HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: mccall@mksol.dseg.ti.com (fred j mccall 575-3539)
Subject: Re: Why memory costs doubled
Organization: Texas Instruments Inc
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1992 21:24:13 GMT

In <palane.725578726@pv7426.vincent.iastate.edu> palane@iastate.edu (Paul A. Lane) writes:

>In <BzzID0.1zC@fc.hp.com> chuckc@fc.hp.com (Chuck Cairns) writes:

>>  You have it exactly backwards.  If dumping is allowed to go
>>  unchecked, then any country can carve out a monopoly position using
>>  government funds and/or funds from other divisions of huge
>>  conglomerates.  This allows them to destroy US industries with dumping
>>  and other unfair trade practices.  The artificial short-term gain in
>>  lower RAM prices is more than offset by the long-term damage to the
>>  world trading system and to US industry.

>Unfortunately, market dynamics argue against you. The same line was used about
>three years ago against Japanese companies. They raised their prices and mem-
>ory costs shot sky-high (and they reaped a substantial windfall). 

Of course they did, because it wasn't stopped until late in the game.
How many U.S. manufacturers of DRAM can YOU point to now?  How many
were there when the Japanese started dumping and leveraged their SC
industry? 

[Hint:  I know of only two domestic producers of DRAM.  Extra point:
explain what really happened then, what the Koreans hope to achieve by
dumping in the U.S., and why the Japanese are now aiming to move out
of DRAM and into ASIC.]

>Guess who
>was damaged most by the artificial shortage? U.S. computer companies who got
>caught in the middle. Apple was particularly hard hit because they purchased
>memory at inflated prices on the spot market.

Guess who was damaged most by the dumping?  Can you say U.S. DRAM
manufacturers? 

>One might guess that this would lead to a Japanese ownership of the market.

One shouldn't guess, and it DID lead to the Japanese having a big
piece of the market after a number of U.S. firms went out of the
business. 

>No! Can you say South Korea boys and girls? Japanese producers are being under-
>cut by the Koreans. And if the Koreans try to use their market share to jack
>up prices, American and Japanese (and European) producers will scalp them.

Assuming there are any survivors, of course.  

>Memory prices deflate as a function of technology. It will be impossible for
>any one company or country to corner the market. The moment this happens, other
>producers will step in. Market history shows this to be the case.

There is a LOT more to it than this.

>>Any comments/flames by email only please, so as to not bother other readers.
>>CC

>On this, I disagree with you. This is a discussion which is very relevent to
>all of us and I consider this forum to be appropriate.

This discussion is more appropriate to sci.econ.

-- 
"Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to live
 in the real world."   -- Mary Shafer, NASA Ames Dryden
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fred.McCall@dseg.ti.com - I don't speak for others and they don't speak for me.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
From: ntaib@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (Iskandar Taib)
Subject: Re: New IBM Monitor Unable In OS/2?!
Organization: Indiana University
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1992 22:33:12 GMT

In article <sheldon.724149631@pv1417.vincent.iastate.edu> sheldon@iastate.edu (Steve Sheldon) writes:

> For those who don't know. The 6319 is a 15" flat screen monitor
>option now shipping with the PS/ValuePoint series.

I was up at a "best buys" in Indianapolis a week or so ago 
and they had a .39 dot pitch monitor on one of their high-end
PS/1s. I thought those had dissapeared with the Dark Ages.



-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Iskandar Taib                          | The only thing worse than Peach ala
Internet: NTAIB@SILVER.UCS.INDIANA.EDU |    Frog is Frog ala Peach
Bitnet:   NTAIB@IUBACS                 !
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware,comp.sys.ibm.pc.programmer
From: dan@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu (Dan Schwarz)
Subject: Help me get my CMOS drive settings right
Organization: Brandeis University
Distribution: usa
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1993 02:17:37 GMT

Here's the deal. I own an old (1988) NCR 386/16 system that I am trying to
get running with an IDE hard disk and floppy drive. I have no manuals or
other documentation for the system. The drive and HD card test out OK.

The system has a setup progam in ROM (I believe it uses a Phoenix BIOS)
that allows me to select one of 47 drive types. 

* it does not allow me to enter my own HD drive geometry.
* the parameters do not show on screen so I don't know if they are the
  standard AT drive types or NCR's own variant.

