Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!bunny!vaxine!palladium!rfortier
From: rfortier@palladium.UUCP (Richard W. Fortier)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: CMS Experiences
Message-ID: <422@palladium.UUCP>
Date: 15 Dec 87 14:31:06 GMT
References: <57900016@sfu_dipper>
Reply-To: rfortier@palladium.UUCP (Richard W. Fortier)
Organization: Epoch Systems, Marlborough, MA
Lines: 70

In article <57900016@sfu_dipper> mcdonald@sfu_dipper.cs.sfu writes:
>
>First of all, for those people who don't like to spend a great deal of time
>reading notes, I will summarize this one--STAY AWAY FROM CMS.
>
>Now in more detail . . .
>
>Some time ago I was investigating drives for use with the Mac II, and called
>one distributor for info and pricing on the CMS pro-40 internal.  Well,
>surprise, they had a pro-60 in stock, which was an overstock item, and they
>sold it to me for $975US, less than their price for the 40 meg drive.  Stupidest
>purchase I ever made.
>
[ stuff deleted]
>
>Hope the above info is of use.
>
>K. McDonald

The article goes on to explain in great detail the trials and
tribulations the author had with installing the CMS drive, with
finding very outdated software on the drive, and in general the
problems had when trying to make it work.  This was something I felt I
couldn't let stand, since my own experience with CMS is that they are
WONDERFUL!

I called CMS about a month ago to ask questions about their drives,
and was referred to Daryl Pipkin (extension 238).  He was quite
knowledgeable about the drives and was EXTREMELY helpful and patient.
I asked several questions about performance and got detailed answers,
right down to DiskTimer II numbers.  I asked which disk drives their
products were based on and got straight answers.  I asked specifically
about the Pro-60, and Daryl told me he didn't recommend it for the Mac
II because it was slower than some of the other drives and couldn't
keep up with the II.  If you are an Apple certified developer, you can
buy your drives direct from CMS; I did and the arrived within a week.
In short, it was one of the most pleasant organizations I've ever
dealt with.

I suspect the problems are more with the dealer than with CMS.  The
clue is in the first paragraph, where the distributor convinces the
original author to buy a Pro-60 which is overstocked, and has probably
been on the shelf long enough that it PREDATED the Mac II, so of
course it couldn't reasonably be expected to work very well with the
Mac II.  The later comments in the article:

>Secondly, the drive as shipped and according to instructions could not be
>securely mounted in the Mac II!  The screws provided were too long, and their
>stems hit the drive case before they could be tightened. . .
>
[more stuff deleted]
>
>Then there was the software.  The software provided with the drive had a
>default interleave setting of 4:1 for the Mac II--and  WOULD NOT ALLOW THIS
>SETTING TO BE CHANGED.  I called CMS and complained, and they sent out a
>newer version of the software which corrected this, but it still turned out
>that the fastest interleave on this model was 2:1, which did not make me at
>all happy.
[more stuff deleted]

convince me that this is the case.  I agree the author got burned, and
even that the author got somebody at CMS who was less than helpful
with technical questions, but I believe the real culprit here is a
less-than-scrupulous dealer; let's lay the blame where it belongs.

-- 

---
Richard W. Fortier, Epoch Systems, Marlboro MA
{linus!alliant, harvard!cfisun}!palladium!rfortier