The Secret Guide to Computers: IBM-compatibles

IBM technologies

The most popular microcomputers are made by IBM and imitators.

How IBM arose

IBM bases its entire marketing strategy on one word: react. IBM never creates a new kind of computer; instead, IBM watches its competitors’ products, notices which ones sell well, and then designs a product that meets the same needs better.

Even IBM’s own name is a reaction.

IBM was started by Tom Watson. He’d been a salesman for National Cash Register (NCR) but was fired, so he took over a competing company (CTR) and vowed to make it even bigger than National Cash Register. To be bigger than “National”, he called his company “International”; to be bigger than a “Cash Register” company, he bragged that his company would sell all kinds of “Business Machines”. That’s how the name “International Business Machine Corp.” — IBM — was hatched. IBM quickly outgrew NCR.

IBM sold lots of business machines, especially to the U.S. Census Bureau. But in 1951, Remington Rand Corp. (which later merged with Sperry) developed the Univac computer and convinced the Census to use it instead of IBM’s non-computerized equipment. To react, IBM quickly invented its own computers, which were more practical than the Univac. IBM quickly became the #1 computer company — and Sperry’s Univac dropped to #2.

All of IBM’s early computers were big. IBM ignored the whole concept of microcomputers for many years. IBM’s first microcomputers, the IBM 5100 and IBM System 23, weren’t taken seriously — not even by IBM.

IBM PC

When many IBM customers began buying Apple 2 microcomputers to do Visicalc spreadsheets, IBM reacted by developing an improved microcomputer, called the IBM Personal Computer (IBM PC), which did everything that Apple 2 computers could do, but better.

To invent the IBM PC, IBM created three secret research teams who competed against each other. The winner was the research team headed by Philip “Don” Estridge in Boca Raton, Florida. His team examined everything created by the other microcomputer companies (Apple, Radio Shack, Commodore, etc.) and combined their best ideas, to produce a relatively low-cost computer better than all competitors.

Don’s team developed the IBM PC secretly. IBM didn’t announce it to the public until August 12, 1981.

The IBM PC was a smashing success: IBM quickly became the #1 microcomputer company — and Apple dropped to #2.

The IBM PC became the best-selling microcomputer for business. More high-quality business programs became available for the IBM PC than for any other microcomputer. It became the standard against which all other microcomputers were compared. Even today, to use the best business programs you must buy an IBM PC or clone.

The IBM PC consists of three parts: a system unit (which contains most of the circuitry), a keyboard, and a monitor. Cables run from the keyboard and monitor to the system unit.

Keyboard The IBM PC’s keyboard contains 83 keys:

26 keys contain the letters of the alphabet.

10 keys (in the top row) contain the digits.

10 keys (on the keyboard’s right side) form a numeric keypad. It contains the digits rearranged to imitate a calculator.

13 keys contain symbols for math and punctuation.

14 keys give you control. They let you edit your mistakes, create blank spaces and capitals, etc.

10 function keys (labeled F1, F2, F3, F4, F5, F6, F7, F8, F9, and F10) can be programmed to mean whatever you wish!

The keyboard was designed by Don Estridge personally.

To fit all those keys on the small keyboard, he had to make the ENTER and SHIFT keys smaller than typists liked. Above the top row of keys, he put a shelf to hold pencils; to make room for that shelf, he had to put the 10 function keys at the left side of the keyboard, even though it would have been more natural to put the F1 key near the 1 key, the F2 key near the 2 key, etc.

System unit The IBM PC’s system unit contains a 63½-watt power supply (which transforms AC current to DC) and a motherboard. On the motherboard, IBM puts the CPU, RAM chips, ROM chips, and support chips.

The motherboard also includes 5 slots that hold printed-circuit cards. The motherboard’s 62 wires that run to and through the slots are called the bus. 8 of those wires carry data; the other 54 wires are “bureaucratic overhead” that helps control the flow. Since just eight wires carry data, the bus is called an 8-bit data bus, its slots are called 8-bit slots, and the printed-circuit cards that you put into the slots are called 8-bit cards.

The CPU, which is on the motherboard, is an Intel 8088 running at a speed of 4.77 million cycles per second (4.77 megahertz).

In the original IBM PC, the motherboard could hold 4 rows of 16K RAM chips. 1 row of chips was included in the base price; the other 3 rows of chips cost extra. If you paid the extra cost and got all 4 rows of chips, you had a total of 64K.

Later, IBM improved the motherboard, so that it uses 64K chips instead of 16K chips. The 4 rows of 64K chips produce a grand total of 256K.

To expand beyond 256K, you must buy a memory card, which contains sockets for holding extra RAM chips.

The motherboard contains five 8K ROM chips. One of them contains the BIOS; the other four contain BASIC.

The motherboard includes a hookup to your home’s cassette tape recorder, to make the tape recorder imitate a slow disk drive.

For faster speed, you must buy a disk drive (which costs extra), and a controller card to connect the disk drive to. The original IBM PC was limited to two 5¼-inch disk drives, and each disk held just 160K. Later, IBM improved the disk system, so that each disk could hold 360K. (To make the improvement, IBM switched to double-sided disks and divided each track into 9 sectors instead of 8.)

Monitor The IBM PC’s base price doesn’t include a monitor — or even a video card to attach the monitor to.

When IBM announced the IBM PC, it announced two kinds of video cards. One kind, the Monochrome Display Adapter (MDA), attaches to a TTL monochrome monitor. The other kind, the Color/Graphics Adapter (CGA), attaches to an RGB color monitor instead.

Each of those cards gives you a hidden bonus. Hiding on the MDA card is a printer port, so you can attach a printer. Hiding on the CGA card is an RCA jack, so you can attach a composite color monitor or a TV switch box.

Why the IBM PC became popular To invent the IBM PC, IBM combined all the best ideas that other computer companies had invented previously. IBM did it all legally: IBM found the best hardware and software companies and paid them manufacturing fees and royalties. IBM listened well: IBM put into the IBM PC all the inexpensive features that business users were begging computer companies to provide.

IBM had originally planned to charge a high price for the IBM PC; but in August 1981, a week before IBM announced the IBM PC to the world, IBM’s top management decided to slash the prices by 25%. So the IBM PC was not only nice but also priced 25% less than the rumor mill had expected. Customers were thrilled and bought IBM PC’s quickly.

At first, very few programs were available for it, but IBM turned that liability into a virtue: IBM ran ads telling programmers that since IBM hadn’t written enough programs for the PC, programmers could get rich by writing their own. Because of those ads, many programmers bought the PC and wrote thousands of programs for it. All those programs eventually increased the computer’s popularity even further.

IBM PC XT & clones

In March 1983, IBM announced the IBM PC eXTended (IBM PC XT).

It resembles the IBM PC but includes a larger power supply (135 watts instead of 63½) and more expansion slots (8 instead of 5). The larger power supply lets the XT handle a hard disk.

When IBM began selling the XT, IBM included a floppy disk drive, a 10-megabyte 85-millisecond hard disk, and serial port in the base price, but IBM later made them optional.

Many companies sell XT clones. The typical XT clone is better than the original XT in several ways.…

Keyboard Most clones have extra-large RETURN and SHIFT keys, so your fingers can hit those keys more easily.

Power supply In most clones, the power supply is extra-large (150 watts instead of 135).

CPU Instead of using an 8088 CPU, most clones use an 8088-1 CPU, which thinks twice as fast (10 megahertz instead of 4.77). Clones using that double-speed CPU are called turbo XT clones.

Memory DOS easily handles 640K of RAM and a 30-megabyte hard disk. (To go beyond those limits, you must use tricks.) The typical clone attains those limits: its motherboard contains 640K of RAM, and its hard disk holds 30 megabytes. IBM’s XT disk holds just a third as much. Moreover, the typical clone’s hard disk is faster: its average seek time is 65 milliseconds instead of 85.

Monitor A company called Hercules invented a video card that improves on IBM’s MDA card.

Like the MDA card, the Hercules card produces pretty characters on a TTL monochrome monitor and includes a parallel printer port. The Hercules card has this advantage: it can generate graphics.

Several companies make video cards imitating the Hercules card. Those imitations are called Hercules-compatible graphics cards.

The typical XT clone includes a TTL monochrome monitor attached to a Hercules-compatible graphics card.

IBM PC AT & clones

In August 1984, IBM announced the IBM PC with Advanced Technology (IBM PC AT). It runs several times as fast as the XT because it contains a faster CPU and disk drives. Other companies have developed AT clones that go even faster.

CPU The CPU is an Intel 80286, which beats the 8088 by performing more cycles per second and also processing about 3 times as much information per cycle.

In IBM’s original version of the AT, the 80286 CPU performed 6 million cycles per second (6 megahertz). In 1986, IBM switched to a faster 80286 that runs at 8 megahertz. Clones go even faster: 12 megahertz!

Bus The bus is 16-bit. That bus is called the AT bus or the Industry Standard Architecture bus (ISA bus). Into its 16-bit slots, you can put 16-bit cards or old XT-style 8-bit cards.

Hard drives The AT handles faster hard drives than the XT.

IBM’s original hard drive for the AT had a 40-millisecond average seek time and held 20 megabytes. That drive, built for IBM by a company called CMI, was unreliable. IBM eventually switched to a different supplier, and CMI went bankrupt.

Most clones contain reliable drives that go faster (28 milliseconds) and hold more (40 megabytes and beyond).

Floppy drives The AT’s floppy drive squeezes 1.2 megabytes onto high-density 5¼-inch floppy disks. That drive can also read the 360K disks created by XT computers, but it cannot reliably create a 360K disk to send to an XT computer.

The typical computerist puts two floppy drives into the AT. The first drive deals mainly with 1.2 megabyte disks. The other drive is an XT-style 360K drive, which sits in the AT just to communicate to XT computers.

Keyboard The AT’s original keyboard had 84 keys. Typists liked it better than the PC and XT keyboards, because it had bigger ENTER and SHIFT keys.

