On Sun, 11 Oct 2015 21:49:52 -0400, "Robert Green"
wrote:

wrote in message

stuff snipped

IIRC, the ultimate test of a PC's compatibility was:

"Can it run flight simulator?"
We has 20Mhz PCs using Harris chips - and we built 12mhz ATs whenIBM
was doing good to get 8 - and soon had 24s running stable, and selling
for less than "Big Blue" sold their 8.
We also had CDRom long before IBM did - as well as providing larger
hard drives. Lots of features that pushed "big Blue" ahead. The Tier 2
mfgs were also technically "clones" - including AST, Packard Bell,
Compaq, HP, Sanyo, etc.

All Trillium clones passed ALL compatability tests.

That's a good point. Eventually there were lots of programs like MemTest
and SANDRA that could give you a pretty good idea of how compatible a clone
was likely to be. We switched from IBM to Compaq when Compaq pulled ahead
in the MHz race. Compaq machines were built like tanks. Not anymore. )-:
Thank Carly for that.
When Compaq bought Packard Bell their quality took a big hit that
they never fully rebounded from - and when HP bough Compaq, the same
thing happened to HP. Their high end stuff may still be pretty
decent, but they've "watered down the brand" with all their consumer
grade junk.