My HD is a Maxtor 7080A, which accepts several different configurations. An
old system like mine should work with type 35.  When I choose type 35,
the system hangs at self-test. WHen I choose type 1, the system boots from
floppy but the hard disk shows garbage data (of course; type 1 is totally
incorrect for this HD.)

I'm looking for a way out of this problem short of buying a new motherboard.
Can anyone recommend one of the following:

* A software driver program (pref. shareware or freeware) that will let me
use this drive with my system?

* A way to hack the CMOS drive settings directly, to enter the drive geometry
directly into the system, bypassing the SETUP program?

* The proper NCR drive type which is equivalent to an IBM AT drive type 35?

Any help would be much appreciated! Thanks.

-Dan






Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
From: schao@monet.uwaterloo.ca (Stewart Chao)
Subject: Re: Viewsonic 6FS vs. NEC 3FGx
Organization: University of Waterloo
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL8]
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 18:37:54 GMT

I've used the NEC 3FGX, NEC 4FG, and the ViewSonic 5e.  As far as I can tell
there is no difference between the 3FGX and 4FG except NEC AccuColor, and
microprocessor in the 4FG.  The value of AccuColor is arguable, but nice to
play with for a few minutes.  The microprocessor is very, very convient.  I
It automatically resizes your screen to use the full when you changes modes.
This is great when your using windows and switching to a DOS box often.

I was able to use the entire screen space of both NECs.  

The ViewSonic 5e is a great monitor.  Except when displaying some gifs with
a lot of white, the right most quarter of the screen is extra white.  I don't
known if this is a problem with the video card or the monitor.

I've used ATI Wonders with all the monitors (but not the same card).

I recall the Viewsonic 6FS being a co-processored monitor.  I would rate it
better than the NEC 3FGX because of this.

Stewart
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
From: ntaib@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (Iskandar Taib)
Subject: Re: AMD rubbish????
Organization: Indiana University
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1992 19:03:09 GMT

In article <92349.30853.J056600@LMSC5.IS.LMSC.LOCKHEED.COM> J056600@LMSC5.IS.LMSC.LOCKHEED.COM writes:

>Of course, I had an eye on the future.  The 386/40 is and will remain the
>de facto entry-level machine for quite some time.

Heh. Don't count on it. Last year about this time everyones' entry level
system was the 386SX/16. Wonder what the entry level system will be next
year. I have a 386-40. Last year it was a hot system. This year its entry
level. Funny thing is its as fast as the day I bought it  9-) 9-)



-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Iskandar Taib                          | The only thing worse than Peach ala
Internet: NTAIB@SILVER.UCS.INDIANA.EDU |    Frog is Frog ala Peach
Bitnet:   NTAIB@IUBACS                 !
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
From: palane@iastate.edu (Paul A. Lane)
Subject: Re: Micronics (Gateway) VL-Bus motherboards don't accept regular SIMMs
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames IA
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1992 20:23:47 GMT

In <1992Dec21.121035.45833@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> nschaper@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu writes:

>I think all of the Gateway VL-Bus systems use Micronics motherboards.
>Anyway, it seems that these motherboards take some strange, non-standard
>type of RAM.  Talking to a sales rep at Gateway, I found out that they want
>$165 (U.S. dollars) for each additional 4Meg of RAM.  When I commented that
>that price seemed high, the salesperson told me that these motherboards
>do not accept SIMMs.  She said they take "EISA memory" (whatever that is).

I believe Gateway uses a proprietary memory board to which you can add
memory chips (perhaps SIMMs). $165/4MB is a bit steap but not excessive.

>Can anybody explain this?  I'm sure this could affect the decisions of many
>others that are considering a Micronics VL-Bus motherboard.

I don't think that this is related to the Gateway being a VL-Bus, but this
has been standard on Gateway computers for awhile.

Paul
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware,comp.sys.ibm.pc,comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc,misc.consumers
From: jmalloy@itsmail1.hamilton.edu (Joseph T. Malloy)
Subject: Re: Upgrading from 386 to 486
Organization: Hamilton College - Clinton, NY
Date: Sun, 3 Jan 1993 22:39:05 GMT

In article <1993Jan3.033024.25832@oracle.us.oracle.com> fyu@shanghai.oracle.com (Francis H. Yu) writes:
>Hi, sorry if this is a FAQ.
>
>My father has a two-year-old Gateway2000 386/25 PC.  He wants to have
>it upgraded to a 486/33, which Gateway2000 does not do.  How is PC
>upgraded to a new processor?  Do we just buy a mother-board and replace
>the old one?  What is a good source to get 486/33 mother-boards?
>
>Please reply by email to fyu@oracle.com.  Thanks.

