🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <799@houxu.UUCP> jhv@houxu.UUCP (James Van Ornum) writes:
>I understand that the US Air Force Academy is selling Zenith Z-100's to the
>incoming freashman class starting this year.  Would someone on the net be
>willing to confirm this rumor?  I am considering the purchase of such a unit
>to duplicate what my son will be working with, and I am trying to weight the
>advantages of an exact duplication vs some other PC-clone.  The insight of
>the net will aid this evaluation.  Thanks.
>-----------------------
>	James Van Ornum, AT&T (Information Systems), houxu!jhv

Well, I can't say as to whether the USAF is handing out Z-100's, but I
can tell you a number of things about it, mainly since I'm typing this
on a Z-100 I received from Clarkson University.  (We were number one! :-)
<in handing out computers to all incoming students, that is>

Clarkson began issuing computers about 4 years ago, after having decided
on the Zenith Z-100.  The reasons for this included that the machine was
technically superior to most other machines avilable, and was available to
Clarkson at a reasonable (VERY) price.  The Z-100 is a dual processor
machine; it contains both an 8085 and an 8088, which in later models runs
at a full 8 MHz.  A number of people at Clarkson, including me as of this
fall, have installed 8MHz V20's in the '100s as well, with no trouble.

The '100 is *NOT* a PC compatible, at least out of the box.  It *IS* an
MS-DOS machine, of which MS-DOS 2.11 is what I'm using now; 3.x should
be out soon.  My machine is 8MHz, 2 360K floppies, 768K on the motherboard,
2 serial ports, 1 parallel port. (comes with 256K, can plug in standard
chips to expand it to full 768K)  A number of students at Clarkson have
hacked apart various PC programs to run on the '100, but for around $600,
you can buy one of two PC emulation boards, which do an excellent job of
making the Z think it's a PC clone.  Graphics resolution is very good,
although the exact numbers escape me at the moment.. 640X320 (?) plus
higher resolution via a number of tricks.  A C.U. student developed a
MacPaint type program which is simply incredible -- uses a Microsoft
serial mouse, which I also have.

Anyhow, if you want more gory details, let me know; I'd be happy to
help.  However, I do not think the '100 is not in production anymore;
the contract with the US Government expired, and is being replaced
by the '200, which IS an AT clone.  Whatever the case, Zenith is a
tremendously reliable product; I think Clarkson has had 1 machine so
far been bad out of the box, and no repairs have been more than $30.

-dg-

...!ihnp4!chinet!helm!dave
...!philabs!sbcs!helm!dave

Note:  The opinions expressed above are mine alone, and do not reflect
in any way those of the US Government, the USAF, Clarkson University,
or anyone else who has an interest in this message.  I don't want anyone
on my back.. :-)

"Just another BITNETter trying to get home."