In January 1986, IBM switched to a bigger keyboard having 101 keys. Its function keys (F1, F2, etc.) were in the top row (near the pencil ledge) instead of at the left.

Main power supply The AT’s main power supply is 192 watts. Clones use power supplies that are 200 watts.

SETUP When you first buy an AT, you (or your dealer) must run the SETUP program, which comes on a disk or in a ROM chip.

The SETUP program makes the AT ask you how much RAM you bought, which monitor and disk drives you bought, and whether you bought a math coprocessor. The AT copies your answers into a CMOS RAM chip, powered by a battery sitting in a holder just left of the main power supply.

Even when you turn off the computer’s main power switch, the CMOS RAM chip keeps remembering your answers — until its battery runs out after 4 years (or 1 year in some clones). Then the computer displays the wrong date and time and won’t let you use the hard disk — until you run the SETUP program again, preferably with a fresh battery.

Improved graphics & PS/2

In September 1984, IBM announced an improved color video system. It consists of a video card called the Enhanced Graphics Adapter (EGA) and a compatible color monitor (called an EGA monitor).

You can put an EGA card into the IBM PC, IBM PC XT, or IBM PC AT. The EGA system is better than CGA, because EGA can display more colors and finer resolution (more dots per inch), and EGA obeys the computer’s commands faster.

At the same time, IBM announced an even fancier video system, called the Professional Graphics Controller (PGC), but it was too expensive to be popular.

On April 2, 1987, IBM announced a whole new series of computers, called the Personal System 2 (PS/2), which runs the same programs as the PC but adds better graphics. Soon afterwards, IBM stopped making its old classic computers (the IBM PC, IBM PC XT, and IBM PC AT).

The classic computers used 5¼-inch floppy disks. The PS/2 computers use 3½-inch floppy disks instead, which take up less space on your desk, are sturdier, hold more bytes per square inch, and consume less electricity.

Different models The cheapest PS/2 computer is the PS/2 model 25; the most expensive is the PS/2 model 95. Other models are in between.

By June 1991, IBM had invented these desktop models—

Model CPU Bus Video Floppy

25, 30 8086 XT MCGA 720K

25/286, 30/286 286 AT VGA 1440K

50, 50Z 286 MCA VGA 1440K

35, 40 386SX AT VGA 1440K

55 386SX MCA VGA 1440K

57 386SX MCA VGA 2880K

70 386DX MCA VGA 1440K

90 486 MCA XGA 1440K

and these tower models—

Model 60 is a tower version of model 50.

Model 65 is a tower version of model 55.

Model 80 is a tower version of model 70.

Model 95 is a tower version of model 90.

and these portable models:

Model L40 is a notebook version of model 40.

Model P70 is a luggable version of model 70.

Model P75 is a luggable version of model 90.

Floppy drive In models containing an 8086 CPU, the 3½-inch floppy drive is double-density (DD), so it puts 720K on a disk. In most other models, the 3½-inch floppy drive is high-density (HD), so it puts 1440K on a disk. The model 57 contains an experimental 3½-inch floppy drive that’s extra-high density (ED), so it puts 2880K on a disk.

Bus The models containing an 8086 CPU use the same 8-bit bus as the old IBM PC and IBM PC XT. All other under-50 models use the IBM PC AT 16-bit bus.

Models 50 and up contain a new style of bus, called the Micro Channel, using a technology called Micro Channel Architecture (MCA).

The Micro Channel transmits data faster than the old bus. It includes 16-bit and 32-bit slots. Unfortunately, the Micro Channel’s 16-bit slots are a different size than the 16-bit slots in the IBM PC AT; you cannot put an IBM PC, XT, or AT card into a Micro Channel slot.

IBM holds a patent on the Micro Channel bus.

Clone companies that copy the Micro Channel bus pay IBM a licensing fee. Other clone companies use the AT bus (ISA bus) instead, or a new 32-bit version of it (the Extended ISA bus, which is called the EISA bus, pronounced “ees uh bus”), or an even faster 32-bit version (the Video Electronics Standards Association local bus, called the VESA local bus or VL bus), or the fastest version (the Peripheral Component Interconnect bus, called the PCI bus and used mainly in computers containing a Pentium CPU).

MCGA The models containing an 8086 CPU also contain a chip called the Multi-Color Graphics Array (MCGA), which produces nice graphics.

The MCGA lets you create your own color by mixing an amount of red from 0 to 63, an amount of green from 0 to 63, and an amount of blue from 0 to 63; so altogether, the number of possible colors you can create is “64 times 64 times 64”, which is 262,144.

After you create your favorite colors, the computer will let you display 256 of them on the screen simultaneously. You position those colors on the screen by using a coordinate system that permits an X value from 0 to 319 and a Y value from 0 to 199.

If you’re willing to use just 2 colors instead of 256, the computer will let you do higher-resolution drawing, in which the X value goes from 0 to 639 (so you have 640 choices) and the Y value goes from 0 to 479 (so you have 480 choices). That’s called 640-by-480 resolution.

VGA The models containing a 286 or 386 CPU contain a fancier graphics chip, called the Video Graphics Array (VGA). Its 256-color mode is the same as MCGA’s, but its high-resolution mode permits 16 colors instead of 2.

IBM’s competitors sell clones whose graphics are even better than VGA:

Besides giving you VGA’s high resolution of 640-by-480, they give you an even higher resolution of 800-by-600 and an even higher resolution of 1024-by-768.

Instead of giving you 262,144 colors, the fanciest clones give you 16,777,216 colors (by letting the red, green, and blue each range up to 255 instead of 63).

Since 16,777,216 colors are even more than the human eye can distinguish, clones that have 16,777,216 colors are said to have true color. They’re also said to have 24-bit color (because to distinguish among 16,777,216 colors, the computer must store each color as a 24-bit number).

If you buy a clone containing one of those souped-up VGA systems, make sure the VGA card contains at least 512K of video RAM instead of just 256K. You need that extra RAM to get lots of colors at the super-high resolutions:

Video RAM How many colors you can see simultaneously

256K 256 colors at 640´400; 16 colors at 800´600; 2 colors at 1280´1024

512K 256 colors at 640´480; 16 colors at 1024´768; 2 colors at 1280´1024

1M 16,777,216 colors at 640´480; 65,536 at 800´600; 256 at 1024´768; 16 at 1280´1024

2M 16,777,216 colors at 800´600; 65,536 at 1024´768; 256 at 1280´1024

Make sure the VGA card is 16-bit instead of 8-bit, so it can accept 16 bits of information at once. Then it can handle all those colors and dots quickly!

Since VGA is so wonderful, practically everybody who buys an IBM clone orders VGA.

VGA’s popularity led VGA monitors and cards to be mass-produced on gigantic assembly lines, which dropped VGA’s price even lower than EGA’s. Since VGA is now cheaper and better than EGA, nobody buys EGA monitors or cards anymore (except people repairing old EGA systems).

XGA The PS/2 models having a 486 CPU contain a fancy graphics chip called the eXtended Graphics Array (XGA). It resembles 1024-by-768 VGA.

Price The price of each PS/2 depends on how much RAM you buy, what size hard disk you buy, and what kind of monitor you buy. (If you can’t afford a color monitor, buy a gray-scale monitor that shows shades of gray instead. The shades of gray crudely imitate the color graphics you’d get from MCGA, VGA, or XGA.)

If somebody offers you a “complete PS/2 system” cheaply, check whether that “complete” price includes the monitor. Usually it doesn’t!

Cheaper than PS/2

The PS/2 computers were too expensive. In 1990, IBM invented a cheaper series of computers, called the PS/1. In 1992, IBM invented an even cheaper series, called the PS/Valuepoint.

In 1993, IBM invented an even cheaper series called the Ambra, which IBM sold just by mail to compete against mail-order clone companies.

The IBM division that produced and sold the Ambra was understaffed, confused, and mismanaged: shipments were delayed and unpredictable, many Ambras were defective, and customers had difficulty getting IBM’s Ambra division to send a repairman. Though the Ambra division advertised heavily, it was so badly managed and got such a bad reputation that it lost money. In 1994, IBM shut the division down.

In 1994, IBM began selling a nicer series, called the Aptiva.

IBM’s flops

Some of your friends might still own IBM’s other microcomputers, which were less successful.

IBM’s PC Junior was intended for schoolkids. It had pretty graphics and a low price; but its add-ons were too expensive, its keyboard was awkward, and its circuitry differed enough from the original PC so the Junior refused to run some of the PC’s programs.

IBM’s PC Portable was a luggable inspired by Compaq but didn’t include enough expansion slots.

After IBM invented the 8-megahertz AT, IBM had too many 6-megahertz and XT parts left in its warehouse. To use up those old parts, IBM created the XT/286, which contained a 6-megahertz AT CPU attached to an XT disk drive. The XT/286 was as unpopular as its parts.

Don’s demise

Though Don Estridge became popular for inventing the IBM PC and XT, his next two projects disappointed IBM: the PC Junior didn’t sell well, and the AT’s CMI hard drive was unreliable.

His bosses kicked him out of the Boca Raton research office and hid him in an obscure part of the company. A few months later, when he flew on a Delta jet, the jet crashed and killed him.

How clones are priced

Instead of buying from IBM, save money! Buy a clone instead!

Here’s how most clones are priced. (I’ll show you the prices that were in effect when this book went to press in August 2000. Prices drop about 3% per month, 30% per year.)

$900 gets you a “standard” clone. That’s the cheapest kind of modern clone.

If you pay more than $900, you get a clone that’s fancier — a powerful “muscle machine” that will impress your friends. They’ll be impressed by how much money you spent. (If you pay much more than $900, they might also be impressed by how stupid you were to overspend.)

If you pay less than $900, you get a clone that’s old-fashioned. If you pay slightly less than $900, the clone will still run most programs fine, though your friends will laugh at you for buying such a puny, quaint computer. If you pay much less than $900, the clone will probably have some difficulty running modern programs. But hey, if you can’t afford $900, a substandard clone is better than no computer at all! If you buy a substandard clone, your next task is to figure out which software it can handle well; then buy just that kind of software.

