ghenniga@hertz.ee (Gary Hennigan) (05/23/91)
It looks like I might have a little extra money this Summer so I was thinking about upgrading my M55sx in some way and was wondering what experience and suggestions others might have on the subject. Here are some of the possibilities, in order of preference: 1) Upgrade to a M65sx (I really don't know the difference, does the 65 run at 20MHz?) or maybe to a full 32bit M70 (Is this possible?). 2) Buy another ESDI (external?) drive. Does the existing ESDI controller support more than one ESDI drive? 3) More memory. I already have 4MB on the mother board, 2 2MB modules, so this would include the purchase of an "above-board". I don't want to purchase a 4MB module since this would mean I'd have to get rid of one of the 2Mb modules I already have, not to mention the price of the 4MB modules. 4) Purchase of an MCA SCSI controller board and a SCSI hard-disk. I haven't seen many comments on the performance of SCSI in the MCA, any comments, like is there a controller that is SCSI-2 compliant or is SCSI-2 only for 32bit busses? 5) Upgrade VGA->XGA. I hear the XGA is still way up there in terms of price and if I did this I'd have to purchase a new color monitor as well. I can't see the use of an SVGA capable card with only a VGA monitor. 6) Purchase of a math co-processor. Low priority since I can dial up our campus and run floating point codes on machines that PC couldn't, in it's wildest dreams, hope to beat in floating point performance. This is kinda important since I live in relatively small city with no direct IBM reps., just ComputerLand and IBM Student Reps. who are more interested in their commission than in getting me a good deal, so, any and all suggestions/comments would be greatly appreciated, including any other options people have chosen which I didn't list above. Thanks a bundle, -- Gary Hennigan +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ + e-mail: ghenniga@NMSU.Edu, henninsf@maxwel.NMSU.Edu + + Electrical Engineering; PhD Student, Computational Electromagnetics + + Physical Science Laboratory (ASS)istant systems programmer + +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
nef@mace.cc.purdue.edu (paulhicks) (05/23/91)
In article <GHENNIGA.91May22122524@hertz.ee> ghenniga@hertz.ee (Gary Hennigan) writes: > >It looks like I might have a little extra money this Summer so I was thinking >about upgrading my M55sx in some way and was wondering what experience and >suggestions others might have on the subject. Here are some of the >possibilities, in order of preference: > >Thanks a bundle, >-- >Gary Hennigan I might suggest replacing the 60Meg of 30Meg drive with a non-IBM 120 Meg drive, I have seen a few advertised in the back of 'Computer Shopper'. Aparently its as simple as pulling the old one out and ticking the new one in. 'course the cost is about $1000, but then again it may be worth it to you. I haven't done this ,so if you do decide to do it your on your own! Good luck, Paul Please let me know what you decide!
kirsch@ux.acs.umn.edu (Dave Kirsch) (05/27/91)
In article <7525@mace.cc.purdue.edu> nef@mace.cc.purdue.edu (paulhicks) writes: >In article <GHENNIGA.91May22122524@hertz.ee> ghenniga@hertz.ee (Gary Hennigan) writes: >> >>It looks like I might have a little extra money this Summer so I was thinking >>about upgrading my M55sx in some way and was wondering what experience and >>suggestions others might have on the subject. Here are some of the >>possibilities, in order of preference: > >I might suggest replacing the 60Meg of 30Meg drive with a non-IBM >120 Meg drive, I have seen a few advertised in the back of >'Computer Shopper'. Aparently its as simple as pulling the old one >out and ticking the new one in. 'course the cost is about $1000, >but then again it may be worth it to you. Yikes! I've seen 120 Meg replacements for PS/2 machines in the $500 range in the back of Reseller News and PC Week; at that price, I'd dump a 30-meg or 60-meg drive out of a Model 55/70/etc. and replace it in a flash. I haven't called to double check, but I'm guessing these are the drives with cartridge-type edge connectors that snap into place (i.e. no cables, work with machines with ESDI interfaces). If anyone's interested in the phone # of one of these places, let me know; if there's enough interest, I'll post the information. I have no idea how reputable these companies are, but I'll be happy to give out the information if people request it. Dave Kirsch kirsch@ux.acs.umn.edu