find screen background color/ brightness/contrast/surrounding color play a big factor. My eyes feel more comfort with black background screen "color" with modorate forground screen color. With the bright background colors of Windows (such as WHITE on the terminal!) I almost lost my sight! (Any research/authority have studies about this "ergonomic" aspect? Car manufacturers play this a lot nowadays, when will computer/monitor industry catch up?) Also, I notice that after running Windows games a while (and for that matter, bright colorful stuffs being displayed on screen for a long time) and return to normal Windows screen (such as my "green" background of program manager), it seem like the colors are a bit "faded"...it may be my eyes were over-stimulated by the colors/brightness of the games (bright screen), or the phosphurs(sp?) on the screen got over-stimulated and loss some of the brightness for a short while? 2. Motherboards: I found that the mother boards on the two machines are slightly different: factory configuration? Also, they use different VGA board. I forgot the H/W specific of the one without CD-ROM, but its ROM seems to generate bigger character. The one with CD-ROM seems to use a ATI OEM version of VGA board, and its ROM seems to generate slightly smaller (but in my opinion, prettier) characters. Didn't notice if there is any difference in graphic mode. I don't know what you will get. I ordered both with only 1 MB, but both machines came with 2 MB! (got 1 more MB free?) The one with CD ROM use SIMM, so I dont know why they put in the additional 1 MB SIMM (my only guess is since the machine was late, so they "make good" on it?) But the one without CD-ROM has 2 MB "soldered" onto the mother board (which means, if they really give me only 1 MB, I'll have to get 9 1 MB DIP RAM chips and do some soldering!), and a daughter board for additional 6 MB in SIMM. Just a note. Be reminded though: When I order the CD-ROM upgrade, there was not external CD-ROM drive offered by DAK. I believe DAK just tell BSR in Korea to manufacture/configure the system accordingly, and therefore BSR at that time may simply be using different motherboard for the two different versions of 386. Now DAK offer an external CD-ROM driver which you can install by yourself, I don't know what does the motherboard look like in their machines nowadays - technology change very fast. 3. HardDisk: When I inquired about the machine before I ordered, their technical support said the 40 MB IDE drive will probably from Seagate, but I got both machine with Western Digital IDE drive. Just remember that PC components nowadays are almost a GM car: you can probably go any buy a part for Olds and plug it into a Caddie :-) I just regret that i didn't get the 80 MB disk...practically, if I load all software that come with it on the 40 MB disk, I will have no space for real work at all (Windows takes about 10 MB already; Quattro takes about 5 MB; I don't know about GEM, but best guess is it may take about another 5 to 10 MB, and don't forget the fonts... and then count the Reflex, which may take another 5 MB (I use Paradox, which use about 8 - 10 MB, so my Reflex is still sitting there), Wordstar...40MB of HardDisk space is just not enough! (Well, to be fair, because I use the machine to do a lot of Paradox application development work, I just need at least 2-4 MB free disk space for my work and debug...and if you want to use the permanent swapfile on Windows, figure that in also...and don't forget, Windows automatically take 2 MB at least when it start in enhance mode for temporary swap file, unless you tell it not to...) (I'm planning to add another harddisk to my home BSR now - thinking about some hardcard, since I don't want to trash the IDE disk.) I didn't order the 80 MB option just because I was told the it was an RLL drive and seems to have a slower performance then the 40 MB one at that time...However, just recently I got Norton Utility 5.0 - no flame please - and run the SI on my BSR. NU report my 40 MB harddisk is in RLL format, and has a transfer rate of about 300 MB/sec. It does have a 1:1 interleave. 4. HardDisk Controller/Motherboard: I mentioned that my two BSR came with different mother board: the one without CD-ROM does not have the IDE disk controller on mother board, so I still lost 3/4 length slot to an IDE controller for the 40 MB Western Digital IDE drive. The one with CD-ROM driver has the IDE drive interface built onto the mother board, so I don't lost a slot there - the internal CD-ROM drive controller card takes a full length slot. (Just my opinion: it seems the motherboard for the BSR with CD-ROM is more mature/ sophesticate.) 