Here are the details. (I’ve rounded all prices to the nearest $25.)

CPU

The standard clone’s CPU is a Pentium Celeron, running at a speed of 600 megahertz. It’s fast enough to perform most tasks quickly. To get an even faster Pentium, you must pay a surcharge:

CPU Surcharge

Pentium Celeron at 600 megahertz $0

Pentium Celeron at 633 megahertz $25

Pentium Celeron at 677 megahertz $75

Pentium 3 at 733 megahertz $100

Pentium 3 at 800 megahertz $175

Pentium 3 at 850 megahertz $325

Pentium 3 at 866 megahertz $350

Pentium 3 at 933 megahertz $550

Pentium 3 at 1000 megahertz $875

Those faster CPUs are just slightly faster than a 600-megahertz Celeron and are overpriced. Don’t buy them until Intel lowers their prices. For now, get just a 600-megahertz Celeron.

If you’re willing to accept slower Celeron, at 500 megahertz, deduct $25.

To save money, buy an AMD K6-2 or AMD Duron (which are as good as a Pentium Celeron but cost less) or an AMD Athlon (which is as good as a Pentium 3 but costs less).

RAM

The standard clone’s RAM is 64M. If you want 128M instead, add $50.

Though 64M is usually enough, 128M helps some programs run faster.

If you’re willing to accept just 32M (which is substandard), deduct $25. But some Windows programs (such as Internet Explorer 5.5) are memory hogs that expect you to have at least 64M. If you have just 32M, the memory-hog programs will still run, but slowly.

Hard drive

The standard clone’s hard drive is 10 gigabytes (10G). If you want a bigger hard drive, you must pay a surcharge:

Hard drive Surcharge

10 gigabytes $0

20 gigabytes $25

30 gigabytes $75

40 gigabytes $125

Though 10 gigabytes is enough to run today’s software, I recommend getting at least 20 gigabytes, since programmers have recently been inventing bigger software. Software size is increasing dramatically! A 20-gigabyte drive costs about $25 more than a 10-gigabyte drive; that $25 is a worthwhile insurance policy against future increases in software size.

Video

The standard clone includes a 17-inch color monitor. Add $125 for 19-inch, $550 for 21-inch. Deduct $75 for 15-inch, $100 for 14-inch. Though 15-inch is adequate, you should get at least 17-inch, which is much more pleasant, more common, required by some programs for standard operation, and worth the $75 difference.

The standard video card has 8M of RAM on it. Add $50 if 16M, $100 if 32M. Deduct $25 if 4M.

Other hardware

The standard clone’s CD-ROM drive is 48X max. Add $75 if the drive can also handle DVD. Deduct $50 if the drive is missing.

The standard clone includes a sound card and a pair of stereo speakers. The sound card should be able to do wave-table synthesis (which means it can produce extra-realistic sounds by creating tables of sound waves), or else deduct $25. Add $50 if you also get a subwoofer (a third speaker, which gives you a richer bass). If you get no sound card and no speakers, deduct $100.

The standard clone’s modem has an advertised speed of 56 kilobaud and can also handle faxes. Deduct $50 if you get no modem.

The standard clone includes a keyboard, mouse, and 3½-inch floppy drive. Add $75 if it also includes a Zip drive (or LS-120 drive or tape drive).

The standard clone comes in a tower case. Deduct $25 if the case is a desktop instead of a desktop. The tower case is more common and has two advantages: it can hold extra cards (but you probably won’t buy any!) and it can sit on the floor (so your desk is uncluttered and your monitor sits low enough to be seen without craning your neck up).

Notebooks are pricey

The first rule about buying a notebook (or laptop) computer is: don’t buy one unless you must! Try buying a desktop computer instead!

Though notebook computers are portable and cute, you pay a lot for portable cuteness.

For example, suppose you want to buy this kind of modest computer: a 500 MHz Celeron (or AMD K6-2) with 64-megabyte RAM, 10-gigabyte hard drive, floppy drive, color screen, mouse (or touchpad), CD-ROM drive, sound, 56K modem, and Windows (98 or ME). You can get a desktop computer fitting that description, from the most aggressive discount dealers, for about $700; to get a notebook computer fitting that description, you must pay about $1100 instead.

If you can afford $1100, should you buy a notebook computer? No! Here’s what $1100 gets you:

$1100 notebook $1100 desktop

AMD K6-2 at 500 MHz AMD Duron at 700 MHz

64-megabyte RAM 128-megabyte RAM

6-gigabyte hard drive 20-gigabyte hard drive

13" 800´600 screen 17"/16" 1280´1024 screen

24X CD-ROM drive DVD drive

stereo sound stereo sound + subwoofer

56K modem & Windows 56K modem & Windows

Desktop computers give you much more equipment per dollar than notebook computers. So don’t buy a notebook unless you must.

If you need to use a computer in two locations, don’t buy a notebook: buy two desktop computers instead! Buying two desktop computers costs about the same as buying one notebook. Or buy a desktop computer that’s light enough to carry to your car easily.

Buy a notebook computer just if you need to travel often to many locations or if you’re a student or researcher needing to take notes in a lecture or library.

When buying a notebook computer, the price depends mainly on what kind of screen you get. Most folks buy color screens, though black-and-white monochrome screens are cheaper. For color screens, the old-fashioned kind is called passive; the next step up is dual-scan passive, which is brighter and works faster; the most expensive is active-matrix, which is even brighter and works even faster. Passive is also called STN; dual-scan passive is called DSTN; active-matrix is called TFT.

Most folks buy color screens that are active-matrix (which is the best type) or dual-scan passive (which costs $100 less). To help folks who are debating between those two types, some Compaq notebooks use a compromise called high-performance addressing (HPA).

Famous clones

I’d like to tell you about a company that makes reliable, powerful IBM clones, charges you very little, and is a pleasure to call if you ever need technical help.

That’s what I’d like to tell you, but I haven’t found such a company yet! If you find one, let me know!

Each day, I falsely think I’ve finally found my hero company. I tell the name of the hero-company-du-jour to folks like you who call me for advice. But like O.J. Simpson, my hoped-for hero gets quickly accused by my customers of doubly murdering them in some way. How depressing! Can’t any company do things right? I’ve been writing this book for over 25 years and have yet to find a company I still feel proud about. I’m disgusted.

Hero companies rise but then fall because they suffer through the following business cycle:

When the company begins, it’s new and unknown, so it tries hard to get attention for itself by offering low prices. It also tries to help its customers by offering good service.

When news spreads about how the company offers low prices and good service, the company gets deluged with more customers than it can handle — and it’s also stuck answering phone calls from old customers who still need help but aren’t buying anything new.

To eliminate the overload, the company must either accept fewer customers (by raising prices — or by lowering them slower than the rest of the industry), or offer less service per customer (by refusing to hire enough staff to handle all the questions), or hire extra staff (who are usually less talented than the company’s founders but nevertheless expect high pay). In any of those cases, the company becomes less pleasant and heroism is relegated to history. The company becomes just one more inconsequential player in the vast scheme of computer life.

This chapter portrays the players. Warning: these portraits are anatomically correct — they show which companies are pricks.

The computer industry’s a soap opera in which consumers face new personal horrors daily. I wrote this in September 2000, but you can get the newest breathtaking episode of the computer industry’s drama, How the Screw-You Turns, by phoning me anytime. I’ll tell you the newest dirt about wannabe and were-to-be hero companies.

So before buying a computer, phone me at 603-666-6644 to get my new advice free. Tell me your needs, and I’ll try to recommend the best vendor for you. Before phoning me, become a knowledgeable consumer by reading this chapter.

ABS & NuTrend

Of all the major reputable computer manufacturers, ABS charges the least!

You can buy from ABS headquarters or from its NuTrend Computer division, which charges even less. Here’s what NuTrend charged when this book went to press in September 2000:

CPU type MHz RAM Hard drive Video CD Stereo speakers Price

AMD K6-2 500 64M 10 gigabytes 15" 8M 52X 2 speakers $719

AMD K6-2 533 64M 10 gigabytes 15" 8M 52X 2 speakers $729

AMD K6-2 533 64M 10 gigabytes 17" 8M 52X 2 speakers $778

AMD Duron 600 128M 20 gigabytes 17" 32M DVD 2 speakers + subwoofer $979

AMD Duron 650 128M 20 gigabytes 17" 32M DVD 2 speakers + subwoofer $989

AMD Duron 700 128M 20 gigabytes 17" 32M DVD 2 speakers + subwoofer $999

AMD Athlon 700 128M 20 gigabytes 17" 32M DVD 2 speakers + subwoofer $1099

AMD Athlon 750 128M 20 gigabytes 17" 32M DVD 2 speakers + subwoofer $1119

AMD Athlon 750 128M 20 gigabytes 19" 32M DVD 2 speakers + subwoofer $1249

AMD Athlon 800 128M 20 gigabytes 19" 32M DVD 2 speakers + subwoofer $1269

AMD Athlon 800 128M 30 gigabytes 19" 32M DVD 2 speakers + subwoofer $1359

AMD Athlon 800 128M 30 gigabytes 19" 32M DVD 4 speakers + subwoofer $1389

AMD Athlon 800 128M 40 gigabytes 19" 32M DVD 4 speakers + subwoofer $1619

AMD Athlon 850 128M 40 gigabytes 19" 32M DVD 4 speakers + subwoofer $1679

AMD Athlon 950 128M 40 gigabytes 19" 32M DVD 4 speakers + subwoofer $1789

AMD Athlon 1000 128M 40 gigabytes 19" 32M DVD 4 speakers + subwoofer $1899

For example, the chart’s bottom line says:

NuTrend will sell you a computer system in which the CPU is fast (an AMD Athlon running at a speed of 1000 megahertz, which is 1 gigahertz), the RAM is big (128 megabytes), the hard drive is big (40 gigabytes), the monitor’s screen contains a 19-inch tube (measured diagonally), the video card contains 32 megabytes of RAM, the CD-ROM drive can also handle DVD, and the 4 normal speakers are supplemented by a 5^th speaker (subwoofer) to produce a booming bass. The total price is just $1899.

