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From: johnl@ima.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: IBM's new System 2 Personal Computers
Message-ID: <535@ima.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 7-Apr-87 17:51:10 EST
Article-I.D.: ima.535
Posted: Tue Apr  7 17:51:10 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 11-Apr-87 00:34:36 EST
References: <775@oliveb.UUCP>
Reply-To: johnl@ima.UUCP (John R. Levine)
Distribution: na
Organization: Javelin Software Corporation
Lines: 36
Summary: they're actually pretty good

In article <775@oliveb.UUCP> tslu@oliveb.UUCP (Shang Lu) writes:
> ...
>*  The Model 30 is a JOKE !!
>
>                -- Kimball Brown
>                   Computer Industry Analyst, Dataquest Inc. San Jose

Actually, the model 30 is not a bad little computer.  It lists for $1695,
including 640K, dual microfloppies, serial port, parallel port, mouse port,
and MCGA screen controller, which is mono+CGA+a new mode 320 by 200 by 8 bits
per pixel.  The high-volume dealer price is $1017.

The screen controller produces very nice if somewhat grainy pictures.  You can
add their new $250 grey-scale mono screen and get a perfectly usable true-blue
system for under $2000, list, that's twice as fast as a PC.  It should
immediately be discounted to $1700 or better.  More expensive than a generic
Korean clone, but you don't need extra cards to get your work done.

The insides of all of the PS/2 machines are light-years ahead of any previous
PC machines.  They all have well laid out motherboards with lots of surface
mount chips.  There are no switches on the motherboard or any of the IBM
cards -- they configure themselves.  They keyboard and the mouse port on
the back are identical plugs, and if you plug them in backwards, it works
anyway.  The machines are all physically much smaller and quieter than their
PC predecessors.  You could do worse.

IBM clearly has a lot of room to drop the price on these boxes.  Life will be
interesting.

By the way, I went to the announcement in Miami (which, if nothing else, set
New Standards in Hype -- they even hired the Beach Boys for a concert) and
played with the machines there.
-- 
John R. Levine, Javelin Software Corp., Cambridge MA +1 617 494 1400
{ ihnp4 | decvax | cbosgd | harvard | yale }!ima!johnl, Levine@YALE.something
Where is Richard Nixon now that we need him?