bell tech vs microport (I'm going to upgrade)

[Larry Williamson]

In article <570 at comdesign.CDI.COM> pst at canary.cdi.com (Paul Traina) writes:
>I'm currently an owner of Microport SV/AT (286),  and I'm in the process of
>upgrading my machine.  I've just purchased an RLL disk controller, and am
>going to get a 386 in the very near future.  I know uport SV/AT 2.4 supports
>the RLL disk controller, so my first idea was just going with uport.

Yes, the RLL support works very well.

>However, since I am going to get a 386, I'm trying to decide which way I
>should go (uport vs bell tech).  
>
>Does bell tech support the Adaptec 2732 RLL controller?

No! BT only supports an RLL drive if you buy THEIR computer system!!
They install a special version of the Bios on the motherboards they
sell.  I did not find out about this until it was too late.  They
will not sell you one of these precious little chips for all the
money in the world.  I tried.  They say, "we get the motherboards
from intel with this chip installed, you'll have to get the chip
from intel", intel says "you want a what?, never heard of it". 

>How much would it cost to purchase a complete bell tech system?
>(I hear the uport upgrade will cost me slightly under $500).

Be careful here, you are looking at purchase price as though it is
the cost of admission.  Read on. 

If you are happy with the Microport system, don't go to the BT
software! I'm using BT's 386 system and Microport's 286 system. 
When I have my choice, I'm sitting at the uport system.  Why?
Virtual terminals, a floppy drive that is more than twice as fast,
nroff, RLL disk drive, these are my main reasons.

>Who is more reliable these days?  I've been reasonably satisfied with my
>uport equipment,  but the idea of running X on my home computer is nudging
>me towards Bell Tech.  Have they come out with an X11 port for their blitter
>board yet?

If you are satisifed with uport, stay with them. BT has X10.4, not X11.
If you want to run X on your machine, you should probably look at the
Interactive 386 system. They have X11 for VGA. 

Do you use nroff? Or any of the DWB stuff? BT does not include this.
They recommend that you by the Elan package. Elan sells an excellent
DWB2.0 replacement. Top notch. And nearly $1000.00 to boot.

Don't be blinded by the apparent low purchase price.  By the time
you've bought all the special BT hardware that their software needs,
you will have more than payed for a *good* package. 

Consider smart serial cards for example.  Let's assume that you want
to use one.  Let's also assume that for some peculiar reason, you
have already decided which one you like, (based on price, support,
availablity, maybe it is used in a few dozen other machines at your
company and you want it for compatiblity reasons, etc).  Now call
the board's manufacturer and ask them which unix systems they sell
drivers for. 

Betcha BT is not on the list! You *might* be able to use the drivers
on the BT system, but you *probably* won't be able to.  BT has
probably the lowest third party hardware/software support of any
286/386 based unix. 

Do you want to use the tape software? You will need to buy their
tape drive hardware (and believe me, with the speed of their floppy
disk drive, you DO want to use tape!), (even paper tape is faster!!).

I believe that BT sells unix only to help sell their hardware. They
add no features or enhancements to the unix other than the drivers
for their hardware. Basically, I see this as a conflict of interest.
They don't want to support other hardware, just their own. If you 
run their software on their hardware, it is an adequate product with
reasonable support. If you have other hardware, don't even call them.

I'm sure this is going to cause another wave of 'vender bender' but
oh well.

good luck.

    Larry
-- 
Larry Williamson  -- Focus Systems -- Waterloo, Ontario
                  watmath!focsys!larry  (519) 746-4918