Since about 1980 I have bought a new computer every 3 to 4 years. I buy at the bottom end of the upper price range, as soon as a break-through in technology redefines the state-of the art. I do not ever buy state-of the-art. The computers I buy always cost between $1600 and $2000, unless I'm spending somebody else's money.
Each one I buy for myself is about ten times as powerful as the one it replaces. It's a lot like buying a new truck: the old one still has value at the point I replace it. I am still using it daily, but it's getting irritating because it's running out of capability.
I bought a new one 3 months ago. It is a 90 MHz Pentium with 24 MB of RAM, a 4X CD-ROM, a "hot" 64-bit graphics card, a slow (14,400 baud) FAX modem and three HDD's. I already had two of the HDD's: it only came with one.
The machine I got in 1991 was a 16 MHz 386-sx "portable" with 1MB of RAM, an 80MB HDD and an internal FAX/MODEM. It came with DOS 4.0 and a scanner. I installed DOS, WordPerfect 5.1 and Quattro Pro from my previous machine, (a 12 MHz 286-with 1 MB RAM and a 30 MB drive, purchased in late 1986, sold in 1990, still in use running accounting package). I added 4MB more RAM immediately, for about $200, and installed Windows, DOS 5.0, and a mouse, and "compressed" most of the 80MB H-D to get 120 MB of useable storage and "mirrored" the FAT for the compressed drive onto the remaining 4MD uncompressed "H" drive, so I could still recover my data in the event of catastrophe. This machine served me well and produced an enormous volume of work, including most of this manual.
Last spring I installed a Cyrix 486rx upgrade processor and FastMath chip, turning it into a slow (23MHz) 486 with a mathchip. I also installed a Conner 420MB HDD. The 1991 Phoenix BIOS did not understand HDD's that large, so I used Online Software's Dynamic Drive Overlay (included with the drive) to load it on top of the CMOS set for the original 81 MB MAXTOR drive. Then I used ROCKET to allow multiple sector reads. This upgrade cost about $450 and made the machine feel about as fast as a the 486sx-33. The biggest problem remaining was the internal FAX modem had died in a power failure, the RAM slots were full with only 4 1MB SIMMS plus 1 MB soldered onto the main board, and the onboard VGA video did not support modern display density (i.e. SVGA 800 X 600 X 256 color).
Buying a computer is about as un-fun as buying a used car. You have to do a lot of extremely obsolescent research, and then make a decision that you know you will regret to some degree.
I recommend using the included "Bid Form". You fill in the stuff you know you want, and FAX it to everyone in your area and two or three "national" outfits. I prefer to use nationals that actually manufacture stuff, rather than companies who merely re-label stuff they know little about. This will get you a vaguely level playing field between vendors and assure that you are getting some "apples to apples" price comparisons.
Minor price differences at the component level are not as important as major design differences.
For instance, most of the major manufacturers (IBM, DELL, ZEOS, Gateway, Leading Edge, Packard-Bell, AST, Apple, Compaq) have used "design for assembly" methodology (discussed in detail earlier in this manual) to simplify assembly and reduce manufacturing cost. This has lead to increased integration throughout the design of their machines. This reduces overall cost, but is otherwise not advantageous to you. Machines built in this way can be very expensive to upgrade.
There are two basic ways to approach buying a computer: in desperation or carefully.
In desperate situations, you buy whatever you can find that looks like it will work long enough to get the job off your desk within 4 hours.
When faced with a longer time-window, you can choose to buy a disposable machine or a maintainable machine. This split is highly relative: all machines are ultimately disposable: some will just be maintainable (through subsystem upgrades) for a little longer.
Maintainability is an intangible value that adds cost.
I subscribe to a 3rd school. Generally, if you can afford to, you want to find a "generic" or "modular" machine. This means you want the major systems components to be modular, and replaceable, rather than integrated. Integration has led to the reduction of nearly everything, including the number of SLOTS, which limits future expandability and reduces options to replace defective or obsolete integrated built-in functions.
For instance. You want the Video on a VIDEO CARD, not on the MOTHERBOARD. Likewise, you want the HDD controller(s) and I/O ports on an EIDE CARD, not on the MOTHERBOARD. If you get a CD and SOUNDCARD, (recommended) you want them to be separate and upgradeable, since this technology is extremely obsolescent.
