Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!ucsd!ucsdhub!esosun!seismo!uunet!l5comp!scotty From: scotty@l5comp.UUCP (Scott Turner) Newsgroups: comp.unix.microport Subject: Re: Can't backup to floppy Summary: Support your favorite unix provider Message-ID: <430@l5comp.UUCP> Date: 21 Sep 88 12:54:18 GMT References: <913@cygnet.CYGNETSYSTEMS> <547@micropen> <1716@ddsw1.UUCP> <926@cygnet.CYGNETSYSTEMS> <153@carpet.WLK.COM> Reply-To: scotty@l5comp.UUCP (Scott Turner) Organization: L5 Computing, Edmonds, WA Lines: 85 In article <153@carpet.WLK.COM> bill@ssbn.WLK.COM (Bill Kennedy) writes: >In article <926@cygnet.CYGNETSYSTEMS> will@cygnet.CYGNETSYSTEMS (Will Nelson) writes: >I'm weary of being a pioneer, most especially since I wasn't aware I was >one until I opened the letter. I'd like to have the manual that's so >often mentioned in my docs (for which John blames Locus). I didn't buy a >*thing* from Locus; I paid full retail for *MICROPORT*. Yeah, Microport is a might twitchy about this topic. I had some marketing type call me up last friday and ask me a bunch of "screening" questions. He said he was looking for 10 DOSMerge users to turn over to a magazine editor who was doing a DOSMerge review and wanted to talk to some REAL users. Thinking back over the questions I'm not quite certain what to make of that phone call, was it for real? Or were they just out finding out what the troops though of them? :) But one question that came up, flares attached for attention, was about what I thought of the industry practice of releasing beta versions of products... I told the guy I thought beta's were VERY important, but that the customer should know what they were getting up front. Not when the package arrived. And that I wasn't too thrilled over this when it happened to me over the original DOSMerge... Well if they really were looking for 10 happy users I guess I blew it on that question. :-) Ah yes! The famous missing manual. Or, "How exactly do you use that $#@! doskey program?" Interestingly enough Microport didn't answer my question about how to use doskey when I asked 'em about it. Maybe they don't have a copy of the manual either. :) But I can report that Bell Technologies doesn't have it either. The DOSMerge they sell, for use with their unix, comes straight from Locus. So I guess Locus doesn't have the manual either, yet SOMEBODY has it. Else why the references to it? The thing that get's under my skin more than the missing DOSMerge manual (I mean I DID puzzle out how to use doskey all by my lonesome, wellll I did cheat and use strings too...) are the missing online manual pages. Nobody has 'em. Neither Microport or Bell Technologies. They do exist for System V Release 3.0 though, I saw 'em on a MIPS Computing unix platform. They were GREAT too, AT&T did more than work over the printed dox, the online pages are MUCH MUCH MUCH better as well. >book says that I have funds disbursed for value not received. I agree, >wholeheartedly with Karl and Will; CAVEAT EMPTOR and make that phosphor >red if you are looking at Microport. >-- >Bill Kennedy Internet: bill@ssbn.WLK.COM I say at this point, "Ask not what Microport can do for you, but rather what you can do for Microport." If the manual pages just aren't converted from the Generic Release 3.0 notes, hey! Make the, to quote George Bush, "24 hour time period" of some of us out here and release 'em as beta's. I know that there are several people around here at L5 Computing, myself included, that would be happy to help out. It seems to me that those people who were willing to work WITH Microport got put on the beta site list and thus got to work with them on making a better product. Those who would rather jump up and down and scream alot about "I paid for a fully working product and I want it *NOW* goddamn it!" didn't get on the beta site list. And since they weren't going to contribute they should have just decided they couldn't handle the fact that a bug free product wasn't available and just sued Microport. Then there would be blissful silence for those trying to fix it since the whinners would be only able to say "No Comment" since the case was still pending. :) And I'll say it again, things could be worse. Bell Technologies' often quoted policy of "We only ship the REAL AT&T certified binaries. Not one bit has been changed." is a double edged sword... I finally made sense of their policy of "Refund RMA's before support" when I ran the above through my head one more time. If there's a bug, no matter HOW BAD, or easy to fix, they can't fix it!!!! Kinda obvious now that I think about it. A WONDERFUL Catch-22 though. :) "Bell Technologies, we sell only the certified AT&T release, no matter how fuckedup it is. But we support what we sell, so long as we don't have to modify it." (They make some really great hardware though, and they do seem to be able to make bug fixes on the hardware.) Scott Turner scotty@l5comp -or- uunet!l5comp!scotty