umhudso7@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Wayne Hudson) (10/24/90)
I've got a Wells-American 80286 tower (adaptable/replacable bus, cpu, etc.) and I want to upgrade. UNFORTUNATELY, Wells is no longer arouund (chapter 11, bankrupt, kaput...) and I'm STUCK! I want to move up to a '386, but the architecture is proprietary (the replceable cpu card is seprate from the motherboard, and about the size of a full-length card). I can't just buy Hauppapuge (or whoever) motherboard for it because of this proprietary architecture. WHAT AM I GONNA DO?!?!? Anyone have any ideas? I'd appreciate 'em. -- Wayne Hudson "Optimism:the belief that everything will work out - umhudso7@ccu.umanitoba.ca fine. Irrational, bordering on insane" K9, Dr. Who
fayne@tellabs.com (Jeffrey Fayne) (10/25/90)
In article <1990Oct23.194330.19331@ccu.umanitoba.ca> umhudso7@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Wayne Hudson) writes: >I've got a Wells-American 80286 tower (adaptable/replacable bus, cpu, etc.) >and I want to upgrade. UNFORTUNATELY, Wells is no longer arouund >(chapter 11, bankrupt, kaput...) and I'm STUCK! I want to move up to >a '386, but the architecture is proprietary (the replceable cpu card is >seprate from the motherboard, and about the size of a full-length card). >I can't just buy Hauppapuge (or whoever) motherboard for it because of >this proprietary architecture. WHAT AM I GONNA DO?!?!? Anyone have any >ideas? I'd appreciate 'em. >-- As one orphaned Wells American owner to another you have my sympathies :^) I'm not in such a bad position as you as I own the older AT style machines, but still stuck in the same boat. As I see it you have several options: 1) Dump it and cut your losses. 2) Keep it as a 'backup' machine (wife/kids/so would use it, start a BBS, etc...) 3) Play detective. Wells American was a fairly large corporation, they must have cranked out quite a number of 386 boards for your machine. SOMEONE, either a wholesaler, liquidator or what's left of Wells management must still have some around. If so, maybe you can pick up the 386 upgrade quite cheap. InfoWorld ran an article about Wells awhile back and claimed that some service company was taking Wells' calls. I tried (needed a BIOS upgrade to support 1.44M) but never got through (answering machine, left messages, never a return call). Good luck in your quest. Keep me posted as to what you find out about Wells if you choose #3. - Jeff Moral: Never buy a 'non-standard' system. I'll take a standard style motherboard/case/pwr supply/video/kyboard every time. You can always find replacements/upgrades :^) -- _____________________________________________________________________________ F-14 | _ | | Jeffrey M. Fayne Tomcat | /^ ^\ | | Tellabs, Inc. Lisle, IL 60532 ____________|_( . )_|____________ | 708-512-7726 FAX:708-852-7346 --*/--|_| (___) |_|--\*-- | fayne@tellabs.com * O O * fjs | #include<StdDisclaimer.h> _____________________________________________________________________________
werner@aecom.yu.edu (Craig Werner) (10/27/90)
In article <4324@tellab5.tellabs.com>, fayne@tellabs.com (Jeffrey Fayne) writes: > In article <1990Oct23.194330.19331@ccu.umanitoba.ca> umhudso7@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Wayne Hudson) writes: > >I've got a Wells-American 80286 tower (adaptable/replacable bus, cpu, etc.) > >and I want to upgrade. UNFORTUNATELY, Wells is no longer arouund Wells-American is of course defunct. However, their service contracts were taken over by CompuSciences, Inc. 151A Riverchase Way, Lexington SC. I know that they have at least 1 extra 386-16 module, since I recently fried mine and they swapped it for a reasonable fee. Presumably they have others, though at the time of their bankruptcy, the 386-20 upgrade was $2495. You can get a generic 386SX system with hard disk and monitor for that price now. (Hey, memory was $610 a megabyte then too, back in 1988.) Still, I love that 4 floppy, 2 hard drive tower. -- Craig Werner (future MD/PhD, 5.5 years down, 2.5 to go) werner@aecom.YU.EDU -- Albert Einstein College of Medicine (1935-14E Eastchester Rd., Bronx NY 10461, 212-931-2517) "Viruses do to cells what Groucho did to Freedonia."