-> WAYNE CHIRNSIDE wrote in a message to MAURICE KINAL:

-> -> I have no problem with them since I never use their stuff.  I don't 
-> -> like their stuff.  They can keep them.  :-)

-> WC> No use for them here either.                                 

-> -> I do 'steal' their ram though but treat their stuff as 
-> -> disposable/recyclable material.  I'd never buy any of that and don't 
-> -> appreciate the way they decided to do the bios (especially).

-> In what way?  That stuff-on-the HD?

The blasted proprietary setup partition.
Messes with Linux to.
FIPS non-destructive partitioning docs warn it's IS destructive in
Compaqs.

-> -> Keyboards also seem to pack it in faster on Compaqs for whatever 
-> -> reason.  Perhaps they are overpowering the ps2 port?

-> This is a compaq-labeled keyboard I'm typing on at the moment,  one of the few
-> I have that has tactile response,  but then this one doesn't get as much use as
-> the IBMs that I have here.

This post seems to have been misdirected.
No experience with Compaq keyboards.
Still using the old heavy IBM here.

-> WC> Same experience here.
-> WC>                      
-> WC> The bloody Hewlett Packard doesn't even HAVE a BIOS upgrade and I 
-> WC> think that stinks.

-> They don't?             

Nope, BIOS punks out at 32 Gig and the USB is 1.1.
I tried everywhere to find a BIOS upgrade.
They have them for their Vectra server class machines but not those
home marketed.

-> WC> However I've made a decent machine of it by memory upgrade and soon 
-> WC> to be added hard drive.

-> WC> Tossed the H.P. software sound card - modem combo as refuse. Oddly
-> WC> a salvaged Turtle Beach Sound card uses precisely the same Vortex
-> WC> sound drivers and it's a hardware card :-)

-> Hm.  I got given a couple machines a while back that are probably gonna be used
-> as upgrades in the not-too-distant future,  one's a Compaq and one's an HP. 
-> :-0        

I'd prefer the H.P.
Micron PCI100 168 pin Dimms will work in it even if their web site
claims otherwise ( PCI66), assuming of course that's the sort of memory
that H.P. uses.

I have heard tell of Compaqs without the proprietary partition
but I've not played with such a one.
The H.P. is likely to have the proprietary SFX power supply as well,
Compaq too.

-> I had yanked the chip out of the Compaq thinking that I'd put it in a box here,
->  but then found that the MB jumpers for voltage won't go *quite* far enough in
-> the right direction, so it's sitting here..  Oh well.  I don't want to use that
-> box itself because it has a *teeny* little power supply in there.

SFX alright.
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