I take it you mean Gateway 2000 won't take back your old system board in
exchange for a new one?  I have a Gateway too and from what I've read
and heard, they will happily sell you a new system board!  If memory
serves (don't hold me to this), their local bus video board (no video
board included, though I assume you can use your current board in a
normal 16-bit slot and upgrade later) is something like $350 without
the cpu chip; a 486 33/66 chip for that board goes for something like
$550 (?).  You don't have to buy from Gateway, of course; you might find
a better deal locally or from another vendor, though if Gateway's in the
ball park, a system whose parts come from one vendor might get you
better support, such as it is (i.e., with a single vendor, they can't
blame any troubles you're having on the system board supplier, etc).
But I'm sure you can find some great alternatives (check Computer
Shopper to get an idea of the price ranges available).

Joe
jmalloy@hamilton.edu


Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
From: bryanw@rahul.net (Bryan Woodworth)
Subject: Re: ATI Ultra Plus
Organization: a2i network
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1992 16:22:08 GMT

In <mcdonald.3@aries.scs.uiuc.edu> mcdonald@aries.scs.uiuc.edu (J. D. McDonald) writes:

>Several people have posted words about the ATI Ultra Plus.

>I just got one today. This is an ISA Bus card. It is running in a Dell
>310 20 MHz 386 machine with 8 megs of memory.

>It does speed up many things in Windows 3.1, especially scrolling.

>A further point, based on actual tests:

>It does support memory aperture. I'm running it right now. Works fine.
>I've programmed it in 24 bit color mode using the aperture. It is limited in
>the modes it runs with only 1 meg. 

Ah, why didn't you get the 2 meg version?  I hear the extra ram makes a
world of difference.  We'll see, I ordered the 2 meg version of the Plus
and it should be here tomorrow.

>Doug McDonald
-- 
Bryan Woodworth <bryanw@rahul.net>
From: jimc@hal.gnu.ai.mit.edu (James Carpenter)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
Subject: Re: Major problems with SCSI ST-01 Controller
Date: 29 Dec 1992 06:37:05 GMT
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
NNTP-Posting-Host: hal.gnu.ai.mit.edu

I have solved half of my ST-01 problems. I have the hard drive working
PERFECTLY now but the keyboard still hangs. The drive can be working, turned
off, or unpluged, and sooner or later the keyboard will hang. I've done all
the things with the jumpers (changing IRQ, base address, & 0W/S) but nothing.
There is nothing special about my machine (that I know of, poor docs.) and
there is NO cache. And I know its not a problem with the operating system.

I just noticed something... The keyboard doesn't hang totally SOMETIMES. It
looks like sometimes the keys just get all messed up, BAD. For example "v"
SOMETIMES transmits TWO carriage returns. "d" is a backspace. And most other
letters transmit stuff above 128 (It likes the line stuff i.e. 179). And one
of the keys will turn the Scrool Lock light on. Next time it hangs the keys
can transmit something totally different.

I know this isn't my keyboard. I tried a different type keyboard.

PLEASE tell me that someone else out there has had the same problem. I don't 
want to be the only guy thats gone through this :-)

P.S. I fixed the drive problem by pulling a jumper on the motherboard that
controlled something called "pipeline". Could someone tell me what this is
so I can figure what isn't going to work now without it.

-- 

	Jim Carpenter
	CARPENTER@Eisner.DECUS.Org
	jimc@gnu.ai.mit.edu
From: mikew@hpwarha.wal.hp.com (Michael Williams)
Date: Thu, 24 Dec 1992 16:35:19 GMT
Subject: Re: The maxtor 213 meg drive is NOT 213 megs!
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Company, Waltham, MA
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware

In article <gting.725143054@sfu.ca> gting@fraser.sfu.ca (Gabriel Sii Kuok Ting) writes:
>I thought most manufacturers put down the UNformatted capacity of the drive?

I'm not sure it has to do with the formatted or unformatted capacity.
Perhaps this has to do with the fact that drive manufactures often use
MB as a shorthand for 1,000,000 bytes, when 1 MB is actually closer to
1,048,576 bytes.