Each NuTrend system comes in a tower case. The motherboard includes a PCI bus. You also get a 56K V.90 fax/modem, a wave-table sound card, 1.44M floppy drive, mouse, 104-key keyboard, microphone, Windows Me, WordPerfect Office 2000, and a CD containing Grolier’s encyclopedia.

Lower prices NuTrend will probably charge you even less. For example, if you order by using NuTrend’s Internet Web site, you’ll often get a lower price than advertised in magazines. Prices drop every month. For example, when this book went to press at the end of September 2000, NuTrend was in the process of dropping some prices by an additional $300. If you buy on certain days, NuTrend offers a $75 rebate; NuTrend will send you an e-mail telling you when the rebates are, if you get on NuTrend’s mailing list. After you buy a NuTrend computer, NuTrend will give you a $20 rebate for every friend whom you convince to buy a NuTrend computer.

Software deals NuTrend sells software at low prices.. For example, it sells Microsoft Works Suite for $89, Microsoft Office Small Business Edition for $199, and Corel Draw 9 for $99. Those prices are for full versions of the software, bought with your computer.

A few years ago, I bought a computer myself from NuTrend. I’m satisfied because the machine works okay and costs little. I’ve had these minor frustrations.…

The hard drive is slow: it’s from a good manufacturer, Quantum, but it’s Quantum’s cheapest model. The image on the screen is slightly fuzzy: the monitor is from a good manufacturer, Optiquest, but it’s Optiquest’s cheapest model. The mouse card was screwed in crooked, so the mouse’s cord wouldn’t fit into it until I opened the computer and readjusted the card. The computer has two “power on” switches, whose relationship to each other is confusing. The diagram showing beginners how to plug the components into the back of the computer didn’t match the way the computer actually looked. The Windows “guided tour” tutorial wouldn’t run, until I reinstalled the software. The salesman lied about software: he said Lotus Smart Suite 97 is the newest version, but it’s not. WordPerfect Suite 8 came on a CD-ROM with no manual.

ABS and NuTrend are near Los Angeles. They’re next door to each other. Here’s how to reach them:

ABS Computer Technologies

9997 Rose Hills Road

Whittier CA 90601

main phone & sales: 800-876-8088 or 562-695-8823

tech support questions: 800-865-2471

Internet Web site: www.buyabs.com

NuTrend Computer

9999 Rose Hills Road

Whittier CA 90601

main phone & sales: 888-482-6678 or 562-692-4462

tech support questions: 888-525-5181

Internet Web site: www.nutrend.com

Services When you order, you must wait a week for NuTrend to build your computer, then wait another week for UPS to ship it to you by ground, which costs $75 if you’re in New England, less if you’re closer to California.

In the past, ABS didn’t use enough packing material.

Customers often complained that the cable to the floppy drive fell out during shipping. They had to open the computer and push the cable into the back of the drive again. When they asked ABS about the problem, the technician seemed to say “It’s a Peking problem”; but he was trying to say “It’s a packing problem” with a Chinese accent. (Customers complain they can’t understand the accents of ABS’s technicians.)

But the computer I received recently from NuTrend was packed fine.

Founded in 1981 and run by Fred Chang, ABS has been a member of the Better Business Bureau. The Bureau has reported many unresolved complaints about ABS, such as delays in getting refunds, but some ABS customers have good luck and tell me they’re happy.

For answers to tech-support questions, phone 800-865-2471. ABS used to be bad at answering that phone: customers told me they typically got put on hold for 20 minutes, then disconnected. But in 1999, I and my readers and the editors of Computer Shopper magazine all got through to ABS and NuTrend tech support immediately, indicating that ABS and NuTrend offered better tech support “big-name brands”. Unfortunately, in the year 2000, tech support got worse: expect a 20-minute delay before talking to a human.

ABS gives you a 30-day money-back guarantee, a 3-year warranty, and free phone help forever (lifetime), toll-free.

Women used to complain to me that ABS employees assume all women are stupid. Examples:

When a woman asked a question about Windows 95, the ABS staff brushed her off by saying, “It’s not our job to explain Windows 95.”

When an Alaska woman who runs a computer company bought 5 ABS computers and then tried asking a question, the ABS staff tried to brush her off by saying, “Why don’t you ask your husband?” She replied, “Because I know more about computers than he does. He’s a fisherman.”

But I haven’t heard such complaints lately. Maybe ABS has improved?

Emachines

Emachines is the only major company that advertises computers for under $500 and lets you buy them in stores.

History Here’s how the Emachines company began…

Radio Shack is owned by Tandy, which also used to own a chain of discount computer superstores called Computer City. Tandy eventually gave up trying to run Computer City and sold that chain to Comp USA. Computer City’s president (Stephen Dukker) was dismayed at becoming a Comp USA vice-president, so he quit and started his own company, Emachines, which invents cheap computer systems (under $500) and sells them to retail stores such as Comp USA.

He started Emachines in September 1998, using money invested by two Korean companies: Trigem (which makes Emachine’s computers) and Korea Data Systems (KDS) (which makes Emachine’s monitors).

He was wildly successful. Nine months later, in June 1999, his company become the third-biggest seller of desktop&tower computers in computer stores: just Compaq and Hewlett-Packard sell more desktop&tower computers than he. In the next month, July 1999, he shipped his 1 millionth computer. In September 2000, he shipped his 3 millionth computer.

Prices Here are Emachine’s prices:

CPU MHz RAM Hard drive CD Price

Celeron 566 32M 7.5 gigs 40X $474-$75=$399

Celeron 633 64M 20 gigs DVD $674-$75=$599

Celeron 633 64M 20 gigs 48X + CD-RW $774-$75=$699

Celeron 700 64M 30 gigs 48X + DVD + CD-RW $874-$75=$799

In that chart, the “minus $75” means you get a $75 rebate. Each price includes a keyboard, mouse, pair of speakers, 56K fax/modem, and Windows Me.

The prices do not include a monitor. (You can get a 14-inch monitor for about $100 from a variety of sources.) There is no video card: the video circuitry uses part of the main RAM.

You get a 1-year warranty. (Add $89 if you want a 3-year warranty instead.)

Where to buy You can buy Emachines from computer stores (Comp USA and Micro Center), electronics stores (Circuit City, Best Buy, Fry’s, J&R, and BrandsMart), office-supply stores (Staples and Office Depot), department stores (Sears), warehouse stores (Costco and BJ’s), mail-order computer dealers (Micro Warehouse and Tiger Direct), general mail-order catalogues (Damark, and Fingerhut), and many other places also!

His contribution to the world of cheap computers is: distribution!

$400 rebate He offers an extra $400 rebate if you sign a 3-year contract to use Compuserve as your Internet service provider, at a cost of $21.95 per month, so the contract costs you a total of “36 months times $21.95”, which is $790.20. So for the cheapest Emachines computer, the price is “$474 minus a $75 rebate minus a $400 Compuserve rebate”, making the final price be about $0.

Stores advertise it as being a “free computer”, neglecting to mention that the price does not include a monitor and requires you to sign a $790.20 Compuserve contract. That kind of advertising was popular in November 1999, when many Emachines were sold; but in the year 2000, many state governments declared those ads “misleading” and banned them.

Micro Center

The first major company to sell good computers for under $500 was Micro Electronics Incorporated (MEI), which runs a chain of stores called Micro Center. It manufactures a computer called the PowerSpec and has sold it for just $399! The $399 version is no longer available, but Micro Center will sell you a fancier version for a price that’s still low:

CPU MHz RAM Hard drive Video RAM CD Price

Celeron 633 64M 20 gigs 4M 48X $649

Pentium 3 667 64M 30 gigs 4M 48X $799

Pentium 3 733 128M 30 gigs 4M 48X $949

Pentium 3 800 128M 45 gigs 32M 48X + CD-RW $1399

Pentium 3 933 128M 45 gigs 32M 48X + CD-RW $1899

Each price includes a keyboard, mouse, pair of speakers, Windows, and the Microsoft Works Suite. Those prices do not include a monitor.

Those were Micro Center’s list prices as of September 2000. Prices continually drop, and Micro Center often has a special “sale price”.

You can buy PowerSpec computers at a Micro Center superstore (a pleasant place to shop!) or mail-order (800-382-2390).

Gateway

Gateway was the first company to sell lots of computers by mail. Here’s how Gateway became mail-order king.

How Gateway arose Gateway began because of cows:

In the 1800’s, George Waitt began a cattle company. According to legend, he got his first herd by grabbing cattle that jumped off barges into the Missouri River on the way to the stockyards.

His cattle business passed to his descendants and eventually into the hands of his great-grandson, Norm, who built the Waitt Cattle Company into one of the biggest cattle firms in the Midwest. The company is on the Missouri River, in Iowa’s Sioux City, which is where Iowa meets South Dakota and Nebraska.

Norm’s sons — Norm Junior and Ted — preferred computers to cows, so on September 5^th, 1985, they started the “Gateway 2000” company in their dad’s office. They told him computers are easier to ship than cows, since computers can take a long journey without needing to be fed and without making a mess in their boxes.

22-year-old Ted was the engineer and called himself “president”; Norm Junior was the businessman and called himself “vice president”. Their main investor was their grandma, who secured a $10,000 loan. They hired just one employee: Mike Hammond.

At first, they sold just parts for the Texas Instruments Professional Computer. Soon they began building their own computers. By the end of 1985, they’d sold 50 systems, for which customers paid a total of $100,000.

