21 May
1998
21 May
'98
4:45 p.m.
Hotze wrote:
Hi. Are these the 286's that Zenith sold by the mass-quadrillions to the US
Gov't??? If so, they're pretty cool, when you get down to it. CPU's on a
backplane, they had a 386 upgrade, and even a 486 one, but the 386's didn't
sell, 486's were only prototypes, from what I can tell.
By pressing CRL+INS you could get into this WAY COOL Apple II like ROM
test program. Pleanty of RAM, etc. Trust me, I know. Every single day of
the week, I USE ONE OF THESE in math class. Cool retro use, don't you
agree??? It runs WP 5.1, they weren't equipped with Windows, but MS-DOS 5.0
(at least that's what I see, might have been 3.3), and some came with this
cool monitor that had a Amber/Green/Normal switch, but only worked well in
mono, not CGA mode.
Problem with the Zenith government contract machines is that they were
butt-ugly and half the speed of anything else with otherwise similar
specs. In 1989, Zenith came out with out with a 386/33 (ugly) desktop
(well, regular AT size) that performed like anybody else's 386/16 -- I
paced it against AT&T, NCR and Hyundai boxes. The box looked like it
could wade through WWIII without a blink, built like a tank but not
nearly as pretty. At the same time, Zenith (ZDS being _about_ to be
acquired by Groupe Bull) had a 12Mhz _laptop_ that performed as well as
most 16MHz desktops -- with less memory it equalled that damned 386/33
PC box in everything except expansion. Of course, it probably would
not as well at Ground Zero.
--
Ward Griffiths
They say that politics makes strange bedfellows.
Of course, the main reason they cuddle up is to screw somebody else.
Michael Flynn, _Rogue Star_