AT VS 3B1

[T.H. White]

Thank for the responses. Yes, cost is an important factor. I would like to
just go out and purchase an AT clone and have DOS and XENIX running it.
I don't like XENIX too much mainly because it seems like a wimpy OS but
I am sure that is due to the fact that the hardware (AT) has a very hard
time supporting it. You can only have 64K address segments unless you
screw around with things underneath but then things don't always work
quite right. Thre is no demand paging which is a big bummmer. Either the
program you are running is in memory (all of it) or else it is all on
the disk and no in between. That means that no program can be longer
than 640K minus the size of XENIX. That is not very big! Unless you can
use the extended memory for addressing which I don't believe is possible.

I am very afraid to go out any buy a used 3B1 because I am afraid
something will go wrong with it and I cannot afford to buy an additional
3B1 for parts, or buy an expensive service contract, or afford to get it
repaired very many times. Steve @nuchat in Houston writes: A friend has
a 3B1 which is running V0 or V1 or something like that. Well I have seen
3B1's in action and they were running AT&T UNIX 5.2, so....

Also the 3B1 does in fact have a 16bit data bus but uses two fetches to
run at a 32bit addressing mode. It is not limited to 64K segments or
any of that crap that the AT is. There is a big difference here between
an AT 16 bits and a 3B1 which is 32 bits in actuality.

And the best of all, larry at grebyn!macom1 writes: You can buy a 386
clone for $1000! Where??? Not in computer shopper. Not anywhere except
maybe in the streets of NYC hot! You could probably get a motherboard
for that price with no memory, whoppie... Noww buy everything else like 2meg
of memory, a 40+meg HD, monitor, I/O ports, modem, and a UNIX. Now you
are over $5000! probably. No thanks. Good try though.

You know I have been reading Computer Shopper for the last year and I have
found out something very interesting: They always have the virtually the
same ads every month! Sure one ad says: get an AT motherboard for $200
Yeah, if you buy 10 of them. What the hell am I going to do with 10 of them?
Another says: get a complete system for $900 or something like that.
Yeah all except the monitor, modem, memory, old motherboards (made 5
years ago or so, still have to buy DOS or whatever, probably have to
buy some cable somewhere inside that they make exclusively that sells
for $50 or something, you know how it is. YES, some of the companies are
ok. I just had a friend that purchased a complete 286 system from
Tri-Star and was very good (so far). I think if I do buy one, it will be
from there because I know it is good.

A couple of more things that torque me off about those mail-order places:
Sure they give you an 800 number to call and another number that is not
toll free for information. Well, screw them. I will call the 800 number
anyways, and well if I can't get information, I go elsewhere. I would
suggest other people to do the same. And if you do order from a company,
you better sure as hell hope you got what you want because you CAN'T
return it! Sure you get 30 days or 15 days or whatever. Whooptie doo.
By the time UPS brings it (they deliver 3 times and then send back if
you aren't home) to your home, I don't sit around waiting all day for
the local UPS man to come so te odds are that it will be the 2nd or
3rd try for them to get it to me and that is usually 1 to 1-1/2 weeks
after I placed the order. Sure I can federal express for some ungodly
amount. And then you have to take time to set it all up (read the
Japanese manuals an all) and then finally after figuring out something
that they failed to tell you about, test the thing and find that it
doesn't work like you wanted. By this time you have had the machine
say for 3 or 4 days. Now you pack it back up and take it back to
your local neighborhood UPS place and pay mega$$ to have it sent back.
If you happen to get it back by the time the 30days is up you are lucky
and still have to pay that 15% restocking fee (15% of $1800) is
about $270!!!! Well, there you have it!

Well I gotta go now, the wife calls...


						CRASH


PS: You can express your feelings about this anytime.