21 May
1998
21 May
'98
7:45 a.m.
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.
Tim D. Hotze
21 May
21 May
1:45 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_
22 May
22 May
1:20 a.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.
Actaully it's CTL-ALT-INS and that brings up the MFM-200 "Monitor" program,
which is essentially the CMOS setup and utilities. The ones you have are loaded
with memory since they have RAM addon cards but the base memory is only 512k and
is soldered to the processor card.
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.
The Zenith 3 way monitors are only good in amber/green for text. Windows
probably wasn't installed since either no one knew how to get Win 3.x to work in
CGA mode or just because it's a Mac-like (old Mac) black and white "two
color"
mode. I just picked up one of the ones I originally sold on a trade-in for a 486
last night, still kicking. It has a Seagate ST-251-1 42mb HDD with MS-DOS 6.22,
Windows 3.11 in Hercules mode, mouse, printer, etc. It was used in a business
but they wanted to use a Win95 program so the 486 was the next logical step and
still save $$$.
Too bad they're so heavy to ship or I'd offer it for sale here.
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