🚀 go-pugleaf

>... !ucbvax!cory!ttt           Mark III Address
>I have seen similar discussions for other similar suppliers (eg Tennis
>        Equipment and Camera stuff). How about some feedback?
>        Who's good ... who's not kind of stuff.

        Sounds like a good topic.  I bought a PC Clone and a lot  of
        other   stuff   recently.   I'll  start  out  with  my  good
        experiences.

                          CompuAdd Of Austin TX

        I  ordered  their  Career  Starter  Kit.   This  includes  a
        computer,  keyboard,  monitor, display adapter, and printer.
        The bundled software includes MS-Dos 3.2  GWBASIC,  and  the
        ZEN  software  series.  All  the  necessary  cables, printer
        paper, and 10 blank diskettes are included.

        The computer is a 8MHZ PC clone with an  AT-style  keyboard.
        The  nameplate  says  it's  a Standard Turbo-88, but all the
        documents refer to it as the  PC  II.  Since  the  documents
        match  the  computer  and  it  looks  just like a PCII I saw
        elsewhere, I conclude that it is a private label version  of
        the  PC  II.  You can put up to 1 MB on the motherboard, and
        it comes with a driver to use the additional 384kb as a  ram
        disk.  It also has a clock, one floppy disk drive and a game
        port.

        The monitor is a 12 inch amber one made by Goldstar.  I paid
        20  bucks  to  have  them  upgrade  the display adapter to a
        Hercules clone card.  The printer it is a  Citizen  120D.  I
        think that the bundled monitor and printer change sometimes,
        so you should ask about the models included if you order.

        In addition to the starter kit I ordered 768K of  additional
        RAM  for  the  system,  a 30MB half height hard disk, a 1200
        baud short card modem and a 8MHZ 8087 coprocessor chip.

        The salespeople I dealt with over the phone were polite  and
        knowledgeable    about   their   equipment.    I   had   one
        self-inflicted minor hassle caused by the  me  exceeding  my
        limit   on   my   Master  Card,  which  was  straighted  out
        expeditiously.  I received my computer about a  week  and  a
        half after my order.

        When I checked out the computer, I found  that  the  memory,
        hard disk, modem, and 8087 had already been installed, which
        from what I have read isn't necessarily SOP  for  mail-order
        firms.  I  hooked up the monitor and keyboard and plugged in
        the power cable and stuck the MS-DOS diskette  in  the  disk
        drive  and  turned  the  sucker on.  It worked, shucks I had
        more trouble than this with my VCR.

        I had one problem with the computer.  It insisted  that  any
        floppy  disk  I  tried  to  write to was write protected.  I
        called CompuAdd technical support line  and  the  guy  there
        suggested  I check the alignment of the write protect sensor
        and LED.  I opened up the case and fiddled with  the  sensor
        awhile, after that the drive worked fine and has ever since.

        The Goldstar monitor has a little too much  persistence  for
        my  taste,  it  tends to make the characters a little blurry
        during rapid scrolling.  Other than that I like it fine, the
        amber  display  is very attractive.  It looks real nice when
        I'm running Microsoft Windows and PC Paintbrush.

        The monochrome graphics display adapter appears to be a good
        clone  of  the  Hercules  card,  at  least I've told several
        software packages that it is a Hercules card  and  they  all
        worked fine.

        The Citizen printer works fine too.  It has a correspondence
        mode  that  won't be mistaken for daisywheel output, but the
        output is quite  legible  in  correspondence  mode.  It  can
        emulate a IBM Graphics Printer and Epson FX-80 also.

        The modem is made by Everex, is Hayes-compatible  and  comes
        with  a communications program called Bitcom which isn't bad
        at all considering it comes bundled with the modem.

        The only problem I've  had  so  far  that  I  would  term  a
        hardware  compatibility  problem  is  that Microsoft Windows
        locks up when I try to use the RAM disk.  The 384KB  on  the
        motherboard,  which  isn't  included in the normal 640KB DOS
        partition, is configured as a 2nd bank of memory starting at
        128KB.  The included driver then uses it as a RAM disk.  The
        RAM disk works fine with all of my other software, but  with
        Windows it locks up.

        The ZEN Word that was bundled with the system  is  fine,  PC
        Magazine  gave  it  a  good  review in the Jan. 28 86 issue,
        which I agree with.  They also said that ZEN Spell is  junk,
        which  I  also  agree with.  ZEN Calc appears to be adequate
        for simple spreadsheet chores.  ZEN Link appears to be okay,
	but I like Bitcom better.

        A few weeks later I ordered an EMS card and  2MB  of  memory
        chips  from  them.  Again  no  hassles and the stuff came in
        about a week.  The memory chips were  still  in  the  static
        carriers,  so  I  had to plug them in myself, a tedious, but
        not too difficult job.  It stuck me as a little odd to  have
        a system with 48 times as much memory as my Apple II.

        The only problem I've had was that  the  range  of  possible
        output  ports  used  by the EMS board overlaps those used by
        the on board clock.  The EMS board driver apparently manages
        to  zero  out  the year when it scans the ports to determine
        how many EMS boards are installed.  I wrote a  quicky  Turbo
        Pascal  program to set the year back to 86, that is executed
        by my AUTOEXEC.BAT file.  I haven't gotten around to  trying
        the  technical  support  line to see if they have a patch to
        the driver yet.

        Windows works just fine with the RAM disk driver for the EMS
        card.

        All in all I  am  very  pleased  with  my  experiences  with
        CompuAdd.  While I wouldn't recommend a novice computer user
        use mail-order, there are some excellent bargains  available
        for the wary and experienced user.

                       Logic Array of Costa Mesa Ca

        I bought a 8MHZ NEC V20 chip to replace  my  8088-2.  Every-
        thing was fine - no muss, no fuss.

                           Jameco of Belmont CA

        I got a replacement power supply for my Apple II from  them.
        Same  deal,  the  delivery  was in a reasonable time, it was
        what I ordered, and it worked.  Okay in my book.

                   Northeastern Software of Shelton CT

        Here I had a lot of hassles.  The 800 number was hard to get
        through  on.  The  order  taker was curt and unknowledgeable
        about their  inventory.  Practically  all  the  prices  were
        different,  and  higher than the ones listed in their ad.  I
        was told that the offer of free  air  express  shipping  for
        orders  of  $150  or  more had been discontinued, but it was
        still mentioned in their ad next month.  I get a letter from
        them  next  week  saying they had been unable to me reach on
        the phone to confirm my order.  They hadn't  mentioned  that
        they  needed  to when I made the order or I would have given
        my work number instead of my home one.  When I finally get a
        package from them two items have been back ordered, but when
        my Master Card bill arrives, I have been billed for  all  of
        them,  which is tacky, if not illegal. 5 weeks later I tried
        to call them about the status of the item I hadn't  received
        and  I  got  put  on hold and apparently forgotten twice.  I
        gave up and sent them a letter canceling my  order  for  the
        last  item (Sidekick non-protected) and excluded the cost of
        the last item from my credit  card  payment,  with  an  note
        explaining  why  to the credit card company.  I don't intend
        to do business with them again.
	-------------------------------------------------------------

        Insert  standard  disclaimer  about  all  the  proper  names
        mentioned  above are probably trademarks and that everything
        I just said is my own opinion and not that of my company.
-- 
     Joel Upchurch @ CONCURRENT Computer Corporation (A Perkin-Elmer Company)
     Southern Development Center
     2486 Sand Lake Road/ Orlando, Florida 32809/ (305)850-1031
     {decvax!ucf-cs, ihnp4!pesnta, vax135!petsd, akgua!codas}!peora!joel