🚀 go-pugleaf

> If you have experience using or servicing Tandon and/or Wells American
> personal computers 

	I recently bought a Wells-American CompuStar in what I consider a 
dream configuration:  80386 cpu with 2 5.25" inch disk drives (one 1.2M,
one 360K), 2 1.44M 3.5" disk drives (that's four floppies total) and a
40M hard drive, which still leaves me with a full-height drive bay left.    
I added the VGA expansion (and since I passed on their monitors and bought
a Seiko CM-1430) I can someday support 1024*768 video resolution if I could
ever find software that would want to do such a thing.  
	Considering that I  upgraded from a  five-year old IBM PC, the
speed-up is dramatic, but then again, so would anything.  And the diskette
situation confused the heck out of someone who was used to a PS/2 model
25, but who acquired a PC (and needed 3.5 -> 5.25 inch conversion). Having
been used to doing everything at the "A> prompt" having the programs
reside on "E>" was a little mind-blowing. 
	Compatibilitywise, it runs IBM's own PC-DOS. They sell OS/2, but
I saw no reason.  It loads Leisure Suit Larry screens almost instantaneously.
	Wells-American makes a big deal of the following: the CPU is on
a seperate module, and for that matter so is the bus.  You can buy it with
a 80286, then change to a 80386 later, or in what is a more likely scenario,
change it from a 16MHz to a 25Hz, or (and this is sheer speculation) wait
a while and go from 386 to 486.  You can also add Micro-Channel circuitry,
if there ever presents a pressing need to do this.
	And one other thing: this machine will never be confused for a
laptop.  It is big. As a tower, it's about 7 inches wide, and a little
over an AT length high AND deep (it's almost square).  I heard that some
computer magazine said it met the army's definition of portable (which
is that if a battalion can move it, it's portable).  Actually, I was
able to carry it up three flights of stairs by its handle, but at over
50 pounds, I'm glad I didn't drop it on my toe, and I did have to use
both hands.
	 Price: at about $5000 complete, you could get an almost comparable
system for less (or more, for that matter).  I don't think anybody sells
an exactly comparable system (for instance, I've never seen any other
system with room for more than 5 storage devices. With 5 installed, I
still have room for 1 or 2 more.) Similarly, I have six free expansion
slots. For a price, I could get 5 MCA slots or 6 more regular slots 
(13 all told).  That's expandability to the point of overkill, but hey,
I'm not complaining.



-- 
	        Craig Werner   (future MD/PhD, 4.5 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)
                  "Doonesbury is more important than self-respect."