Gateway grew rapidly:

Year Computers sold Revenue Employees

1985 50 computers $100,000 2

1986 300 computers $1,000,000 4

1987 500 computers $1,500,000 8

1988 4,000 computers $11,700,000 33

1989 25,000 computers $70,500,000 176

1990 100,000 computers $275,500,000 600

1991 225,000 computers $626,700,000 1,300

1992 even more computers! $1,100,000,000 1,876

1993 even more computers! $1,700,000,000 3,500

1994 even more computers! $2,700,000,000 4,500

1995 1,338,000 computers $3,700,000,000 9,300

1996 1,909,000 computers $5,000,000,000 9,700

1997 2,580,000 computers $6,300,000,000 13,300

1998 even more computers! $7,500,000,000 19,300

1999 even more computers! $8,600,000,000 21,000

For each year, that chart shows how many computers were sold during the year, the total numbers of dollars that customers paid for them and for add-ons, and how many employees Gateway had at the year’s end.

Here are highlights from the history of Ted Waitt and his employees during those years:

In 1986, they moved to a bigger office in the Sioux City Livestock Exchange Building.

In 1988, Ted began a national marketing campaign by designing his own ads and running them in Computer Shopper magazine. His most famous ad showed a gigantic two-page photo of his family’s cattle farm and the headline, “Computers from Iowa?” The computer industry was stunned — cowed — by the ad’s huge size and the low prices it offered for IBM clones. In the ad, Ted emphasized that Gateway was run by hard-working, honest Midwesterners who gave honest value. (At that time, most clones came from California or Texas; but Californians had a reputation for being “flaky”, and Texans had a reputation for being “lawless”). Though cynics called Gateway “the cow computer”, it was a success. In September, the company moved a few miles south to a larger plant in Sergeant Bluff, Iowa. Gateway’s operations there began with 28 employees.

In the summer of 1989, Gateway grew to 150 employees, so Gateway began building a bigger plant. To get tax breaks and business grants, Gateway built it upriver at North Sioux City, South Dakota, and moved there in January 1990.

In 1990, Gateway became more professional. In 1989, the “instruction manual” was 2 pages; in 1990, it was 2 books. In 1989, the “tech support staff” (which answers technical questions from customers) consisted of just 1 person, and you had to wait 2 days for him to return your call; in 1990, the tech support staff included 35 people, and you could get through in 2 minutes. Gateway also switched to superior hard drives and monitors. In 1990, customers paid Gateway 275½ million dollars, generating a net profit of $25 million.

By early 1992, Gateway was selling nearly 2,000 computers per day and had 1,300 employees, including over 100 salespeople and 200 tech-support specialists to answer technical questions. Not bad, for a company whose president was just 30! Since Gateway was owned by just Norm Junior and Ted, those two boys became quite rich!

In March 1993, Gateway hired its 2000^th employee. In April 1993, Gateway sold its one millionth computer. In December 1993, Gateway went public, so now you can buy Gateway stock and own part of that dreamy company, which by May 1995 had become so big that it answered over 12,000 tech-support calls in one day.

On September 5^th, 1995, Gateway’s 6000 employees celebrated the company’s 10^th anniversary.

Now Ted owns 44% of Gateway’s stock; Norm owns 8%.

Though Gateway’s become huge and has offices worldwide (in France, Germany, Ireland, Australia, and soon Japan), it’s still headquartered in North Sioux City, a small behind-the-times town that got its first 4-way stop sign in 1992, first McDonald’s hamburger joint in 1994, and doesn’t have any traffic lights yet.

Gateway gets along well with its neighbors: in fact, two former mayors of Sioux City have become Gateway employees!

Gateway’s become a rapidly growing cash cow: moo-lah, moo-lah! But Gateway hasn’t lost its sense of humor. When you buy a Gateway computer, it comes in a box painted to look like a dairy cow: white with black spots.

Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream sued Gateway for copying the idea of putting cow spots on packages. Meanwhile, Gateway sued a shareware distributor called Tucows for using spotted cows to sell computer products. Those suits have been settled.

On January 1, 2000, Ted Waitt decided to semi-retire: he turned the day-to-day operation of Gateway over to Jeff Weitzen, who had joined Gateway 2 years earlier after working at AT&T for 18 years. So now Jeffrey is Gateway’s President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO), though Ted is still Chairman of Gateway’s Board of Directors.

Gateway’s ads Each Gateway ad begins with gigantic photographs.

In early ads, the photos showed individuals in beautiful landscapes. Later ads showed hordes of Gateway employees dressed as Robin Hood’s men in Sherwood Forest, top-hatted performers in Vegas cabarets, teenagers in a nostalgic 1950’s diner bathed in neon glow, or movie directors applauding a ship full of pirates.

The eye-popping photos, which seem to have nothing to do with computers, grab your attention. (Gateway’s diner ad includes the only photo I’ve ever seen that makes meat loaf look romantic!) Then you get headlines and florid prose that try to relate the scene to Gateway’s computers. Finally, after all that multi-page image-building nonsense, you get to the ad’s finale, which reveals Gateway’s great technical specifications (specs), great service policies, and low prices.

That way of building an ad — fluff followed by stuff — has worked wonders for Gateway! Idiots admire the photos, techies admire the specs, and everybody buys!

Gateway was the first big mail-order manufacturer to give honest pricing: the advertised price includes everything except shipping. The price even includes a color monitor. And since all components are high-quality, a Gateway system’s a dream system. With dreamy ads and a low price, how can you not buy?

How to reach Gateway Gateway ships worldwide.

If you’re in the USA, phone Gateway at 800-LAD-2000.

If you’re in Canada, phone Gateway at 800-846-3609.

If you’re in Puerto Rico, phone Gateway at 800-846-3613.

If you’re in Mexico, phone Gateway at 95-888-888-0074.

From anywhere in the world, phone Gateway at 605-232-2000.

Internet Web site: www.gateway.com

Gateway’s sales department is open weekdays 7AM-10PM, Saturday 9AM-4PM, Central Time. Gateway is closed on Sunday.

If you wish to write, address your mail to Gateway 2000, 610 Gateway Drive, PO Box 2000, North Sioux City SD 57049-2000.

Price list Gateway has advertised these prices:

CPU MHz RAM Hard drive Video CD Stereo speakers Extras Price

Celeron 633 64M 7.5 gigabytes 15" 4M 48X 2 speakers $799

Celeron 733 64M 7.5 gigabytes 17" 4M 48X 2 speakers $999

Athlon 800 64M 15 gigabytes 17" 16M 48X 2 speakers printer, camera $1299

Athlon 900 64M 30 gigabytes 17" 32M DVD 2 speakers + subwoofer printer, camera $1599

Athlon 1000 128M 30 gigabytes 17" 32M DVD 2 speakers + subwoofer printer, camera $1999

Athlon 1100 128M 45 gigabytes 19" 64M DVD 2 speakers + subwoofer printer, camera $2499

For example, the chart’s bottom line says:

Gateway will sell you a computer system in which the CPU is fast (an Athlon running at a speed of 1100 megahertz, which is 1.1 gigahertz), the RAM is big (128 megabytes), the hard drive is big (45 gigabytes), the monitor’s screen contains a 19-inch tube (measured diagonally), the video card contains 64 megabytes of RAM, the CD-ROM drive can also handle DVD, and the 2 stereo speakers are supplemented by a third speaker (subwoofer) to produce a booming bass. The price includes an inkjet printer and a handheld digital camera, but don’t get excited: the inkjet printer is slow, and the handheld camera produces just low-resolution pictures, 640-by-480. The total price is $2499.

Each of those Gateway systems includes a tower case, PCI bus, a 56.6-kilobaud fax/modem card (using x2 chips), a wave-table sound card, a 1.44M floppy drive, a mouse, Windows Me, and 1 year of free Internet access from America Online (AOL).

The price also includes the Microsoft Works Suite. Add $129 if you want Microsoft Office Small Business Edition instead.

Prices drop Gateway advertised those prices in September 2000. By the time you read this book, Gateway’s advertised prices might be even lower.

When you phone Gateway to check a price, Gateway’s salespeople often quote you a lower price than advertised. That’s because Gateway’s prices drop often, and the ads aren’t as up-to-date as what the salespeople say. Moreover, Gateway likes to fool competitors by pretending to have high prices while actually offering prices so low you can’t say no, so competitors can’t figure out why everybody’s buying from Gateway.

Gateway usually drops its prices during the last week of each month. If you order from Gateway’s Internet Web site instead of by phone, Gateway often deducts $50.

Shipping If you order a computer, you must typically wait 3 weeks to receive it because Gateway is swamped with orders and won’t ship until about 3 weeks after you order. Then Gateway will ship the computer by 2-day air and charge you $95 for shipping.

Customers complain that $95 is too much for shipping, so Gateway’s begun offering another choice: for just $50, Gateway will ship by UPS ground instead, which takes about a week.

Tax Like most mail-order companies, Gateway used to charge sales tax just to customers who were in Gateway’s state (South Dakota). Recently, Gateway’s been forced to charge tax to customers in California, New York, Florida, Massachusetts, Kentucky, and many other states — about 30 states altogether! When you phone Gateway, ask the salesperson whether you must pay tax.

Support Gateway’s warranty used to be just 1 year, but now Gateway gives a 3-year warranty on the entire system. Gateway also gives you a 30-day money-back guarantee, lifetime toll-free tech support, 3-year on-site service (from Dow Jones, if you’re within 100 miles of a Dow Jones service center), and free shipping of replacement parts by overnight air.

If you have a problem and want to speak to a technician, phone Gateway’s technical-support department at 800-846-2301. Gateway advertises “24-hour technical support”, but that’s just for helpful recorded messages: live humans are usually available just weekdays 6AM-midnight, Saturday 9AM-2PM, Central Time.

Delays Up through 1992, Gateway’s popularity grew rapidly, and Gateway got more customers than its staff could handle.

Customers complained about getting busy signals, shipping delays, and incompetent tech-support staff. The delays got worse and worse, until they reached a crisis point in January 1993. By then, many of Gateway’s former customers got disgusted, switched to other vendors instead, and complained to me and other journalists. Infoworld, The Wall Street Journal, and I wrote articles saying how bad Gateway had become.

