AT&T 6300: the Wrong Choice

[Mark A. Hampson]

Ah yes, the AT&T 6300.  Mostly compatible and now even somewhat supported.

                          BUT

Here at WPI we made a decision 4 years ago (with some incentive from AT&T) to
go with the AT&T 6300 as the campus supported computer.  Good or bad this is 
the history that we have had:

THere are upwards of 2000 of the machines on this campus and two full time 
people and several part time people very busy fixing them.  Many of our
problems are not directly attributed to the 6300 but there are quite a few
that are.  The two biggest flaws that I have found in the system have to do
with the keyboards and the cooling air flow.  

For those of you not familiar with the innerds of the 6300, the keyboard 
consists of graphite dots on the backs of the keys that make contact by 
connecting two sets of exposed traces on the PC board below.  What happens
is that crud (dandruf, dust, etc.) gets in between the contact and the traces
and that key no longer operates properly.  We use these in student labs where
they see 16 hours of really tough use every day.  When a key gets sticky, hit
it harder.  

The air flow path is simple and does cool the power supply but sources most of 
its air through the floppy disk drives.  Not too bad unless you plan on using
the drives.  We have a system that is used exclusively from floppy that is 
running the entire time that the lab is open and after a few weeks, the disks
that are in the drives are tan (instead of black).  

Beyond these complaints, these machine seem to kill power supplies with pretty
high regularity.  Most of the problems that we have had of late have to do 
with really cheap extras.  Since those of us who run the lab do not get to 
order the peripherals (some one who thinks they know what is going on does), 
we end up with the cheapest of everything.  

If you want something to last, do not purchase any of the following:
	I2 hardcards (we ordered 100 nine months ago, 37 dead as of last count)
	Shikosha printers (they don't even have line or form feed buttons)
	                  (really poor print quality, especially in graphics mode)

We have had a series of odd incompatibility problems with the 6300 and the
CAD package that we use (CADKEY).  Most of this has been attributed to the 
way the 8086 in the 6300 interreleates in an 8088 environment.  

If you have a software package that acts funny on a 6300, don't blame the 
software, the 6300 is an almost clone.  


-- 
Mark A. Hampson                                     WPI Mechanical Engineering
Internet: mhampson at wpi.wpi.edu                       Worcester, MA  01609  USA
                                                                (508) 831-5498
No matter where you go...there you are.   (Buckaroo)