There is not enough time in your life to get good at this. During 1993 -1994 I bought quite a few computers for other people. I developed the specs for these machines by discussing my needs with the local VAR's, revising the specs in the face of new information they provided, and FAXed my specification lists on Request for Price (RFP) forms (on my customer's letterhead) to local VAR's and 3 national manufacturers, (to assure compliance with State bidding law requirements for public agencies).
I stated that a condition of bidding was that my form was to be filled out and FAXed back. Then I compared prices and features, and ordered. I share all the quotes from the national firms and the local vendors with the local guys.
One time, when price could not justify a decision, I ordered "identical" sample machines (based on specification, not on brands of components) from 2 local vendors, to test actual delivery time and overall quality of what I got. The understanding was that the winner would get the remainder of the order. The dealers liked the challenge. The winner was clear. Both arrived the same day, but one machine arrived "dead". The vendor caught the dead machine before it left the shop and replaced the HDD with a new drive before he even called me. The replacement was not the brand or model drive I had spec'd, but one he had in stock. He then called me to pick it up. I spent the first day getting the first machine filled with new software and loading old data.
The next morning I set to work loading software off floppies (I had ordered it with software installed to avoid having to do this) and by noon I was ready to load data off backup tapes. I connected the portable Tape drive to the parallel port, installed the TAPE software, and discovered that the Parallel port (LPT1) didn't exist. The documentation for the integrated IDE-HDD controller I-O card was one half-sheet of crudely translated specifications that offered configuration settings but no diagnostic information. I called the vendor. He was out on a setup job. His receptionist found me a number for tech support from the place that actually "built" the machine. The number worked but didn't get me through to a tech person. Instead, it got me to a grumpy fellow who needed to know my customer number and order number (I had neither since the VAR was their customer, not me), and by the time we had worked through this problem, tech support had gone home (They only ran 8 to 5 and were in a different time zone.)
The next day I got through to tech support. They were surprised to learn that I had the I-O card that was in the machine since they were used to a different brand. The spec for their machine had changed without warning. They led me through the same diagnostic process I had already used. I pointed out my irritation that their company had shipped a machine without running MSD, the diagnostic program built into the operating system.
They gave me an RMA number and transferred me back to the grump. He agreed to send me a new I-O card, but would only send it to the VAR. He would not ship it directly to the office where the machine was sitting, and he needed my credit card number to ship it.
Needless to say, the first vendor got the order for the next batch of machines. But the second vendor is still in the game, and it is essential to all of us that he stay in the game. He has gotten more orders from my customer since then, and I expect he hammered his supplier with some very angry letters over this. Follow-up: the I/O cards his supplier used have provided substantial grief to other users in the area, as well as my customer.
Please FAX a price quote on the following Computer System(s) to ________
at (360) ___-___.
This (these) computer(s) will be used in a business environment, running Windows, Microsoft Office 4.3, and Peachtree Accounting. One of the machines will run AutoCAD 12win.
You are invited to bid on all of the system or part of the system. If you cannot provide the listed components, you are invited to substitute. If substitutions are offered, they should be individually priced and specification sheets for these items should accompany your quote. Please describe the documentation provided with each component of the system, including any setup and diagnostic disks provided.
For full system quotes, where all items and components are as listed, simple bottom line price offerings will be considered, although a listing of individual component prices would be appreciated.
The decision to purchase one system over another will be based on the following criteria:
This list has been distributed to ____ (provide here
your list of everyone you are faxing it to).
