bright@dataioDataio.UUCP (Walter Bright) (02/12/86)
I have been working with the VDI stuff for a while now, and have been trying out various demos. The problem is that IBM provides many listings of demo programs in the documentation, but doesn't provide them on the disk, even though there is room for them. They expect you to type in 10 page examples. Forget it. Does anybody have any flashy demo programs in C for VDI that can be emailed to me? Thanks in advance, Walter Bright By the way, IBM did something with the documentation that I find extremely irritating, a number of other software vendors inflict the same thing on their users: They provide a nice half-size binder and manual. However, they also provide FIVE (count-em) odd-size pamphlets. The pamphlets are an indispensible part of the documentation. They don't fit in the binder. Holes can't be punched in them, because there isn't enough margin for them (you risk punching out valuable information). Those stupid pamphlets are going to get lost. Other vendors do similar things, like provide a half-size binder and then update sheets that are full-size(!!!). (I even once got a full size manual and half-size update sheets... I xeroxed the updates onto full size paper and punched them into the manual). Or they provide a bunch of loose scraps of paper. When will vendors realize that desks are normally cluttered with junk, and that ALL material provided with a product should be physically connected together? I also hate documentation that is bound in such a way that no pages can be added. What do vendors expect you to do with the errata sheets (Turbo Pascal is an offender here)? Answer: lose them.
ben@catnip.UUCP (Bennett Broder) (02/15/86)
In article <911@dataioDataio.UUCP>, bright@dataioDataio.UUCP (Walter Bright) writes: > I also hate documentation that is bound in such a way that no pages > can be added. What do vendors expect you to do with the errata > sheets (Turbo Pascal is an offender here)? Answer: lose them. Don't be so quick to jump on Borland's case. It is one of the least offensive "protection" schemes I have encountered. The idea is, make the documentation very hard to copy, price the software cheap enough that nobody will go through the hassle of copying it, and of course, provide no documentation on the disk itself. Would you rather have a 3 ring binder and a copy-protected diskette? -- Ben Broder {ihnp4,decvax} !hjuxa!catnip!ben
rb@ccivax.UUCP (rex ballard) (02/19/86)
In article <911@dataioDataio.UUCP> bright@dataioDataio.UUCP (Walter Bright) writes: >I have been working with the VDI stuff for a while now... Just curious, is IBM's VDI even remotely compatible with GEM VDI? I just got the GEM docs and it looks like GEM software written in C is source compatible between IBM-PC, any clones that support GEM, and the Atari. This looks like a good way for a programmer to hit a lot of markets with the same source. Maybe exact IBM compatibility will become less of an issue. >I also hate documentation that is bound in such a way that no pages >can be added. What do vendors expect you to do with the errata >sheets (Turbo Pascal is an offender here)? Answer: lose them. I guess I would rather buy a $19.95 paste-bound book and a $10.00 disk full of software than pay $400 for the same product because the publisher knows how easy it is to run the documentation through the copier. I've even bought the 'book' even though the software was already available. This sure beats "Copy Protection". It would be nice if the "book" was priced separately, but it's also nice to have the software, if I need it later.