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From: berry@arcturus.uucp (Berry;Craig D.)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.ms
Subject: Re: Windows 3.0 on a 286
Message-ID: <1991May22.220842.10896@arcturus.uucp>
Date: 22 May 91 22:08:42 GMT
References: <32974@usc>
Organization: Rockwell International
Lines: 26

sharp@mizar.usc.edu (Malcolm Sharp) writes:

>I'd like to hear your experiences about running Windows on a 286-
>based PC.  Minimum RAM? Desireable RAM? monitor? DOS apps?
>Windows apps?  etc...

>My feeling is that the base platform should be a 386SX and the
>price difference between 286 and 386SX tells me to go for the
>latter.

I have a 10-MHz 286, 640K, 40 meg drive, and while I *can* run
Win3, the experience is frustrating at best.  I can't run large
DOS apps from Windows, for example, and some seemingly simple
operations inside Windows (e.g., refreshing the screen when a
big window is closed, exposing lots of little ones underneath)
drag out to coffee-break proportions.  I have also bought BC++
to attempt some Windows software development (cue laughter).
I can barely get the sample whello.c program to compile (takes
a little over a minute, as I recall.  Once compiled, it runs
fine.  However, the Whitewater Resource Toolkit bombs for lack
of memory.

My feeling is that my system would do much better with 2-3 meg
of extended mem, and I'm saving up for that now.

By all means, get the 386sx if you can!