Path: utzoo!mnetor!frank From: frank@mnetor.UUCP (Frank Kolnick) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc Subject: Re: Who is Packard Bell and why are they making clones? Keywords: Packard Bell PC Clone Message-ID: <5113@mnetor.UUCP> Date: 6 Nov 89 00:27:39 GMT References: <1153@elmgate.UUCP-> <344@bilver.UUCP> Reply-To: frank@mnetor.UUCP (Frank Kolnick) Organization: Computer X (CANADA) Ltd., Toronto, Ontario, Canada Lines: 24 In article <344@bilver.UUCP> bill@bilver.UUCP (Bill Vermillion) writes: > ... >Quality doesn't sound quite as good as the old PB legends. Are there any >other PB owners out there who would care to comment. Since you asked... I've got a two-year old PB 286. It's still running fine, and the only maintenance I've had to do was replace the keyboard, which died a year ago. However, when I bought it, I had numerous problems, primarily aggravated by my addition of a NEC GB-1 graphics card and a Priam disk. The homebrew PB BIOS couldn't handle the graphics and the WD controller was (I was told) an old version and had to be replaced to support the new drive. Mine also has the quirk of allowing 640K *or* 512K + 512K expanded (or is that extended?), which I found to be a real pain. I eventually solved that by adding an Intel AboveBoard. All in all, it took me two weeks to get my system running. I don't know if PB has improved, but I now also have a Zeos 386 that worked out of the box. I also suspect that the dealer should take some of the blame (i.e., they sell these things, therefore they *should* at least know how to configure them). -- Frank Kolnick, consulting for, and therefore expressing opinions independent of, Computer X UUCP: {allegra, linus}!utzoo!mnetor!frank