That was enough of a “kick in the pants” to make Gateway clean up its act. After January 1993, Gateway gradually improved the quantity and quality of its staff. By August 1993 Gateway’s service and support had become no worse than the industry average.

But in September 1993, Gateway started to get overloaded again; and by Christmas 1993, Gateway was so overloaded that customers began to complain. By January 1994, Gateway was back in a full-blown crisis again — just like the year before! Throughout the first half of 1994, Gateway’s delays were intolerable: 5 weeks to get a computer, and next-to-impossible to get through to the technical-service department.

Then Gateway improved again. Shipping delays dropped from 5 weeks back down to 2 weeks. Gateway added more technicians to its staff and in November 1994 built a new, expanded service department in Kansas City, Missouri. By the summer of 1995, Gateway’s technical support had improved so much that the computer magazines were saying Gateway’s technical support was actually good!

When Windows 95 came out on August 24, 1995, Gateway suddenly got swamped with questions about it, and Gateway became overloaded. Callers to Gateway’s technical-support number were greeted with a recorded message that began, “Due to the large number of Windows 95 calls.…”

Now Gateway’s catching up, and delays in getting through to technical support are decreasing. But I expect the tech-support staff at Gateway, like the rest of the computer industry, will continue to be overloaded each December & January (when Americans try to understand & fix the computers received for Christmas) and underloaded each July & August (when Americans think about the beach instead of computers).

Every January, newspapers print articles about how awful Gateway is; then Gateway apologizes; then by August everybody praises Gateway for being wonderful; and then the following January everybody wants to sue Gateway again.

Aren’t business cycles fun?

Premium Service If you pay a $99 bribe, Gateway gives you priority over other customers: you get a special 800 number to phone for faster technical support, and you get 3 years of on-site service instead of just 1 year. Gateway calls this Premium Service.

Stores Gateway used to sell just by mail but recently has set up Gateway Country showrooms in many cities. Each showroom is full of Gateway computers and decorated with cow spots. The showrooms also offer courses, but not much tech support. Some of the Gateway Country showrooms are inside Office Max office-supply superstores.

Keyboard Some Gateway computers come with the AnyKey keyboard, which is manufactured by Maxiswitch and completely programmable: you can program any key to do any function. For example, if you don’t like the SHIFT key’s location, you can program a different key to act as the SHIFT key.

Unfortunately, that feature is too fancy: many beginners accidentally hit the Remap key, which then remaps all the other keys so no key works as expected! Beginners have trouble finding the instructions that explain how to reset the keyboard to act normally again.

Worry no more! Here are the instructions for how to make your AnyKey keyboard act normal again:

While holding down the Ctrl and Alt keys, tap the Suspend Macro key. That procedure will probably make your keyboard act normal again.

If that procedure doesn’t make your keyboard act normal yet, the Ctrl and Alt keys are themselves screwed up! Fix them by doing this: press the Remap key once, then the Ctrl key twice, then the Alt key twice, then the Remap key once. Then try the procedure again: while holding down the Ctrl and Alt keys, tap the Suspend Macro key.

Notebooks Gateway sells notebook computers, but the prices are too high (starting at $1399) and the warranty is short (just 1 year).

Gateway versus NuTrend Gateway charges more than NuTrend but sometimes provides better service and free Internet access. NuTrend gives you more hardware per dollar and charges tax just to California.

Packard Bell

Packard Bell was the first company to successfully sell cheap IBM clones through department stores. In November 1999, Packard Bell went out of business, but its influence lives on. Here are the details.

Packard Bell marketed mainly to average Americans in the early 1990’s, when Americans were starting to get curious about computers but didn’t understand them and didn’t want to spend much. Since the average American avoided computer stores and feared buying a computer by mail-order, Packard Bell sold cheap clones through chains of discount department stores (such as Sears, Walmart, Sam’s Club, Lechmere, Price/Costco, Staples, and Office Max). Department stores had been afraid to sell computers, because the stores didn’t want to deal with repairs; but Packard Bell told the stores, “Don’t worry: if the computer breaks, we’ll fix it, and we’ll handle all tech support.” So the department stores tried selling Packard Bell computers. They were priced about $1000 (which at that time was much cheaper than other brands). They were popular because they were cheap, available in department stores, and included 15 easy-to-use programs, loaded already on the hard disk, for immediate access. The programs included games, tutorials, educational experiences, and simple productivity tools (such as Microsoft Works, which included a word processor, database, spreadsheet, etc.).

To keep the advertised price low, Packard Bell typically included a poor monitor (.39mm dot pitch, interlaced) or didn’t include any monitor at all. Also Packard Bell provided programs on the hard disk but not on floppy disks: if you accidentally erased the hard disk, you lost the programs!

During the early 1990’s, getting a Packard Bell computer repaired was tough. I wrote this comment in the 1990 edition of The Secret Guide to Computers:

Warning: getting a Packard Bell computer repaired is tough. Dealers complain that Packard Bell doesn’t provide replacement parts; customers complain that dealers say to phone Packard Bell, which rarely answers the phone. When it does answer, it says to leave your phone number for a call back. Then it either neglects to call you or tells you to phone a service company that tells you to get lost.

By 1993, Packard Bell improved slightly, but then Packard Bell’s phone-support center got wrecked by the earthquake in Northridge & Los Angeles in January 1994. Customers who called after that got just circuit-busy messages.

In July 1994, Packard Bell moved its support center to Utah, which has fewer earthquakes. The support center was in the town of Magna, a suburb of Salt Lake City. But if you tried phoning Packard Bell’s support center, you still usually got a recorded message saying that all lines were busy and you should try writing a letter or sending electronic mail instead. But sending “electronic mail” was difficult when your computer was broken!

In 1996, Packard Bell began requiring most callers to call a 900 number instead for software help.

In spite of its questionable repair record, Packard Bell grew rapidly and became one of the biggest computer companies in the USA. That’s because Packard Bell had the right formula:

good distribution (you can find Packard Bell computers at most department stores across the USA), good price (cheaper than IBM, Compaq, and other famous brands), good easy-to-use programs (though they’re the cheap kind that don’t cost Packard Bell much), repairs handled directly by Packard Bell (so the department stores don’t need any computer technicians on their staff), and a good-sounding name (“Packard Bell”)

The name “Packard Bell” sounded good because it reminded consumers of the Bell Telephone companies, and consumers thought “Packard Bell” might be related to “Pacific Bell” or some other well-respected phone company — perhaps a merger between Hewlett-Packard and Ma Bell? To encourage that misconception, Packard Bell’s slogan was “America grew up listening to us.”

But actually, Packard Bell began as an independent company that never had anything to do with phone companies. Back in the 1950’s, some radios were built by a company called “Packard Bell”. In 1986, an Israeli tank driver (Mr. Beny Alagem) came to the United States, started a computer company, and bought the name “Packard Bell” from the radio company for $100,000 to make his new computer company sound related to a phone company. Some states required him to sell his “Packard Bell computers” with a disclaimer warning consumers that Packard Bell computers are “not affiliated with any Bell System entity”.

In surveys of customer satisfaction done by PC Magazine and PC World, customers who bought Packard Bell computers were much less happy than customers who bought other brands. Though the typical Packard Bell computer worked okay, if you did need a repair you’d get very frustrated trying to reach Packard Bell’s tech-support center.

But a few Packard Bell customers were thrilled with tech support! That’s because they bought their Packard Bell computers from computer stores instead of department stores, and the computer stores were willing to fix computers immediately without waiting for the customers to phone Packard Bell.

Eventually, Packard Bell became more traditional:

Packard Bell switched to a better monitor (.28mm dot pitch, non-interlaced), though it was typically “not included” in the advertised price. Fewer programs were included. Packard Bell provided 2 disks (1 floppy disk plus 1 CD-ROM disk) that contained copies of what was on the hard disk.

Packard Bell’s competitors eventually copied Packard Bell’s good features and avoided Packard Bell’s bad features, so consumers switched to those nicer companies and avoided Packard Bell. Finally, in 1998, Packard Bell ran into financial difficulties and couldn’t pay its suppliers. To bail itself out, it sold its stock to a Japanese company, Nippon Electric Company (NEC), so Packard Bell became owned by NEC and was called NEC Packard Bell. But in November 1999, NEC finally gave up trying to run Packard Bell and shut Packard Bell down.

Compaq

The first company that made high-quality IBM clones was Compaq. (Before Compaq, the only IBM clones available were crummy.)

Now Compaq sells more computers than any other manufacturer. Yes, it sells more computers than IBM, Gateway, Dell, Packard Bell, and the rest of the gang.

Compaq is based in Houston, Texas. You can reach Compaq by phoning 800-at-Compaq or viewing Compaq’s Internet Web site, www.compaq.com.

How Compaq began It all began on a napkin. Sitting in a restaurant, two engineers drew on a napkin their picture of what the ideal IBM clone would look like. Instead of being a desktop computer, it would be a luggable having a 9-inch built-in screen and a handle, the whole computer system being small enough so you could pick it up with one hand. Then they built it! Since it was compact, they called it the Compaq Portable Computer and called the company Compaq Computer Corporation.

They began selling it in 1983, helped by venture-capital funding from Ben Rosen. They charged about the same for it as IBM charged for the IBM PC.

They sold it just to dealers who’d been approved by IBM to sell the IBM PC. That way, they knew all their dealers were reliable — and they competed directly against IBM, in the same stores.

They succeeded fantastically. That first year, sales totaled 100 million dollars.

In 1984, they inserted a hard drive into the computer and called that souped-up luggable the Compaq Plus. They also built a desktop computer called the Deskpro. Like Compaq’s portable computers, the Deskpro was priced about the same as IBM’s computers, was sold just through IBM dealers, and was built well — a marvel of engineering, better than IBM’s.

Later, Compaq expanded: it built IBM clones in many sizes, from towers down to subnotebooks. Compaq computers have gotten the highest praise — and ridiculously high prices. On many technological issues, Compaq has been the first company to innovate: for example, when Intel invented the 386 chip, the first company to use it was Compaq, not IBM.