--
Michael B. Williams
Hewlett-Packard Company
Medical Products Group
Waltham, MA 02254                    Prodigy: Dumped it
(617) 290-3734                       CompuServe: 73667,3264
mikew@hpwarga.wal.hp.com             America Online: Mike W99
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
From: olson@mydual.uucp (Kirtland H. Olson)
Subject: Re: HD floppies on XT?
Organization: The Harvard Group, 01451-0667
Date: Fri, 25 Dec 1992 07:57:22 GMT

In article <1hafh5INNj08@savoy.cc.williams.edu> 93jay@williams.edu (Jonathan Young) writes:
>I'm trying to add a 1.44 floppy to my dad's XT clone. I have seen ads
>for "super xt/at" floppy controllers that preport to allow this but do
>they require bios support? These clones (mitac mpc 160T's) do not have
>such support.
>
>Also they have an onboard floppy controller, I checked the manual but
>didn't find an easy way to disable it. What happens if there are two
>controllers? 

You need a secondary floppy controller whose address can be set not to
conflict with the on-board controller.

The brand-name version is the Compaticard series, though there are
clones of this stuff.

As for bios support, the secondary controller has an on-board bios that
can be disabled.  All your bios must do is permit bios extensions.



-- 
Kirtland H. Olson                     olson%mydual.uucp@alliant.com
From: joet@dcatlas.dot.gov (Joe Trott)
Subject: Re: What size is my Drive??
Organization: U.S Dept. of Transportation
Date: Thu, 31 Dec 1992 15:17:08 GMT

drkerns@sony7.sdrc.com (sean kerns) writes:

>When I run PC Tools' Diskfix.exe, it is again identidfied as a 130 Mb drive.
>When I select the Revitalize a Disk option for ths drive, it goes through a bunch 
>of calculations. One of the things it tries to do is to calculate and set the
>optimum interleave for me, but it comes back with a message saying that 
>this drive uses "sector translation, and reports a size which does not match its
>physical configuration". 

>What's the deal? Is the drive set up wrong in CMOS? Is this an IDE thing?
>Why does PC Tools think it's 130Mb and can I fix that somehow? Is it not 
>possible to set the interleave on these drives for some reason?

This is normal.  A lot of software is not compatible with anything other than
17 sectors/track, while most modern high capacity drives have more sectors
than that.  What happens is that the controller translates this into a lower
number of sectors (17), but more tracks.  The translation is arbitrary, and
programs like Diskfix (or Spinrite or Calibrat) cannot directly access the
physical interleave because they are getting virtual equivalents from the
controller.

-JTT

From: mikew@hpwarha.wal.hp.com (Michael Williams)
Date: Thu, 24 Dec 1992 17:31:34 GMT
Subject: Should WD Caviar 2200 be noisy? - FOLLOWUP
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Company, Waltham, MA
From: stevenh@cbnewsk.cb.att.com (steven.t.heinsius)
Subject: Re: 286 ----> 386sx
Organization: AT&T
Date: Mon, 28 Dec 1992 14:49:33 GMT

I have a SOTA expres 386 upgrade
It replaces the 286 chip with a ribbon cable and a 
pc board containing a 386sx.
A software driver needs to be installed ,it says it will
run in enhanced mode (don't know === not enough memory)

After running norton before and after 
(286 =12X and Sota=15X, the big difference is due to 
the onboard 16k cache) i dont think it is worth it..


I think you should get either a 386DX, 486SX or 486DX.
The price difference between the 386sx and dx is small.

Steve

just my $.02
-----------------------------------
From article <1992Dec28.121831.13714@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu>, by nwickham@nyx.cs.du.edu (Neal Wickham):
> 
> Can a 286 be upgraded to a 386sx without too much hassle or money?
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> 
>                                   NCW
> 
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
From: dgreen@mbunix.mitre.org (Green)
Subject: Quantum PRODRIVE 40AT
Organization: The Mitre Corp., Bedford, MA.
Distribution: na
Date: Mon, 28 Dec 1992 19:06:22 GMT

	I had a user turn off a computer while windows was trying to
swap out to disk.  From that point on the computer would not boot from the
HD.  The computer would halt after the system settings (from the AMI
BIOS) appeared.  When I booted off floppy the first time I found that
the disk FAT was corrupt beyond repair.  I reformatted the HD with
'format /s /u C:'  and all appeared well.  I did a directory and
nothing seemed abnormal.  When I tried to reboot the computer it would
not boot, again it froze after the AMI BIOS info screen.  I then tried
to boot off of floppy and it froze at the same place as the HD did.
The only way I can get the computer to boot now is to set the HD not
installed in the system setup.
	I had a friend run disk manager on the drive and it correctly
identified the drive type, serial number, etc. but when it tried to
set the CMOS for the drive it went haywire and diskmanager crashed.  I
believe that there is a problem with the sector zero information, but
I have no way of testing this.  Does anyone know of a way to low-level
an IDE with out the expensive hardware or sending to be repaired.  The
drive is just over a year old, but the company I bought it from went
under about three months ago.  
	If someone has an e-mail address or any other information
which will allow me to contact Quantum tech support would appreciate
it, or if anyone has any ideas on a solution please let me know.
	
