Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!uwm.edu!lll-winken!sun-barr!newstop!sun!amdahl!khearn From: khearn@uts.amdahl.com (Bug Hunter) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc Subject: Re: Who is Packard Bell and why are they making clones? Keywords: Packard Bell PC Clone Message-ID: Date: 3 Nov 89 11:12:55 GMT References: <1153@elmgate.UUCP> Reply-To: khearn@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com (Keith Hearn) Organization: Amdahl Corporation, Sunnyvale CA Lines: 41 In article <1153@elmgate.UUCP> frh@elmgate.UUCP (Frank Hubbell SOFT) writes: >Who is Packard Bell? Does anyone know anything about them? >I am thinking about buying one of their PC Clones. Any information >would be welcome. They used to make some of the best TV's and radios, back in the 40's and fifties. Back in the tube days (Or so my dad tells me). I recently bought a Pac-Mate II, and I'm pretty happy with it. It's a 12MHz 286 with a 16-bit VGA built into the motherboard, a 40M hard drive, a 1.44M 3.5", and a 1.2M 5.25" floppy, and a 14" VGA monitor. It also came with a 2400 baud Hayes compatible modem, and a Genius mouse (both microsoft and Mouse Systems compatible). MS-DOS 3.3 was pre-installed on the hard drive. The package also included Microsoft Works, Splash (a VGA paint program), Sidekick, ComBase (a communication program), and another paint program that was packaged with the mouse. All of this was included in the system straight from Packard-Bell. They also have other setups available. Mine only cost me $1800, but that was from the Price Club (a membership discount warehouse chain on the west coast), I don't know what normal retail prices are. As for the computer, it seems to be 100% compatible. Everything I've tried to run works just fine, an I've tried a fair amount so far. I've had two quality control problems. The first system I got wouldn't run more than 20 minutes at a time before hanging. Seemed to be heat related. I took it back the next day and exchanged for a replacement system which worked fine. last week my keyboard cable apparently went bad. I got a "Keyboard Data Line Failure" message when I tried to boot. Again, I simply took the keyboard back and exchanged for a new one.They have an 800 number for customer service that's open 7am to 6pm Pacific time weekdays, and some hours on saturdays. Doesn't seem to heavily staffed, though. I got busy signals quite a few times when I tried calling about the keyboard. Over all, I pretty happy with it, though. -- Keith Hearn \ Lots of impossible things happen khearn@amdahl.com \ When you travel through time. Amdahl Corporation \ Dr. Who (The War Games) (408)737-5691(work) (408)984-6937(home)\