New leadership Compaq was founded by Rod Canion. Under his leadership, Compaq developed a reputation for high quality and high prices. Engineers said that Compaq’s computers were overdesigned: they were built more sturdily than necessary for average use and were therefore too expensive.

Worried about Compaq’s high prices, some Compaq employees went on a secret mission, without telling Rod: they sneaked into a computer show, pretended they weren’t from Compaq, pretended they were starting a new computer company, and tried to buy computer parts from Compaq’s suppliers. Compaq’s suppliers offered them lower prices than the suppliers were offering Compaq — because Compaq had developed a reputation as an overly fussy company to do business with.

The secret missionaries went back to Compaq and reported their findings to the board of directors, who were becoming upset at Compaq’s astronomically high prices; so in 1991 the board fired Rod and replaced him with a cost cutter, Eckhard Pfeiffer (from Germany).

He lowered Compaq’s prices, so Compaq became affordable, and he gave up the idea that Compaq should have super-high quality. He began selling through a greater variety of dealers and through mail-order.

The low-price wide-distribution strategy worked well. More people bought Compaq computers. Sales zoomed, though Compaq’s “quality reputation” declined.

Yes, Compaq started to imitate Packard Bell: Compaq lowered its prices and its service!

In February 1995, Compaq started this nasty new service policy:

If you phone Compaq for help, Compaq’s staff asks for your credit-card number first, then listens to your questions. Unless your difficulties are caused by a mistake made by Compaq Corporation, you’re charged $35 per question.

Eventually, Compaq dropped that nasty policy: tech-support calls are now free during the “initial period” (1 year on hardware questions, 3 months on software questions, longer if your Compaq was expensive): call 800-ok-Compaq, day or night (24 hours).

After the “initial period” is over, help costs $19.95 per question, billed to your credit card when you call 800-ok-Compaq. (If your question has a short answer, you can pay less by calling 900-RED-HELP instead, which charges $2 per minute, $20 maximum.)

Eventually, Compaq started having financial difficulties, because Eckhard Pfeiffer made Compaq buy Digital Equipment Corporation and also because Compaq was having trouble competing against IBM clones priced under $700; so the board of directors fired him.

Now Compaq is run by Michael Capellas, a low-key friendly computer technician that everybody likes. He’s trying to create computers that are low-cost but exciting. Though he’s the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), the Chairman of the Board is still Ben Rosen (the venture capitalist who funded the founder).

Bargain notebooks In July 2000, I had to buy a notebook computer for my stepdaughter. Since I’m supposed to be a “computer expert”, I dutifully looked at all the ads in computer magazines and talked to my friends in the computer industry, trying to find the best deal. I thought the best deal would be some sort of mail-order company; but the best deal on a notebook computer turned out to be from Compaq!

I bought a Compaq Presario 1200-XL118. Here’s why it was a great deal.…

Its list price was $1199. The box included a $100 rebate coupon from Compaq, bringing the effective price down to $1099. Circuit City was having a “$100 off” sale that week, bringing the effective price down to $999. Instead of buying at Circuit City, I bought it at Staples, which has a price-matching policy and was also supposed to have a huge extra rebate for good customers that month, though I later discovered that Staples’ “extra rebate” is just for office supplies, not computers. (I hate misleading advertising — don’t you?)

I chose that model because it contains everything a normal person needs, at a low price. It includes an adequate CPU chip (AMD K6-2 at 500 megahertz), an adequate RAM (64 megabytes), an adequate hard drive (6 gigabytes), an adequate screen (13-inch color 800-by-600 HPA), an adequate CD-ROM drive (24X max), a good pointing device (a Touchpad), a good pair of stereo speakers (built into the keyboard), the other hardware you expect (a 56K fax/modem, a 3½-inch floppy drive, a NiMH battery, an AC/DC adapter, and a phone cord), and good software (Windows, Microsoft Works, Microsoft Word, the Encarta encyclopedia, and anti-virus software). It includes many connectors so you can attach many other devices: you get a parallel printer port (so you can attach a printer), a traditional 9-pin serial port, a Universal Serial Bus port (USB port), a PS/2 port (so you can attach a mouse or external keyboard), a video port (so you can attach an external monitor), a headphone jack (so you can attach a headphone or big speaker), a microphone jack (so you can attach a microphone), and a Type 3 PCMCIA card slot.

Now Compaq sells an improved version, the Compaq Presario 1200-XL119, for the same price ($1199) but including more RAM (96M instead of 64M).

Compaq also sells a variant, called the Compaq Presario 12XL300, for $1299. Its CPU is faster (a 600-megahertz Celeron instead of a 500-megahertz K6-2), though its hard drive is slightly smaller (5 gigabytes instead of 6) and its RAM is still 64M.

Compaq’s prices do not include a carrying case.

Refurbished computers Compaq is more honest than most competitors about returned parts. If a customer returns computer equipment and Compaq determines that the equipment works okay, Compaq resells that equipment to other customers, but just in computers marked “refurbished”. (Other manufacturers, such as Packard Bell, have been dishonest: they’ve pretended refurbished computers were “new”.)

To save money, consider buying a refurbished Compaq computer from the Compaq Factory Outlet Store (10251 N. Freeway, Houston TX 77037, 888-202-4368, 281-927-6700, www.compaqfactoryoutlet.com). But be careful: refurbished computers often contain outdated versions of Windows, outdated versions of other software, no rebate coupons. The warranty is just 90 days and is weakened by a bizarre clause that says: if Compaq can’t fix your computer, Compaq can choose to give you your money back, minus a 15% restocking fee.

If you see the Factory Outlet Store’s ad for a refurbished computer at an amazingly low price and ask the store about it, the store will usually say, “Sorry, that one is sold out.”

Beware Although I bought a Compaq notebook, I still avoid buying Compaq desktops, for several reasons:

Compaq’s advertised price doesn’t include the monitor. For many Compaq systems, the monitor is very expensive, since Compaq’s monitor includes the speakers. If you try to save money by getting a generic monitor instead of a Compaq monitor, you have no speakers and hear no sounds.

Compaq’s modem and sound card are often combined — so if you try fiddling with the hardware or software for one of those two devices, the other device stops working.

Compaq’s warranty period and free-technical-support period are usually shorter than for mail-order companies. When you buy a Compaq, the salesperson will try to talk you into spending about $200 extra for an extended warranty, because that overpriced extended warranty is where the store makes its profit. The extended warranty, sold to you for $200, costs the store just $50, because the third-party repair company doing the warranty work knows the warranty contains clauses that make the warranty useless in most situations. The warranty does not cover software, does not cover damage, does not cover tech support, does not cover explaining how to use the computer, does not cover services (such as “trying to recover the info from your hard disk before we reformat it”), does not cover computers that have been altered, and does not cover year 1, which is the year when you’re most likely to need help.

Bargain notebooks

To buy a good notebook computer at a ridiculously low price, look at Compaq’s under-$1300 offerings, which I discussed earlier. For fancier computers, at higher prices, explore these mail-order alternatives:

Sager (18005 Cortney Ct., Industry CA 91748, 800-669-1624, 818-964-8682, www.sagernotebook.com)

BSI (9440 Telstar Ave. #4, El Monte CA 91731, 800-872-4547, 818-442-0020, www.bsicomputer.com)

HyperData (809 S. Lemon Ave., Walnut CA 91789, 800-786-3343, 909-368-2960, www.hyperdatadirect.com)

All three companies became famous by advertising in Computer Shopper magazine. Sager still advertises there, but BSI & Hyperdata now advertise just on the Internet.

Though Sager still advertises in Computer Shopper, Sager offers slightly lower prices on its Internet Web site. Here’s what they were when this book went to press in September 2000:

CPU MHz RAM Hard drive Screen CD-ROM Price

AMD K6-2 450 64M 6 gigabytes 13.3" 24X $999

Pentium 3 700 64M 12 gigabytes 13.3" DVD $1875

Pentium 3 700 128M 12 gigabytes 14.1" DVD $2045

Pentium 3 800 128M 20 gigabytes 14.1" DVD $2195

Each screen is the best kind (color, active-matrix, 1024-by-768). Each computer includes the best kind of pointing device (a Touchpad), the best kind of battery (lithium-ion) a 56K fax/modem, stereo speakers (built into the keyboard), a 3½-inch floppy drive, lots of ports, and Windows, and comes with a free carrying case.

Dell

Though Compaq was the first company to make good IBM clones, its clones were expensive. The first company that sold fast IBM clones cheaply was PC’s Limited, founded in 1984 by a 19-year-old kid, Michael Dell. He operated out of the bedroom of his condo apartment, near the University of Texas in Austin.

At first, his prices were low — and so were his quality and service.

Many of the computers he shipped didn’t work: they were dead on arrival (DOA). When his customers tried to return the defective computer equipment to him for repair or a refund, his company ignored the customer altogether. By 1986, many upset customers considered him a con artist and wrote bitter letters about him to computer magazines. He responded by saying that his multi-million-dollar company was growing faster than expected and couldn’t keep up with the demand for after-sale service. (Hmm… sounds like Gateway!)

In 1987, Dell raised his quality and service — and his prices. In 1988, he changed the company’s name to Dell Computer Corporation.

Now he charges almost as much as IBM and Compaq.

His quality and service have become top-notch. They’ve set the standard for the rest of the computer industry. In speed and quality contests, his computers often beat IBM and Compaq.

In 1997 Dell officially became the top dog in the computer-quality wars: according to PC World magazine’s surveys of its readers, Dell computers are more reliable than any other brand, and Dell’s tech-support staff does the best job of fixing any problems promptly. Dell has retained that title ever since.

Dell’s ads bashed Compaq for having higher prices than Dell and worse policies about getting repairs — since Dell offered on-site service and Compaq doesn’t.

For example, in 1991 Dell ran an ad calling Dell’s notebook computer a “road warrior” and Compaq’s a “road worrier”. It showed the Dell screen saying, “With next day on-site service in 50 states, nothing’s going to stop you.” It showed the Compaq screen saying, “Just pray you don’t need any service while you’re on the road, or you’re dead meat.”

