Article-I.D.: brl-tgr.2644
Posted: Thu Oct 31 00:24:10 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 3-Nov-85 07:39:45 EST
Sender: news@brl-tgr.ARPA
Lines: 11

Have you all seen the ads for Mystic Pascal? They promise the world for a low
price. Sound a little familiar? It should. Guess who runs Mystic? None other
than Jim Tyson of JRT Pascal fame. Would you buy something from the man who
pulled off the JRT scam? I sure as hell wouldn't, and I don't think many
other people would either. And don't think that Jim has reformed his ways.
Mystic Pascal is nowhere near done, yet you can be sure they will take your
money and tell you that your package will ship the next day.

AVOID THIS PRODUCT LIKE THE PLAGUE!!!
--
John P. McNamee		decvax!philabs!sbcs!bnl44!jpm		jpm@BNL44.ARPA

Article-I.D.: graffiti.386
Posted: Sat Nov  2 05:30:06 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 5-Nov-85 04:47:54 EST
References: <2644@brl-tgr.ARPA>
Organization: The Power Elite, Houston, TX
Lines: 16

> than Jim Tyson of JRT Pascal fame. Would you buy something from the man who
> pulled off the JRT scam? I sure as hell wouldn't, and I don't think many

This is the first I heard that JRT was a scam. I had heard that it was badly
non-standard and buggy, but what do you want for $30? Especially back then.
It might be less impressive than advertised, but what isn't? That certainly
doesn't make it a scam.

But while I'm on the subject of words...

Had you ever considered that your statement might be described as libel?
-- 
Name: Peter da Silva
Graphic: `-_-'
UUCP: ...!shell!{graffiti,baylor}!peter
IAEF: ...!kitty!baylor!peter

Article-I.D.: brl-tgr.2749
Posted: Sat Nov  2 19:34:51 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 5-Nov-85 05:26:22 EST
Sender: news@brl-tgr.ARPA
Lines: 31

I said...
>>than Jim Tyson of JRT Pascal fame. Would you buy something from the man who
>>pulled off the JRT scam? I sure as hell wouldn't, and I don't think many

And Peter da Silva replied...
>This is the first I heard that JRT was a scam. I had heard that it was badly
>non-standard and buggy, but what do you want for $30? Especially back then.
>It might be less impressive than advertised, but what isn't? That certainly
>doesn't make it a scam.
>
>But while I'm on the subject of words...
>
>Had you ever considered that your statement might be described as libel?

What do you call it when a company takes your money and doesn't deliver the
product? I call it a scam. JRT took orders, cashed checks, and charged
credit cards and then only delivered to a very small number of buyers. A
large number of people were left with a chased check and no product when
JRT went bankrupt.

The fact that Mystic Pascal is VAPORWARE just drives home the point that
it would be very unwise to send money to these people and expect to get
anything in return.


Now, as to my choice of words... I may very well be open to a libel suit.
But then so will all the hundreds of people on CompuServe who declared JRT
a ripoff. Jim Tyson has a bad name in the microcomputer industry. If he wants
to redeem himself he should find a better way then trying to sell vaporware.
--
John P. McNamee		decvax!philabs!sbcs!bnl44!jpm		jpm@BNL44.ARPA

Article-I.D.: graffiti.401
Posted: Sun Nov  3 21:58:16 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 5-Nov-85 06:38:29 EST
References: <2749@brl-tgr.ARPA>
Organization: The Power Elite, Houston, TX
Lines: 24

> What do you call it when a company takes your money and doesn't deliver the
> product? I call it a scam. JRT took orders, cashed checks, and charged
> credit cards and then only delivered to a very small number of buyers. A
> large number of people were left with a chased check and no product when
> JRT went bankrupt.
> 
> 
> Now, as to my choice of words... I may very well be open to a libel suit.
> But then so will all the hundreds of people on CompuServe who declared JRT
> a ripoff. Jim Tyson has a bad name in the microcomputer industry. If he wants
> to redeem himself he should find a better way then trying to sell vaporware.

