Just Brought a 3100 model 10...
E.G. Land
Got it for a price I couldn't pass up -- right here on
the net.
Anyway, tell me about this machine. This is a 486SX, at 33
MHz, 212 MB Smart Drive, 4mb Ram,512k video ram, etc.
Fellow delivered it to my door in the box it originally came
it. Seems to be in pristine condition. I realize the machine
is somewhat limiting, but I'd like to soup it up as much as I
can.
How should I do this, and how much should I spend on an item for
item basis? Also, I'm assuming that Tandy products will be over
priced. Is this correct? I'd like to get a full mg of memory, add
12mgs to the RAM, boost the video to a full meg (the max), and get
an 8x speed cd rom.
However, my applications are limited. I'm mainly into
wordprocessing. Games and that kind of stuff don't interest me.
Then again, I would like to get a good desk top publishing package
like say Pagemaker and teach myself that.
Also, before I forget -- what should I have paid?
Finally, I'll probably hold on to this machine for a year, then
step up to whatever's state of the art by then. I'm thinking Intel
686, 200 Mhz, etc...
Thanks for your advice...
EG
--
_______________________________________________________________________
BARD (aka Ed Garth Land)
Fly On-The-Wall, Inc.
E.G. Land
Funny how the mind plays tricks on you. It's also funny that
I've not received one response yet. Might there be a reason for
this?
Kiralynne
ba...@smarty.smart.net (E.G. Land) wrote:
>
> Got it for a price I couldn't pass up -- right here on
> the net.
>
> Anyway, tell me about this machine. This is a 486SX, at 33
> MHz, 212 MB Smart Drive, 4mb Ram,512k video ram, etc.
(snip)
Hi Ed !!
I have a 3100 and am tickled with it. I bought it new as a
discountinued model couple of years back. CPU/Monitor/keyboard
for $700.
This model has a lot of potential. I now have an Intel overdrive,
a DX4 at 100 Mhz. Radio shack has the memory chips for expanding
your video to one meg. Really cheap and really works well. I have
Super VGA now and it is lightening fast.
With the crash on memory chips I jumped up to a 64 meg ram for an
affordable price. I was using 20 meg without any problem by adding
a 16 meg simm.
I purchased a Western Digital hard drive, 1.6 gig. It is wonderful.
A drawback is the 3100 runs a late 1993 bios and will not recognize
over ..hmm.. I think it is 530 meg. Western Digital includes an
On Track disk manager which is flawless.
Currently I have the original 212 meg drive and partitioned the larger
drive into two logical drives. A bonus is that the original 212 meg
drive is a Western Digital so there are zero conflicts.
An added on TEAC 6x cd rom works great. It does require a half card
and the loading of an operating system into memory but it is small
and can be unloaded at anytime through DOS.
The memory maker feature of DOS 6.0 is nice. Easy to run and saves
alot on convential memory.
I am not sure you will want to upgrade anytime soon. At 100Mhz with
a meg for video I have no problems with high end programs. Games
like Mech Warrior and Navy Fighters are killers!!
My most recent addition is a SCSI scanner, a Microtek E3. Talk about
a nice unit! On the 3100 you have to load a small program into memory
to recognize the SCSI .. but installation was a snap. Less than 15
minutes up and running.
Oh yes.. add a stereo amp to your system like Radio Shack carries.
They work great. With a TEAC CD you can jumper right into your
sound blaster card. Rock n Roll !!
A bit over two years now and not a single problem. Excellent machine.
Even with several resident programs in convential memory I still have
excess upper memory. It is a great system.
Kiralynne.
A CallGirl @ http://www.pe.net/~billyray