His ads were misleading. His prices were much lower than Compaq’s list price but just slightly less than the discount price at which Compaq computers were normally sold. Though Compaq didn’t provide free on-site service, you could sometimes get your Compaq repaired fast by driving to a nearby Compaq dealer.

Like IBM and Compaq, Dell has dropped its prices, though they’re still higher than Gateway’s. Dell tried selling through discount-store chains but gave up and decided to return to selling just by mail. Though Compaq is king of retail sales, Dell has become king of mail-order sales. Now Dell sells more computers by mail-order than Gateway and all other companies.

Dell computers used to come with this guarantee: if Dell doesn’t answer your tech-support call within 5 minutes, Dell will give you $25! Dell doesn’t make that guarantee anymore.

Dell gives lifetime toll-free technical support for hardware questions and usually answers its phones promptly. Unfortunately, Dell has reduced DOS & Windows technical support from “lifetime” to “30 days”.

To get a free Dell catalog or chat with a Dell sales rep, phone 800-BUY-DELL.

Micron

Micron is one of America’s biggest manufacturers of RAM chips. Recently, Micron began selling complete computer systems also.

Its computers come with lots of RAM (since the RAM chips cost Micron nearly nothing) and run fast. According to surveys of computer users by PC World, Micron’s computers are extremely reliable. Micron used to be excellent at answering tech-support calls and resolving problems immediately, but at the end of 1995 Micron’s tech-support staff started becoming overloaded. To reduce the overload, in February 1996 Micron started a new nasty policy: tech-support about software is now restricted to just 30 days. Micron’s prices are high, like prices from Dell.

Micron bought a competitor called Zeos and phased out the Zeos name. Micron’s in Idaho at 800-700-0591 or 208-893-8970.

Hewlett-Packard

Hewlett-Packard (HP) has sold minicomputers, printers, scanners, calculators, and other electronic devices for many years. HP equipment is always excellent but pricey. In 1995, HP began manufacturing an IBM clone called the Pavilion. You can buy it at your local computer store. It’s popular because it costs less than Compaq’s desktop computers and HP’s service is slightly better than Compaq’s.

Quantex

For many years, I recommended Quantex computers, because Quantex computers were high-quality but priced low. Of all the quality-oriented computer companies, Quantex charged the least. Occasionally, Quantex offered poor technical support, but in most months the technical support was fine.

That changed in January 2000, when many people who worked for Quantex technical-support department quit, to work for another company that paid higher. Also, though Quantex offered wonderfully fancy computers for about $2000, Quantex wasn’t creative enough in developing computers priced at $1000, which was the price most consumers were starting to demand.

Quantex and its sister companies (CyberMax, Pionex, Micro Professionals, and Computer Sales Professional’s PC Professional) were all secretly owned by Fountain, which was based in New Jersey and Taiwan. In August 2000, Fountain went chapter-11 bankrupt. Quantex is still in business, but barely, and it hardly ever answers phone calls anymore. Stay away from Quantex until it gets its act together again, if ever.

Industrial nuts

To get the lowest computer prices, many people have been phoning a secret group of amazing companies advertising in Computer Shopper. The group is called the industrial nuts because the employees are industrious, the prices are nutty, and the location is these two Los Angeles suburbs: “City of Industry” and “Walnut”. The owners and employees seem mostly Chinese.

Recently, most of those companies shut down, but the following are still in business:

Company Phone Address City State ZIP

ProStar Computers 800-243-5654, 626-854-3428 1128 Coiner Ct. City of Industry CA 91748

Sager 800-669-1624, 626-964-8682 18005 Cortney Ct. City of Industry CA 91748

Syscon Technology 888-538-8828, 626-854-1151 18343 Gale Ave. City of Industry CA 91748

Tempest Micro 800-818-5163, 909-595-0550 18760 East Amar Rd. #188 Walnut CA 91789

Hyperdata Tech. 800-786-3343, 909-468-2960 809 South Lemon Ave. Walnut CA 91789

ProStar, Sager, and HyperData sell notebook computers.

Syscon advertises low prices for tower computers; but the prices are misleading, since they don’t include a legal copy of Windows, for which Syscon charges $90 extra.

These 20 industrial nuts have gone out of business:

All Computer, Altus, A+ Computer, Bit Computer, Comtrade, Cornell Computer Systems, CS Source, Cyberex, Digitron, EDO Micro, Enpower, Multiwave, Nimble, PC Channel, Premio, Professional Technologies, Quanson, Royal, Wonderex, Zenon

Syscon is in the same building that Zenon was in and is probably owned by the same folks.

Cleveland commandos

In 1997, Computer Shopper was deluged with ads from a horde of companies in Cleveland and its suburbs. Those companies offered low prices, nearly as low as the industrial nuts. Recently, most of those companies shut down, but the following are still in business:

Company Phone Address City State ZIP

Adamant Computers 800-284-2257, 216-595-1211 4572 Renaissance Pkwy. Cleveland OH 44128

Micro Pro 800-442-6786, 216-661-7218 5400 Brookpark Rd. Cleveland OH 44129

A2Z Computers 800-983-8889, 216-442-8889 701 Beta Dr. #19 Cleveland OH 44143

Americomp 800-217-2667, 440-498-9620 5380-E Naiman Parkway Solon OH 44139

Those companies have advertised under alternative names:

Company Alternative names

Micro Pro Micro Pulse, Magic PC

A2Z Computers First Compuchoice, Computer King

Americomp American Computech, Microvision

Those alternative names are no longer used.

These 15 commandos have dived to their death and gone out of business:

American Micro, Amp Tech, Artcomp, ABC Computers, Cyberspace Computers, Digit Micro, Legend Micro, Micro X, Micronix, New Age Micro, Odyssey Technology, PC Importers, Quickline Micro, Starquest, Unicent

Alternatives

Here are other choices to consider.…

Acer is a consortium of Taiwanese computer companies.

It has 20 factories, sells computers in 90 countries, and has annual sales of about 3 billion dollars. Acer computers are particularly popular in Southeast Asia and Latin America. Acer makes “Acer computers” and “Acros computers”. They’ve been sold mainly through computer stores and department stores, but recently Acer gave up trying to sell through department stores. Acer supplies parts for other brands of computers. Acer also sells by mail-order at 800-230-ACER, but Acer’s prices aren’t low enough to compete against mail-order companies.

AST is a big computer manufacturer in Irvine, California.

“AST” stands for the names of its founders, “Albert, Safi, and Tom”. Albert and Tom have left AST, which is now headed by Safi. (Computer-trivia question: what’s Safi’s last name, and how do you spell it? Answer: Qureshey.) AST builds fine computers, sold through computer stores and priced below computers from IBM & Compaq, though above mail-order. In 1993, Tandy (which owns Radio Shack) stopped building computers and sold its factories to AST. For a while, AST manufactured all Tandy and Radio Shack computers and also Dell’s notebook computers. But recently, Radio Shack and Dell have switched from AST to other suppliers. AST’s finances are shaky.

Monorail manufactured a wonderful computer that was the ideal compromise between being a desktop computer and a laptop computer.

It was small (almost as small as a laptop computer) but cost much less than any laptop or notebook. It was the ideal computer for somebody living in a cramped apartment and living on a cramped budget. Though small and cheap, the computer was full-featured, so you could get your work done and use the Internet, too.

Unlike other computers, which are boring white or beige, Monorail’s computer was sexy black. It consisted of three parts: a mouse (which was black), a keyboard (which was also black), and a thin black box (which was 15 inches wide, 11 inches high, and just 3¼ inches thick). The black box’s front was a notebook-style computer screen (dual-scan passive color), but the black box also contained the rest of the computer: CPU, RAM, hard drive, floppy drive, CD-ROM drive, stereo speakers, microphone, and fax/modem! Even though the black box contained all those goodies, notebook-computer technology let the box be just 3¼ inches thick.

The price was just $799 for the standard version. I bought a souped-up version myself, and it’s been the most trouble-free computer I’ve ever owned. Though slightly too large to fit in my lap, it fits in a big lady’s handbag, which makes it easy to carry. The price was low because the computer includes no battery: you plug the computer directly into your room’s electrical socket.

Unfortunately, when the price of traditional notebook computers dropped, Monorail decided to stop competing. Now Monorail makes just boring computers, like everybody else.

Midwest Micro still makes desktop & tower computers but has stopped making notebook computers. Its ads imitate Gateway’s, but its service and support aren’t quite as good. Midwest Micro is owned by a modem manufacturer called Infotel.

VTech is a Hong Kong company that made wonderful low-cost computers under its own label and the Expotech label. In earlier editions, I recommended them.

VTech sold the Expotech label to a company called Telecom, which sold “Expotech” computers built by VTech, then sold “Expotech” computers built by competitors. If you have an Expotech computer, you can get repairs by calling the Expo Direct division of Motherboards Direct at 800-705-6342, where the sales manager is Tim Lilly, who worked at VTech and Telecom.

Bargain-brand computers are sold by discount department stores at low prices. Those computers cost so little because they’re crummy. Check the specs! Here’s another reason why those computers cost so little: when you ask the dealer for help, the dealer will typically say “I don’t know. Phone the manufacturer.” But you’ll find that the manufacturer’s phone number is usually busy. Before buying a computer, try this experiment: ask the dealer what phone number to call for repairs or technical assistance, then try phoning that number and see whether anybody answers!

Local heroes? In many towns, entrepreneurs sell computers for ridiculously low prices in computer shows and tiny stores. Before buying, check the computer’s technical specifications and the dealer’s reputation. If the dealer offers you software, make sure the dealer also gives you an official manual from the software’s publisher, with a warranty/registration card; otherwise, the software might be an illegal hot copy.

A used computer whose CPU is slow (a 286) typically costs about $100. That price includes even the hard disk and monitor. Buy it from a friend, relative, or neighbor moving up to a fancier computer.

For further advice, phone me anytime at 603-666-6644.