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From: russo@amazon.chem.columbia.edu (Thomas Russo)
Subject: [386BSD] ACK! Sun devotee buying a PC, need help! Please!
Message-ID: <RUSSO.92Oct14135553@amazon.chem.columbia.edu>
Sender: usenet@cucbs.chem.columbia.edu (The Network News)
Nntp-Posting-Host: amazon.chem.columbia.edu
Organization: Center for Biomolecular Simulation, Department of Chemistry,
Columbia University
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1992 18:55:53 GMT
Lines: 53
Ok, I've never really bought a PC box before, I've read the
PC-Clone buyers guide, I've called vendors, I've read this group and
I'm this close (he holds his fingers about 1mm apart) to actually
plunking down a pile of money on a 386 box from EPS Technologies.
I'm nervous, coz I want to run 386BSD and X and I'm terrified that I'm
might be buying stuff that won't work. I've gotten a quote on a
machine with a 386, 387, 8Mb of 70ns,0wait state RAM, 128K ram cache,
AMI 386 BIOS (release date April 1991), diskette drives, 340Mb IDE
drive, a Cardinal 800 SVGA card (with windows accelerator), monitor,
serial ports (16550) and mouse.
So here's the questions:
1) Am I in trouble with that Cardinal 800 SVGA card, which the quote
says is:
"Cardinal 800 VGA card, 25 bit, 16.7 Million color SVGA w/1Mb
installed 1024x768"
Monitor is "14", noninterlaced multisync 1024x768 RES, .28mm dot
pitch"
I know that the list of XFree86's "supported" ET4000 cards includes a
Cardinal 700 and a Cardinal ET4000. Anybody know anything about a
Cardinal 800? I specifically asked them for an ET4000 based card, so
that's what this is. Anything to lose sleep over here? Is the
presence of windows accelerators (which I didn't ask for, but this was
the only card with an ET4000 set they could give me, all the others
were Western Digital) going to be a problem?
2) I just read an article in c.u.bsd that claimed there were problems
with the AMI 386 BIOS. ACK! Whaddamigonnadue? Should I go to
another vendor or should I not worry?
3) Anybody else out there bought anything from E.P.S. Technologies?
They seem pretty good, and they claim to have lots of Unix customers.
The price seems pretty good based on the half-dozen or so quotes I've
gotten so far. They do have all the warranty stuff I've been told to
look out for (60 money back, 1year onsite service from a big service
company, etc.)
I've already been cautioned about gcc-2 being flaky with its 387
support and the fact that my 8Mb will be on 1Mb simms which will need
to be removed to upgrade further. I'm going to have to live with that
as I can't afford the 16Mb configuration at this time. My main
concerns right now are the BIOS and the VGA card. Can anybody give me
warnings or advice or reassurance?
--
Thomas Russo russo@nile.chem.columbia.edu
Department of Chemistry and Center for Biomolecular Simulation
Columbia University
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