🚀 go-pugleaf

In <1992Sep6.182117.17817@news2.cis.umn.edu> mmoore@donald.cs.umn.edu ("None of ya Bizness") writes:

>In article <lakg3gINNic6@aludra.usc.edu> jjung@usc.edu (John Jung) writes:
>$(I am not an IBM nut, so if I say something vague that is important, please
>$tell me, so I can clarify it.)
>$
>$  A friend of mine has (from what I can tell) an old IBM compatible. He already
>$has a 20 meg hard drive, a mouse, a (semi-broken) printer, and a modem (he
>$has a Prodigy account). However, my friend would love to be able to do WYSIWYG
>$word processing and maybe a little programming.
>$
>$  So my question is:
>$
>$	What computer set up do you recommend for me friend?
>$
>$  Please try to be as economical as possible, since I don't know how much he
>$wants to spend.

>Well if he wants to do any serious type computing he's gonna need at
>least a 386 or better.  He could slied with a 286 but that's gonna be
>slow as all hell.

>$(I was personally thinking of recommending a PS/1 with Windows 3.x and an Epson
>$compatible printer.)			      ^^^^

>Yiiiikes! No!  This may not be the group to say this but DON'T BUY a
>PS/1!!!  Get a clone.  If you wanna stick to the IBM nbame then at
>least get a PS/2.

 I'd generally avoid the IBM line up if at all possible.  We have a PS/2 
Model 70 here at work.  For one thing peripheral cards are more expensive
because of the MCA not being well supported.  And everything about them in
general is non-standard, thus expensive.  They use modified harddrives, and
our 60 Meg drive is dying, but a new 120 Meg drive for the PS/2 costs around
$800-900.

 Stay away from Packard Bell, or Leading Technology.  They both make junk.
You could buy a mail order clone from some place like Gateway, Dell, Zeos, etc.
and do well.

 For what it sounds like you friend wants to do I'd recommend this:

 386SX-25 with around 4 Megs of RAM.
 120 Meg harddrive
 VGA color monitor

 Looking thru Computer Shopper you can buy a setup something like this for
around $1200.  Actually it looks like Digital Direct is offering one of the
best deals on these.

 You ought to be able to find something locally besides IBM or Packard Bell.

 My rule is: If it looks cheap mechanically it probably is cheap electrically.


 All of the above are just opinions.



-- 
Steve Sheldon         sheldon@iastate.edu
Iowa Cooperative Soil Survey Resource Unit
2142 Agronomy, Iowa State University  (515) 294-5429