5. CD-ROM drive: It may be just because my brother's CD(not ROM!) player is dirty or old (3 years "old" :-( now), sometime it can't play a CD properly. But once I put the same CD into the CD ROM player, I can listen the same CD from beginning to end without problem...mayber newer drive/technology have better tolerance? 6. Upgrade: I have put a co-processor in my home BSR and also pump it up all the way to 8 MB. You may need to do some searching work from your BSR manual to figure out how to set some dip switchs to tell you BSR "you have 8 MB now!" Strange enough, the one with internal CD-ROM need to have me to set some dip switch to make it know it has 8 MB, where as the one without CD-ROM does not need to do so! 7. CMOS settup: I noticed that although both machines I have ordered have CMOS setup versioned at 3.03 by Award, they are different! The one without the CD-ROM (have two floppies) allows me to choose to shadow video or BIOS ROM, whereas the one with the internal CD-ROM does NOT have this option at CMOS setup at all! Well, Windows does not want to any people to shadow the video ROM anyway, so it doesn't hurt, and I use QEMM to get more "low" RAM from my home BSR (since the CD-ROM driver eat almost 32 KB out out my precious lower 640 KB!) so it doesn't really matter to much. It is strange though. 8. VGA adaptor: The seems-to-be-ATI-OEM version of VGA adaptor have space for 2 more 256-4 bit 80 ns RAM. According to the manual, with the additional RAM it is able to diaplay 800x600 images, whereas with default 256 KB RAM it support only up to 640x400x16 images (ie, standard VGA). I didn't get the additional RAM chip to upgrade this adaptor, so I don't know what the net result is. The other VGA adaptor may or may not have space for additional RAM (didn't get it out to have a look yet), and the manual did not mention any possible upgrade hardware-wise, so I just assume there is no socket for additional RAM chip. Beware, I think this is just memory for image storage, not the VRAM that seem to speed up image processing on by CPU. Correction welcome. ------------------------- Some "ad" time: I was thinking about buying the PC from my company's employee sale also when I was thinking of buying from DAK. I've used AT&T's 386-base computers a lot and like their construct and design a lot also. However, I just can't afford the price at that time. Also, I don't need 24-hr non-stop operation from my computer anyway, so I can take a bit of risk from DAK (I still don't see any megazines about PC or otherwise mentioned about BSR computer!) If I'm in a position to get a file server or real power machine (read minimum 25 MHz 386 DX machines or above with 100 MB disk space with plenty of support, maybe EISA bus?) I'll then seriously consider machines from my company. (Well, why will I need this at home at the first place 8-) Richard Wang ATT-BL att!corona!jtw
JKT <JKT100@psuvm.psu.edu> (03/23/91)
I just wanted to follow up the orignal poster's finding about his
BSR 386SX/16 from DAK.
I had been in the market for a PC for a few weeks before DAK's
catalog arrived.... Looking at Computer Shopper had totally
turned me off to the clone market; every time I found a machine
that seemed to have a good price and be what I wanted, it was
missing something... Some would exclude the second floppy, some
would exclude a mouse, some would leave out the monitor.
Then I spotted DAK's PC offering. It was a 386SX for the price
most others were selling 286 PCs for, AND it was loaded. The
stack of included software was the kicker--I ordered 2 days after
receiving the catalog.
I've now had the PC for about 6 months and have NO complaints.
Like the original poster, I ordered mine with 1 meg and it came
with 2 megs free!! I too wish I'd opted for the 80 meg drive;
I did not install all the software that came with the PC, but
did install MicroStation PC 4.0, which takes up 11 megs...
The BSR does all I wanted it to do and more. I'm VERY satisfied.
Kurt
--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
|| Kurt Tappe (215) 363-9485 || With. Without. And who'll ||
|| 184 W. Valley Hill Rd. || deny it's what the fighting's ||
|| Malvern, PA 19355-2214 || all about? - Pink Floyd ||
|| jkt100@psuvm.psu.edu --------------------------------------||
|| jkt100@psuvm.bitnet jkt100%psuvm.bitnet@psuvax1 QLink: KurtTappe ||
-----------------------------------------------------------------------wdarden@nrtc.nrtc.northrop.com (Bill Darden <wdarden>) (03/30/91)
I recently installed a BSR 386/SX from DAK and experienced problems with the VGA controller. It would not work with Microsoft's Learning DOS v.2.0 for example. Other than that, it is an excellent value for a beginner. BiLL.....