das@ecsvax.UUCP (01/16/84)
The following message was drafted as a response to a news item late
last month, but the attempt to mail it failed. By the time I got it
back and thought about re-sending or posting it, my 1541 disk drive
started having serious problems. The rest of the story follows.
Subject: Re: hopd3.151: Information on c64 reliability wanted.
I have had a c64 and 1541 for a year now with no service at all. I've had one
or two spells of flaky behavior with each, but it went away and was never
diagnosed. The machine is in use almost daily, sometimes for several hours
at a time. A friend bought his 64 about the same time, his disk drive about
5 or 6 months later. Within 2 weeks the drive wouldn't do anything right, so
he took it back for a replacement. As far as I know, no problems since.
Naturally, saying I had nothing wrong with my disk drive caused it to fail.
And after a year of hard use I am heavily dependent on it for tax records,
handouts for my classes, software under development, and many other
things. The symptoms: an unacceptable number of read errors, inability to
read some of the copyprotected disks at all, and occasionally a failure
to complete a write operation and close the file.
So I promptly took it to my friendly local dealer (Talton's in Durham).
After all, that's why I paid $1000 for computer and disk drive (that
was Dec. 82, remember), to have strong local service support. Talton
is no longer dealing in 64's, but I was assured that they could fix
the drive. After almost a week and several phone calls to find out what
was going on (they never called me, in spite of promises to do so), they
finally admitted that they could not fix it and would have to send it
somewhere. I said no, picked up the drive, and took it to Computer 2000
in Raleigh. In less than 2 days I had it back, working fine. So much
for strong local support from the old, established dealer in your home town.
David A. Smith
Department of Mathematics
Duke University
Durham, NC 27706
(919) 684-2321
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