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From: kens@ISM780.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.micro.pc
Subject: Re: Clone horror stories wanted
Message-ID: <31300015@ISM780.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 27-Jan-86 12:47:00 EST
Article-I.D.: ISM780.31300015
Posted: Mon Jan 27 12:47:00 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 30-Jan-86 05:35:13 EST
References: <11551@ucbvax.UUCP>
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Nf-ID: #R:ucbvax:-1155100:ISM780:31300015:000:2230
Nf-From: ISM780!kens    Jan 27 12:47:00 1986


> What I want to hear is stories from satisfied and unsatisfied clone users.

    There are clones and clones.  If the clone you buy is a Compaq, you
    aren't likely to have a lot of problems, but you'll pay a premium
    price, possibly more than for a comparable IBM machine.  Then there
    are the many low-cost Brand-X clones, identifiable only by the
    private label that some mail-order house or your local computer
    store puts on them.

    I am an unsatisfied Brand-X clone user.  I had a very old IBM
    PC, the kind with 64k of memory max on the motherboard.  I
    wanted more slots and more motherboard memory, but IBM wanted
    $600 for a new motherboard.  I ended up buying a new
    XT-compatible Taiwanese clone motherboard for $125 and an
    8-slot XT-like case for $50 from AMT (American Micro
    Technology) in Santa Ana, California.    The good thing about
    this setup is that it takes all 640k on the motherboard using
    2 rows of 64k and 2 rows of 256k RAM.  This is how it ought to
    be done.

    However, the problems I have had are:

    a) The case is a piece of garbage.  You have a major wrestling
       match to put the top cover back on once you have taken it off because
       the sheet metal is so flimsy and poorly-worked.  Holes for disk
       drive retaining screws simply don't line up. (I've had to drill some).

    b) The ROM pseudo-BIOS has several bugs in it.  Most are
       merely annoying, and involve not sensing keyboard input at
       certain times.  But the floppy disk I/O in this BIOS is
       "totally bogus" because it's so slow that it must be
       hitting only sector per rev.

    c) I have unexplained crashes in my word processor with this
       board that I never had with my IBM PC.  I am fairly sure the
       motherboard hardware is the culprit, since I have
       eliminated all other possible factors (I even borrowed a
       real IBM BIOS ROM for one day to check whether it was a
       BIOS problem, and the crashes continued).

    My advice: DON'T BUY A BRAND-X CLONE UNTIL YOU HAVE OPENED THE BOX
    AND SPENT SOME TIME RUNNING THE SOFTWARE YOU INTEND TO USE.

    Ken Sarno
    INTERACTIVE Systems Corp.
    ..!ima!ism780!kens