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From: pburke@vms.macc.wisc.edu (Peter Burke, MIC, 263-7744)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
Subject: Re: INFO ON NEW GATEWAY 2000 COMPUTERS??
Message-ID: <1991May14.135043.21680@macc.wisc.edu>
Date: 14 May 91 14:26:32 GMT
Sender: news@macc.wisc.edu (USENET News System)
Distribution: na,comp
Organization: University of Wisconsin Academic Computing Center
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In article <1991May14.053655.27468@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>, phil@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Phil Howard KA9WGN) writes...

> 
>I assume you mean what they are selling as their "Crystal Scan 1024NI".
>Have you compared this with, say, the Sony 1304?  I am all ready to
>order one of these machines (25 MHz DX no-cache) but because it is a
>work machine, paid for by the department, I need to make sure I get the
>right monitor the first time around, and no one around here has either
>one of these.  All the existant G2000 machines here have some different
>kind of monitor.

One of my friends recently bought a system from EPS (Gateway's 
neighbors in South Dakota) with a Sony 1304HG and the Orchid ProDesigner 
card. The card is slower than the Speedstar (in Windows) and the monitor 
- well - I think it is not as useful in the 1024x768 as the Computronics 
that Gateway ships. The sharpness of the Sony is impressive, but it 
results into such fine characters under icons in Windows that one cannot 
read them unless one is 10 inches in front of the tube.  This may be 
because the Speedstar Card supplies some fonts for this resolution, but 
the overall impression of the Computronics, ignoring this difference in 
the readability of fonts althogether, is that it is at least as good as 
the Sony. The price difference is not justified (Gateway did charge $250 
extra to ship the Sony).  I wouldn't pick the Sony even at the same 
price. 
The 1024NI and the regular CrystalScan are except for the type of 
phosphor used on the CRT identical.  Both are very sharp into the 
corners (maybe because the tube is more spherical than the Sony's - if 
you don't like curved tubes, buy something else) and the colors are 
richer than in any other monitor I have seen, except maybe the Zenith 
FTM, which is not a comparable product, though. 


> 
>Would you recommend the Northgate keyboard?  I will be using the keyboard
>A LOT for programming and editing.  I'd also like to get the CNTL key back
>to the NORMAL place just to the left of "A" (Caps Lock is not even needed).

Northgate started the trend with these 130-key keyboards. Now, after 2 
years of telling their customers that IBM's design of the 101 key was 
bad, they finally start pushing the normal layout.  It is cheaper and 
the feel - the real advantage of the Northgate - is really nice.  I 
actually saw original Northgate keyboards sold through some mailorder 
outfits for more than $20 below Northgates own price.  A cheaper 
alternative to the Northgate is the "Focus 101", which feels almost 
identical to the Northgate, comes with a hinged dustcover/copystand and 
costs only $49 mailorder (somewhere in the front of Computer Shopper).  
I own this keyboard and can only complain about a sometimes slightly 
squeeky noise coming from the springs under the spacebar. Otherwise a 
much better keyboard than what Gateway used to ship (again, I don't know 
their new one).