🚀 go-pugleaf

bathurst@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Bruce Bathurst) writes:
>istuart@nyx.cs.du.edu (Ian Stuart) writes:
>>(Steve Chesney x4662) writes:
>>>Since she is used to our 386, it seems slow to her.  Are there any cheap 
>>>and simple upgrades that we could try to alleviate this?

>>Unfortunatly there is no way to make any real improvements to an XT,
>>without spending enough money to buy another computer.

>This is true of those who keep their computers in tune.

    Yes, but it's especially true for owners of XT's because XT parts are 
for the most part incompatible with AT parts. Take motherboard upgrades 
for example. If I want to upgrade my motherboard in my AT at home then 
I just buy a new board and plug all the existing AT stuff into it and off 
I go. But XT's aren't so easy. When you upgrade from XT to 286 or better 
all sorts of things need to changed. If the keyboard doesn't have an XT/AT 
switch you need a new keyboard. You are also guaranteed to have to upgrade 
your hard disk controller to 16 bit; probably your floppy controller too.
Since some AT boards are 1" taller than XT boards get a new case, and since 
your old XT power supply won't fit in the new case, you need a new power 
supply too. If you have an old 8-bit EMS board, it's useless (anybody want 
to buy an old Intel Aboveboard?), as are the jillions of slow 256K DRAMs 
that are plugged into it.

    On the brighter side, you can probably keep your old video card and 
monitor plus any serial, parallel, or modem/fax cards. Usually that amounts 
to less than 30% of the components in the system.

    As someone who spent countless hours experimenting with V20's and 
Intel Inboards, I can attest that there *are* things that you can do to 
jack up an XT, but on the whole I would have to agree that the only worth-
while way to spend upgrade money is to just buy a brand new PC. 386SX's 
are cheap these days.

>My point is that those improvements suggested by Mr. Cheny could make
>a great difference when combined.  Computers, like cars, should be
>carefully tuned when new and kept that way.

    I agree that all of Steve's suggestions are good ones, but in my 
opinion MSDOS boxes have undergone more drastic improvements in the last 
8 years than cars have in the last 3 decades. 

--
Nathan Engle                        Software Juggler
Psychology Department               Indiana University
nate@psygate.psych.indiana.edu      nengle@copper.ucs.indiana.edu