Interesting. I never heard of any of this... and I was following JRT with
some interest back when I was thinking of getting a CP/M machine. AT the time
the choice of a programming language was basically JRT Pascal or BDS 'C', both
of which were non-standard and (reputedly) buggy. I eventually went with BDS
for the machine at work & never bothered to get a CP/M machine of mine own. Of
course I didn't have a Compuserve account but neither Infoworld, nor Byte, nor
Dr. Dobbs breathed a word of this.
-- 
Name: Peter da Silva
Graphic: `-_-'
UUCP: ...!shell!{graffiti,baylor}!peter
IAEF: ...!kitty!baylor!peter

Article-I.D.: sdcc6.2275
Posted: Sat Nov  2 15:26:21 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 5-Nov-85 20:15:54 EST
References: <2644@brl-tgr.ARPA>
Reply-To: ir320@sdcc6.UUCP ()
Organization: U.C. San Diego, Academic Computer Center
Lines: 16

In article <2644@brl-tgr.ARPA> jpm@bnl44.arpa (John McNamee) writes:
>Mystic Pascal is nowhere near done, yet you can be sure they will take your
>money and tell you that your package will ship the next day.
>
>AVOID THIS PRODUCT LIKE THE PLAGUE!!!

Second that.  We are a devloper and we made arrangements for free copies
from the Mystic Man, he must be a mystic to get it working, it bombs, it
couldn't even compile its own test program.  DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES
BUY THIS PRODUCT.  It is EVEN WORSE than JRT 3.0 (at least that ran.)

John Antypas
UC San Diego

uucp: ...!{ucbvax,decvax,ihnp4,noscvax}!sdcsvax!sdcc6!ir320
arpa: ir320%sdcc6@sdcsvax.ARPA

Article-I.D.: intelca.139
Posted: Mon Nov 11 11:19:22 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 14-Nov-85 08:01:37 EST
References: <2644@brl-tgr.ARPA>
Organization: Intel, Santa Clara, Ca.
Lines: 25

> Have you all seen the ads for Mystic Pascal? They promise the world for a low
> price. Sound a little familiar? It should. Guess who runs Mystic? None other
> than Jim Tyson of JRT Pascal fame. Would you buy something from the man who
> pulled off the JRT scam? I sure as hell wouldn't, and I don't think many
> other people would either. And don't think that Jim has reformed his ways.
> Mystic Pascal is nowhere near done, yet you can be sure they will take your
> money and tell you that your package will ship the next day.
> 
> AVOID THIS PRODUCT LIKE THE PLAGUE!!!
> --
> John P. McNamee decvax!philabs!sbcs!bnl44!jpm	jpm@BNL44.ARPA

You didn't mention if you had bought it but I suspect you haven't. I would
be interested in hearing from anyone who has seen a copy of MP and to know
how it stacks up. I agree that JRT and Jim Tyson made a LOT of enemys with
the JRT scam but maybe he used all that money to write a real product?
It wouldn't be the first time a legitimate company rose from the ashes of
a sham.

--Chuck
-- 
                                            - - - D I S C L A I M E R - - - 
{ihnp4,fortune}!dual\                     All opinions expressed herein are my
        {qantel,idi}-> !intelca!cem       own and not those of my employer, my
 {ucbvax,hao}!hplabs/                     friends, or my avocado plant. :-}

Article-I.D.: graffiti.438
Posted: Sat Nov 16 09:03:24 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 18-Nov-85 07:22:40 EST
References: <2644@brl-tgr.ARPA> <139@intelca.UUCP>
Organization: The Power Elite, Houston, TX
Lines: 9

Damn it, I'm sure I saw a review of JRT in Dr. Dobbs or some other similar mag.
The consensus was that it wasn't Pascal, but rather a pascal-like language, and
that apart from not being Pascal it worked as advertised. Where did they get
their review copies?
-- 
Name: Peter da Silva
Graphic: `-_-'
UUCP: ...!shell!{graffiti,baylor}!peter
IAEF: ...!kitty!baylor!peter

Article-I.D.: entropy.231
Posted: Mon Nov 18 01:14:00 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 19-Nov-85 04:25:39 EST
References: <2644@brl-tgr.ARPA> <139@intelca.UUCP> <438@graffiti.UUCP>
Organization: UW MathStat, Seattle
Lines: 12
Summary: JRT Pascal was shipped in some cases

<>
JRT did ship a number of Pascal systems prior to going
bankrupt. I have one of these. It seemed to be complete,
slow and ( like most Pascals of the period ) somewhat non-
standard. I seem to remember that there were even a few
packages developed using it. It was not a total scam. I
think that it was worth the price. They simply went bankrupt
with a number of outstanding orders.

 Donald C. Martin,  phone (206) 543 1044
 SC-32, Dept. of Biostatistics., U. of Wash, Seattle WA, 98195
 {decvax,ihnp4,ucbvax!lbl-csam}!uw-beaver!entropy!martin