mccullou@ittral.UUCP (Clifford Mccullough) (09/19/84)
Way back in February of this year, I purchased DOS 2.1 from an authorized IBM distributer. Unfortunately, there was nothing to upgrade my BASIC manual. There was however a form to be filled out promising such an upgrade package. I filled out the form, followed all the instructions, and mail everything to the address indicated. To make a short story long, the form said, "Please wait 4 to 6 weeks for delivery." I have waited 7 months and seen nothing! I tried all the IBM 800 phone numbers I could find - it wasn't their area. I tried the information operator in Wallingford CT - IBM has too many offices in that area and long distances charges would soon outprice the original cost of the DOS package!! I tried mailing a nasty-gram to the same PO box - no response. I'm now working with the manager of the store that sold me the DOS package but his IBM representative is not helping very much. My last resort will be to demand a refund from the store. That will be futile because I want DOS version 2.1. My questions are: - Am I just lucky, or have others had this problem? - The form said the package (I hope to get eventually) will upgrade BASIC 1.1 to BASIC 2.0. Does anyone know of differences between BASIC 2.1 and 2.0? I know the file sizes are different. I bought BASIC 2.1 and I deserve the documentation for it, not documentation for 2.0!! - Does anyone know what is happening at PO Box 3160, Wallingford, CT 06494 besides a big letter vacuum that sucks up request forms never to be hear from again? I understand the same thing is being done at the same address for the new FORTRAN compiler. Please respond directly with help or suggestions. Cliff McCullough ittvax!ittral!mccullou
ac4@pucc-h (Tom Putnam) (09/24/84)
Depending upon which version of DOS and BASIC you had previously,
you may not want the update information for the BASIC manual.
I bought my PC many moons ago with DOS 1.0 and basic BASIC!
Some time later, I acquired DOS 1.1 along with an update for
my BASIC manual. So far, so good.
I skipped 2.0 ... I figured 2.1 would follow before I would get
around to really using any of the new stuff. No problem there.
When I finally acquired 2.1, there was the form telling me that
I could update my BASIC 1.1 manual to reflect the new features
in BASIC 2.1. I noticed when I went to send it in that they
seemed to be very fussy about the update being for BASIC 1.1 and
not for any other version. When I finally received the package,
I discovered why:
(BASIC 1.0) + (Update to 1.1) != (BASIC 1.1)
Somewhere along the line, they started printing a manual for
BASIC 1.1 which has quite a few differences from the manual you
get by updating your 1.0 manual to 1.1. If you try to apply the
1.1 -> 2.1 update, you get in lots of trouble with page numbers
and contents that do not match. I finally gave up ... fortunately,
I hardly ever use BASIC myself ... I just wanted my manual to be up
to date in case a consulting question came up.
By the way, as far as I can tell, there is no BASIC 2.0 or BASIC 2.1
manual ... yet! There is just an update to BASIC 1.1 which is
apparently applicable to both 2.0 and 2.1.
--
Tom Putnam
{decvax|harpo|ihnp4|inuxc|seismo|ucbvax}!pur-ee!pucc-h:ac4broehl@wateng.UUCP (Bernie Roehl) (09/26/84)
Worse yet, I went straight from 1.0 to 2.0 (skipping 1.1) and cannot
obtain a complete Basic manual! I'm even willing to pay for one (despite
the fact that I almost never use Basic) just so I'll have the manual around
for reference.
Anyone from Microsoft or IBM out there? There are probably significant
numbers of people who would pay money for a decent Basic manual with all
the pages and no duplication and a proper table of contents.
--
-Bernie Roehl (University of Waterloo)
...decvax!watmath!wateng!broehl