Xref: utzoo comp.dcom.modems:2039 comp.unix.microport:911 comp.unix.xenix:2537 Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!pacbell!ames!nrl-cmf!cmcl2!brl-adm!umd5!mimsy!aplcen!wb3ffv!howardl From: howardl@wb3ffv.UUCP (Howard Leadmon ) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.modems,comp.unix.microport,comp.unix.xenix Subject: Re: "Smart" serial boards for the 80386 Summary: I think I have given Bell a chance to resolve the problems.. Message-ID: <655@wb3ffv.UUCP> Date: 25 Jun 88 20:18:07 GMT References: <628@wb3ffv.UUCP> <510@cimcor.UUCP> <235@belltec.UUCP> Organization: Fast Computer Service, Inc. - Middle River, MD Lines: 87 In article <235@belltec.UUCP>, jim@belltec.UUCP (Mr. Jim's Own Logon) writes: > > A lot of complaints about Bell Tech all of a sudden. I'm sorry that you > don't like the serial card. You are in the minority. It is still the best > selling smart card in Europe, and one of the best in the US. We have a full > time tech support staff to handle problems with any of our hardware or > software products, and they would soon be aware of any prevelant problems > with the board or the driver software. Most problems are with the users not > reading the manual, or not understanding what they want to do. Those that > are technically knowledgable often blaim the added feature, which is the > serial card. In Microport 386, when you add a smart card and it doesn't > work properly, is it the card, the driver, or the OS? Well Jim I don't really want to start a mud slinging contest here on the net as you mention later on in this message, but I do feel there is a problem, and so that it is all out in the open I will go into it in a little more detail here. I really hope you can shed some light on the subject, and I am more than willing to put a card back in my machine and give it a try if you would like to call me on the phone a make sure I have it installed correctly (Let me say that I have talked with several of your technical support people). Also as I mentioned in one of my previous postings, I have talked about Bell Technoliges with the highest reguards over the past several years, and it hurt me as well to have to flame the company I once supported by selling your products. As far as is it being a user problem, I think not, as I am a very experienced UNIX system installer, and on top of that I have spent several hours on the phone with your technical services department trying to work out all the problems. In fact I was so willing to let you people work out the problems with the card that I kept the boards for over eight months, since I knew how well your tape backups worked for several years. Well it took so long that I lost a $100,000 contract to faulty ICC cards, and believe me I am not real happy about the situation, and to this date the cards still don't work! Here are several things that I did in an attempt to resolve the problem with your ICC board. I switched from Microport V/386 to Bell V.3 UNIX, since eventually I called Bell and they said "We are no longer going to support Microport, since they don't have a very large share of the UNIX market, and for that reason we will not spend any more development time on the Microport Drivers". So to knock that brick wall down I bought a copy of your own UNIX release, and it came with the drivers installed, so I couldn't have botched that part of it. Also as mentioned above I went over every switch setting on that card with you Technical support people, so thay must have been right. So then I was told the problem was with the Telebit Trailblazer modems, and that you would be getting one in to run some tests on. Well I even went as far as to give you people a login to my on system so that you could run tests with the high-speed modems, but I don't believe you ever called. So honestly, have I been unfair in my critisims ?? I have never flamed a company on the NET before, so I don't consider myself a person that FLAMES just to get attention. Again I say, would you personally like to make your ICC work on my system ?? (Inquiring minds want to know :-) > I realize that you will take all of this with a grain of salt since I'm > from Bell Tech (I did the ICC hardware), but I wanted to present our side. > There are a lot of satisfied Bell Tech customers using everything from > samrt cards to high resolution graphics; and many of these people are on > the net. Like any company or any product there are those that will leap out > to flame them for whatever reason (I could go through our tech support data > base and find out the history of the complainers here, but I don't think > a mud slinging contest will help any). Actually I am very glad to see you respond, since I knew from Dianne in your sales department that you received the messages posted to the NET. I will say that I resent being refered to as a person that would flame a product for no reason at all, and I will gladly retract all statements that I have made to the NET if you can prove that the problems were all caused by my inability to install the product correctly... > Anyway, our ICC smart cards as well as the new ACE smart cards work fine > with terminals, modems, printers and all other serial devices. Large > companies that have evaluated our smart cards against the top 5 or so > other smart card companies have all signed OEM deals with us. And this is > after a 2 month testing and evaluation period. If they had the type of > problems that you claim, we wouldn't be selling them 1000 a month. > > Sorry for the length of this, but it IS a good design. > > -Jim Wall > Bell Technologies Inc. Well I sure hope the new ACE card works better than the original ICC, and as usual I wish you the best of luck with resolving the problems that you encounter, and any products that you introduce.. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- UUCP/SMTP : howardl@wb3ffv | Howard D. Leadmon PACKET : wb3ffv@w3itm-9 | Fast Computer Service, Inc. IP Address: 44.60.0.1 | P.O. Box 171 Telephone : (301)-335-2206 | Chase, MD 21027-0171