| Component | Manufacturer | Model / type | Capacity / speed | Price |
| Motherboard | Sys (8 slots) | 2 VESA slots | 100Mhz | |
| CPU | AMD | 486 DX-4 | 100Mhz | $175 |
| Chipset | inc. | |||
| BIOS | Award | inc. | ||
| RAM | Micron Tknlgy | 72-pin SIMM | 16MB | $594 |
| Video | Diamond | Stealth-64 VESA | 1 MB DRAM | $135 |
| Ports | Integrated | EIDE w/ 16550 | 1-EPP, 2-S, 1-G | inc. |
| HDD | Quantum | IDE | 540 | $189 |
| FDD | TEAC | 3.5" | 1.44MB | $35 |
| CD-ROM | TEAC | IDE | 4-X | $189 |
| Modem | Cardinal | Internal | 28.8 | $179 |
| Network card | 3COM | Combo | 16BIT EISA | $69 |
| Monitor | MAG | 15fxe | .28 dp | $389 |
| Keyboard | Microsoft | Natural | $89 | |
| Case | Minitower | $49 | ||
| UPS | APC | BACKUPS-280 | $99 | |
| Mouse | Microsoft | $39 | ||
| Set-up | Verify operation | Set IRQs | Label ports | inc. |
| On-site srvc. | One year | inc. | ||
| Parts & labor | One year | inc. | ||
| DOS | Microsoft | Installed | 6.22 OEM | $35 |
| Windows 3.11 | Microsoft | Installed | 6.22 OEM | $39 |
| TOTAL |
You will find a wide range of prices in the response, and a wide range of substitutions. This is because every VAR or manufacturer is at a different point in the various food-chains. You could ask for a second quote of the stuff they most want to sell you. See what difference it makes. As long as you get good enough documentation to allow you to disable and or replace the parts of the system that you can't live with, it probably doesn't make a lot of difference what you buy. As long as you don't get burned.
Looking back on the experience of buying the new machine, I could probably have done better buying another MICRON, bundled with a monitor and all the basic software (MS Office Pro) on CD ROM. I learned a lot, but it took a lot of time. The issue was "was it fun?" Seemed like fun at the time, but I do not know yet.
The MICRON at an office I work in ate a motherboard last week. Actually, MICRON is convinced that the CAD operator reprogrammed the Phoenix Flash BIOS by sticking a "Boot" disk into the FDD and running a reconfigure program, without reading the README file to see what he was getting into. Regardless, after running me through some absurd tests (like making me pull the RAM chips out of my own machine, and putting them into the one that didn't work) the MICRON folks FedExed another Motherboard, and I installed it in less than an hour.
The manual that accompanies the machine is excellent. The tech support was useful, and in some ways the chassis is nicer than the one I got (it has a beautiful hinged disk-drive bay that allows you to swing the drives up for access to their connectors). The motherboard is a little cleaner, and has slots for 6 banks RAM simms, but it has one less PCI slot. However, It has a plastic "no screw" case, which I do not quite like, and it has a fairly noisy fan. When I bought it (last summer), they were nearly 20% lower on the basic machine I spec'd than the local vendors, and they threw in the CD-ROM drive, MS-OFFICE 4.3 on CD and DOS 6.22 and WINDOWS 3.11 on CD. But lead time was an issue for me. It sometimes takes several weeks from date of order to date you receive the machine.
On the other hand, I decided to spend the time exploring the world of computer shopping and computer building. Had I gone for the major brand, I could probably have gotten better documentation, bundled software and perhaps faster access to memory (EDO), but a slower CD-ROM and a clumsier case, for about the same money.
Installing DOS and Windows off CD is a delight compared to using diskettes: you just tell it to set it up, and it does: no sitting in front of a blue screen stuffing diskettes (MS Office Pro 4.3 is about 30 disks).
Follow-up: we just bought two more MICRON's and the fan is quieter, the mini tower case is better, most of the software was pre-installed and on C-D and the price is a little lower.
The areas of promise for computerization
Computers offer several distinct areas of promise, even if the promises have not yet been fulfilled.
The most significant reason to computerize your business is to simplify revisions and automate routine operations. Computers allow you to avoid retyping, redrawing, and recreating work you have already done. They allow information to be recycled. This is potentially worth a lot of money to your operation.
The biggest obstacle to implementing an effective information recycling system is creating a file structure that allows you (and others) to put things where they belong, and find things where they ought to be. One approach that makes sense is to "empower" someone in your organization. Identify the most organized person on your staff and "send" them to a night school course on Records Management and Information Systems. Then let them have a few hours a day to whip the place into shape. You should be able to work out a deal where you pay for the class (you should be able to get help from the state to finance employee re-education) and they don't charge time for attending. But do expect them to ask for a raise when they get the system working.
Specific areas of promise include:
Of the foregoing, the applications of
greatest promise for your business concern the creation of accurate
time records. This is where it all begins. If you can get accurate,
project level time data from your employees, including yourself,
through their time sheets, you are halfway home. This data can
be collected by another program and used to generate tax returns,
paychecks, invoices, and cost estimates.
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