					Thanks
					Dan G.

dgreen@mbunix.mitre.org
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
From: timhu@ico.isc.com (Timothy Hu)
Subject: Re: Jumbo 250 makes my screen image shake...
Organization: Interactive Systems Corp., Boulder CO
Date: Thu, 24 Dec 1992 20:24:27 GMT

The magnetic field generated by that motor isn't *anywhere* near that powerful. If
it was that strong, it would certainly affect your hardisk. It looks like your
power supply isn't up to snuff or it's too small. When the motor turns on, it
sucks a bunch of start up current that may be causing the screen jitter.  Perhaps
the steady-state on current is causing it, too.

-- 
Timothy Hu timhu@ico.isc.com	 | The intelligence (or lack of) expressed
Interactive Systems Corporation  | above does not necessarily reflect the
Resource Solutions International | that of anyone else.
From: garyg@Warren.MENTORG.COM (Gary Gendel)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
Subject: Re: Monitors made in US?
Date: 21 Dec 1992 16:30:41 GMT
Organization: Mentor Graphics, IC Group
Distribution: world
Reply-To: garyg@Warren.MENTORG.COM
NNTP-Posting-Host: garyg.warren.mentorg.com

As far as I know, RCA (France's SGS Thompson) monitors are made in Indianapoles (sp?)
by the former RCA (American corporation) Consumer Division.  This statement will
need verification, as I have lost contact soon after the SGS buyout.

Gary Gendel
From: x90farleigh1@gw.wmich.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
Subject: MultiChannel ADC via ser/par ports?
Date: 21 Dec 92 10:52:53 EST
Organization: Western Michigan University

Does anyone know of a company that has a several channel ADC that plugs into
the serial or better the parallel port? -

I need +-10v input, and it should have good accuracy and resolution, howver,
lab accuracy is probably not warranted.

Any Ideas?

Thanks!

Fred Farleigh
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
From: sdawalt@cs.wright.edu (Shane Dawalt)
Subject: What is VESA??
Organization: Wright State University
Date: Sun, 3 Jan 1993 00:18:56 GMT

I am totally lost.  I know about the VESA Local Bus standard, but
now I'm hearing about some VESA standard concerning video of some
type or another.  What is this VESA video stuff?  (I'm not sure
what to call it.)  Is it at all related to the VESA Local Bus?

Thanks.

  Shane();

-- 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
From the keyboard of:			     email: sdawalt@cs.wright.edu
	Shane A. Dawalt
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: aland@informix.com (Colonel Panic)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
Subject: Re: Electronic test equipment for sale
Date: 30 Dec 92 05:55:23 GMT
Organization: Helen Keller Bondurant's Performance Driving School for the Blind

In article <2b3917bc-508ccomp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware@vpnet.chi.il.us> akcs.damir@vpnet.chi.il.us (Damir Matanic) writes:
>
>               'ValueTronics'
>
>  We at ValueTronics sell all types of reconditioned electronic test
>equipment which is manufactured by such leading companies as 
>"Hewitt Packard", "Tecktronics" and "John Fluke".  We also provide 

As opposed to Hewlett-Packard, Tektronix, ...  ???
What are these, knock-offs?

>substantial
>discounts ranging anywhere between 30% to 70% off the current list price,
>along with warranites ranging between 3 to 12 months.

what's a warranite?

>Call us at:1-800-552-8258, and tell them Damir sent you

call them hourly; each call costs 'em money!

>my e-mail:damir@infopls.chi.il.us


Boycott companies which advertise in technical newsgroups.  Thank you.

--
Alan Denney      aland@informix.com      {pyramid|uunet}!infmx!aland

  "Don't try to out-weird me, pal; I get stranger things than you
   free with my breakfast cereal."               -- Z. Beeblebrox