Buying An IBM Clone 

                    aka: "Have You Ever Been Experienced?"

                           by Steve Sanders (c) 1986

    I  had  been  tempted for the last time,  "Enough",  I said as  my  eye  
    caught  the  line:  Complete system $945.00 delivered.  I  grabbed  the 
    phone,  dialed the toll-free 800 number, and hunted in my wallet for my 
    Master Charge card.  "Hello,  XX Systems,  how may we help you?", asked 
    the friendly salesperson.  "I see by your ad in Computer Shopper,  that 
    you  have a complete IBM clone system with two floppy drives,  640k  of 
    RAM,  keyboard, case, 150-watt power supply,  monochrome graphics card, 
    and  hi-res  green 12-inch monitor,  all for  $945.00?!?",  I  queried, 
    expecting the usual bait and switch routine for a higher priced system. 
    "Yes we have that system available at the advertised price",  he  said, 
    "How many do you want?"

    That's  about all there was to it,  after months of careful examination 
    of all the various ads for this Korean import or that Tawainese import, 
    it was finally done.  Now all I had to do was survive the waiting  time 
    it  took  to get it from the dealer in California (where else?)  to  my 
    home  in Florida.  The U.P.S.  man dropped the boxes off on my doorstep 
    about  3  weeks later and within 30 minutes I had  my  newly  assembled 
    clone fired up and was staring at the prompt to enter the date.  


                            WHAT'S A CLONE ANYWAY?

    Your  typical  IBM-PC clone looks like a genuine IBM machine  in  every  
    respect  except the nameplate usually carries a name like "Super PC-XT" 
    or some such nonsense.  These machines are being assembled in Korea  or 
    China,  and sometimes even in the good ole US of A.  The specifications 
    for  the  majority  of  them  are identical  to the genuine IBM-PC  and 
    sometimes  even  better IBM's own standards.  The original IBM-PC  came 
    with 5 expansion slots for add-on cards,  most clones have 8 slots like 
    the  PC-XT.  Where the original IBM-PC came with only 128k or  256k  of 
    RAM, the standard clone today comes with a full compliment of 640k. The 
    price  on RAM chips is so low and the market is so overrun  with excess 
    chips that the difference between 128k and 640k is only about $45 these 
    days.  IBM-PC machines were sold with 65-watt power  supplies which did 
    alright  if you only had two floppy drives and maybe  a  multi-function 
    card.  However, today the cheap price on hard disk drive units requires 
    that  you  have at least a 135-watt or 150-watt power supply to  handle 
    the load. Most clones come standard with 135 or 150-watt power supplies 
    at no extra cost and you only need add a controller and hard disk drive 
    to have a PC-XT clone.

                                 ROLL YOUR OWN

    This  shall  serve as a guide to show you what is required to  build  a 
    clone if you don't buy a pre-assembled system.

    MOTHERBOARD  -  Look  for 4-layer,  640k  capacity,  8 expansion slots, 
    IBM-PC identical footprint dimensions.  Make sure it comes with a  boot 
    PROM and compatible BIOS.

    CASE  -  Easiest to work with is the flip-top style

    POWER  SUPPLY  -  135 to 150-watt,  side-switched,  pre-wired for  four 
    drives, built-in fan.

    KEYBOARD  -  The usual IBM compatible KB5150 or more expensive enhanced 
    versions for word processing like the KB5151.

    MONOCHROME  GRAPHICS/PRINTER  CARD  -  Unless you plan to  buy  a color 
    monitor  you need this card to drive a green or amber  hi-res  monitor.   
    It   also gives you the standard parallel printer  port  (LPT1:).   The 
    card  should  be  able  to do 720 by 240  resolution  and  be  Hercules 
    compatible.

    COLOR  RGB/GRAPHICS CARD  -  You need one of these if you plan on using 
    a hi-res color monitor. Be very careful of the so-called IBM-compatible 
    color graphics cards,  some have very poor resolution specs.  You  also 
    need an expensive monitor to get good color,  plan on at least $500 for 
    the monitor and $175 to $350 for the color graphics card.

    MULTI-FUNCTION  CARD  -  This is a buyer's market.  There are  so  many 
    different MF cards available it depends on your needs. The standard  MF 
    card  has a clock/calendar,  serial port (COM1:) with  optional  second 
    serial port, 0-384k memory expansion sockets, and a  game port.   Other 
    cards offer floppy controllers, hard disk controllers, light-pen ports, 
    mouse ports,  etc..  You name it and they  probably have a MF card with 
    that particular  configuration on it already.

    FLOPPY  DRIVE CONTROLLER CARD  -  Unless you get a multi-function  card 
    that  includes  a floppy disk controller,  you will need one of  these.   
    Again,   they come in all sizes and prices.    There are 2 and  4-drive 
    controllers,  full-size and short length boards.  The prices range from 
    $59 to $200 depending on options and brand.

    DOS  -  You can't forget the operating system even though most  dealers  
    do.  Very  few  ads specify that MS-DOS 2.11 or PC-DOS actually   comes 
    with the system.  It's usually $49 to $65 extra and you must ASK for it 
    or  they assume that you already have it.