Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!bunny!vaxine!cpc
From: cpc@vaxine.UUCP (Chris Cullen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: WARNING! FASTBACK may corrupt your brain! (B.S.)
Message-ID: <712@vaxine.UUCP>
Date: 14 Dec 87 21:21:08 GMT
References: <703@vaxine.UUCP> <769@pilchuck.Data-IO.COM>
Organization: Automatix Inc.,  Billerica, MA
Lines: 56
Keywords: hard disk, lost files, trojan horse
Summary: how rude can I (you) be?...

In article <769@pilchuck.Data-IO.COM>, del@pilchuck.Data-IO.COM (Erik Lindberg) writes:
> In article <703@vaxine.UUCP> cpc@vaxine.UUCP (Chris Cullen) writes:
> >Fifth Generation systems, the makers.  Didn't take long.  And I quote:
> >"Yeah, we don't know anyone who's gotten RLL's to work with anything but
> >a Western Digital controller".  You would think that a backup program only
> 
> Personally, I would say that people don't tend to call F.G. just to say:
> "Hey, I just installed this with an ACB2070A and guess what? It works!"
> The Western Digital RLL controllers far outnumber Adaptec simply because
> almost every drive/controller combo, and virtually every hardcard is
> delivered with a WD controller. The fact they haven't heard of anyone that
> got it to work says nothing. He didn't say "No, this doesn't work with it".
> 

In fact, he did.  I didn't include a tape recording of the entire conversation.
(Although it sounds as if you could provide one.  Please do.)  The man
did say "We know that with that configuration, it shuffles the file allocation
table.  We're not sure why, and we're trying to find out more from Adaptec."

> >As far as I'm concerned, Fastback is the ultimate trojan horse.  I'm sure
> >it was not intentional.  However, criminal negligence is certainly indicated.
> >It's obvious from the brief phone conversation that they KNOW that using
> >Fastback on some varieties of hardware (what OTHER configurations are also
> >problems?) will corrupt the source data.  NOWHERE in their documentation
> 
> What can I say about this statement, except that in my experience F.G. is a
> responsible company that listens to it's customers and has a genuine concern
> that their product work correctly. What I wonder is what your attitude was
> when you talked with F.G. such that they were unresponsive to your problem.

I'm happy you've had good luck with Fastback.  I'm not normally rude, and I
was not then.  I called up to ask if they knew if there was anything they
knew about in their software that might cause the problem.  Yelling at
people doesn't usually get cooperation.  I saved my yelling for the net where
it might do somebody else some good.

I don't expect software to be perfect.  I write it for a living, and I dare
say I've never written something without an obscure bug or two (I doubt
anyone has).  I also don't expect a vendor to be able to test their product
with every configuration of hardware, an impossible task.  I do think
that when a serious bug is discovered, that a reasonable effort be made
to inform people who might be affected.  That's simple honesty.  To not
do so is dishonest.

The argument that it's too expensive to update manuals just doesn't wash.
They could have called the larger retailers (my vendor, PC Connection,
maintains a database of hardware/software incompatibilities.  I'm sorry I
was the one to give the update to them, rather than Fifth Generation
Systems.), or provided a zerox-copy tag-along sheet of cautions.


-- 
Chris Cullen                UUCP: {ucbvax!allegra,decvax}!encore!vaxine!cpc
Automatix, Inc.             Phone: 617-667-7900 x2066
1000 Technology Park Dr.
Billerica, Mass. 01821