Advice wanted on buying 386SX

[Bi Chen]

Dear network news readers:

I'm seriously considering to bye a 386SX computor. Since I am a graduate
student in physics and I live on the little stipend as a RA with my wife,
I'm really very poor and tight in budget. We have never been dinering out
and seeing movies for about two years to save the money for a computor we
loved so much. I want a decent, reliable, compatible and expandable
386SX at lowest possible price to a student. By the way I have never
done major mail-order purchasing before.

The following are some points which I want to get advice on:

1. Is the list price of a mail-order vender a stiff price? Can one
bargain with a mail-order vender? If one can how much in percentage is
considered resonable to bargain with? 

2. Could one bargain with vender on the upgrade stuff such as more RAM,
co-processor etc when one buys the system from a vender? How much is
a reasonable discount one should expects with or without bargaining on
the system.

3. How could one insure the compatibilty of such a computor from
vender? By compatibility I mean it should run smoothly the popular
soft ware such as Window 3.0 under all phases(enchanced, protected
mode or not), graphics driver of Turbo C family and so on? How could
one insure that the computor is UNIX, Xwindow compatiable for future
expandsion? Is there a independent public or private service one can
get information from? Can one ask the vender to provide with a written
promise on the issue?   
  
4. Since the quality and service are different from vender to vender,
it may be difficulty to give a reasonable price reange on such a
mechine. But how much should a 386SX with all stand features plus a
SVGA monitor and card and a 65MB HD should cost around if valued by
you? What is the "street price" of such a machine?

5. How could one safeguard to insure the computor he buy is from a
morel and responsible vender who will tell truth on the phone and
stand behind the computor he sales? Is there any public or private
service where one can check the reputation of venders?

6. What is general caution one should take if he has to go to a
mail-order vender? If problems do happened, for example if one pay the
computor but does not receive it or if one returns the computor but
does not receive refunds, whom should one go for asking help?

7. What is best configration for a physicsist who knows only a little
about computor architechture but need to deal hardware on I/O, hard
interupt and graphics for real-time experimental purpose. What is best
BIOS for such a purpose? What is the best I/O BUS for this purpose? 
Is there any particular requirements on hardware for heavy numerical
analysis job besides a co-processor? What kind of Extended-Memory with
supported software (preferablely can work with MS.C,Fortran) under DOS
or maybe OS/2 works most smoothly and painlessly?  


Any serious advice on any of the points is greatly apperciated. You
can post it on Newsgroup misc.forsale.computor or comp.sys.ibm.* and
so on. It may benifit other reader too. Any reference on article
published on popular magzines, name and phone of mail-vender you feel
worth to recommand are also welcomed. Please send e-mail to me if you
don't feel to trouble.

Thanks a lot in advance for your attention and help.

Bi Chen
     
email adderss bchen at wpi.wpi.edu