jin@spdcc.COM (Jerry Natowitz) (01/14/91)
Would anyone help this poor defenseless man from making the wrong choice
when confronted by the myriads of ads in Computer Shopper? I sort of
know what I want: a 386 DX, 25 or 33 MHz, 4 MB RAM, probably cached,
3.5 and 5.25 floppies, at least 65 MB of hard disk, and a 1024X768 color
monitor. I intend to start with DOS, but may add/switch to UNIX later.
What I haven't the foggiest about is:
1) Aside from cache, are all 386-25 systems equivalent? Are all 386-33?
a) Do they all use the same speed memory, the same speed cache?
2) Some ads claim benchmarks such as MIPS, Landmark, and Norton SI. What do
these measure?
3) What are the different types of disk controllers (IDE, ESDI, RLL, MFM, SCSI)
and how fast are they? Are they all sufficient to control 2 floppies
and (eventually) 2 hard disks?
4) And what about hard drive manufacturers? Western Digital, Conner,
Seagate, and a slew of others?
5) What is the difference between 1024 VGA, Super-VGA, and Multiscan? Are there
differences between the various VGA controllers: Paradise, Genoa, etc.)
How about monitors?
6) How reliable are these companies WRT to telling you what components they
use?
7) How about power supplies? (Yes, I know I need one :-), is 200 watts enough?)
And yes, I am a PC-Virgin, I'm typing away on my Zenith/Heath H89, 64K of
CP/M power :-) :-) :-)
Thanks to all who took they time to read this, and more thanks to those who
reply. I will summarise any replies and post them if there is interest.
--
Jerry Natowitz
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