unix pc distributors?

[Howard E. Motteler]

In article <2187 at laidbak.UUCP> brad at laidbak.UUCP (Bradley Bosch) writes:
>I am looking for leads to current sources of these machines.  

I just bought another machine, a 1 meg/20 meg 7300, from Var Tech, for
$650, as did a friend of mine.  (So there are temporarily 3 of the
things sitting in my office... :-) Var Tech also has the 1 meg/40 meg
3b1's, for about $900.  I understand they also have the dual port 1.5
meg cards, populated with 1/2 meg, for $399, and the DOS cards, also
for $399.  Their number is 312 505 1777.

What you get for $650 is the "basic" manual set--all the UA stuff, (no
utilities) and 3.51 Unix.  You get a one month warranty, provided by
Var Tech, and no AT&T warranty, or support.  The machines have been
tested for 48 hours at Var Tech, off the diagnostic disks, before
being shipped.  $650 is a *very low price* for what you're getting,
but of course, if you value the AT&T support, this may not be the
machine for you.  AT&T apparently sold a warehouse full of the things
to Var Tech, under the conditions that they (AT&T) could wash their
hands completely of the machines.

The dates "felt penned" on the inside of Mark's 7300 were from mid
'85.  The boxes are stamped "clock battery upgraded" or something like
that, and they do have a larger, cylindrical battery (larger than the
"watch battery" in my 3b1).  This seems to have been done by AT&T, at
some earlier time, so that even the upgraded batteries may have been
sitting for a while.  Mine worked fine, and (esp. with the longer
wires) they should be easy to replace.

I have (obviously) been quite satisfed with Var Tech; Steve Sixta, the
guy there who deals with Unix PCs sent me the following email, which
he later asked me to post):

>    Subject: Bad Rap
>    Status: R
>
>    To the people that dealt with VarTech and did not get satisfaction, I
>    would like an opportunity to correct any lingering problems you may
>    have. Some of my predessors may not have had the time or been inclined
>    to correct problems that still exist. If you would call me at
>    312-505-1777 I would be happy to talk about solving these problems for
>    you, We do not want any unsatisfied customers created from a lack of
>    effort on our part.
>
>    Thanks,
>
>    Steve N. Sixta
>    VarTech Inc.
>    ilmss!vartech!steve

-- 
Howard E. Motteler       |  Dept. of Computer Science
motteler at umbc3.umbc.edu  |  UMBC, Catonsville, MD 21228