rcw@qetzal.UUCP (Robert C. White) (12/09/87)
[ Followups strictly to alt.flame. This is probably of little use to the majority of comp.sys.ibm.pc] In article <2363@killer.UUCP>, jonm@killer.UUCP (Jon Meinecke) writes: > "Foolish you" indeed, is right! Spare me. Nice way to start an article. Would you say that to me in person? > I'm sorry that Mr. White feels that Compaq is as he says > "manipulatively tweaking" their hardware. As far am I'm concerned, > nothing could be farther from the truth. Well, if what I said wasn't true, you weren't able to substantiate otherwise in your article. I suppose it depends on what you want to do with your computer. If you want a complete turnkey self-contained system, then I suppose Compaq is a good way to go. If you want to add less expensive third party hardware, you are screwed. You can't tell me that the bizarre hard disk setup isn't a marketing ploy. Consider it from your own company's point of view. They ask themselves, "how can we maximize our aftermarket profits?" Locking your customers into particular hard disks is one answer. > Compaq is dedicated to > compatiblity and customer satisfaction. Admittedly the customer > service and support provided by the retail channels varies greatly, > from superior to unacceptable, but if Mr. White had taken the time to > contact Compaq directly he might have been able to avoid some of his > misadventures. Wait a second. If the secret to your success is high-end compatible micros with lots of local support, why do I have to phone the manufacturer? I called not one but several Businesslands in the metro area, and none of them knew how to help me. If I need to run up phone bills out of town, by God I'll do it with a clone maker! > As a relatively new > Compaq employee in a systems engineering group I can, I believe > fairly unbiasedly, attest to the the high standards of "industry > standard" compatibility which are applied to Compaq products. Just what in God's name does "industry standard" mean to Compaq? Certainly their perception of this has nothing to do with my business. If that's an industry standard power supply in my Compaq portable, I'll eat my belt. Ever priced a replacement power supply? What about the "industry standard :-)" video card? > There > is a lot of pride in the success of Compaq in competition with IBM > and PC clone-makers in product performance and innovation. Performance and innovation yes. Compatibility and support no way. Actually, I think Compaq's strongest point is getting the product to market faster than anyone else, and dominating market share. > Mr. White seems to have had several distinct problems in transfering > large data files from a Compaq system to some other system. I quote > from his article: > > > 1) [Mr. White] "...tried for a week to read the Compaq's 1.2 meg > floppies..." > 2) "...the Compaq had a CDC type 17 drive in it and nonstandard > connectors" > 3) "the disk drive makes some god-awful high pitched noises" > I don't understand the nature of the problem Mr. White had reading the > 1.2 meg floppies. Error reading drive A: Abort, Retry, Ignore? > If he was attempting to read 360K format > floppies written on a 1.2 meg drive on the Compaq with a 360K > drive on the destination system, then he may well have had > difficulty, but that problem is not realted to Compaq's reliability > or compatibility. No, no, no! My people in Kansas wrote a set of 14 floppies on the Compaq using 1.2 meg floppies on the 1.2 meg drive. I'd get them here in Denver, and they would consistantly fail to read on a number of machines. We tried Federal Expressing them three different times. It's possible the Compaq's drive is out of allignment, but that's poor considering it's only six months old and has been lightly used. > As for the incompatibilty of the fixed disk drive connections, the > most obvious point is that fixed disks are not intended to be data > exchange devices, Says you. This is something IBM might say. Fact is, the rest of us have been doing this for years. What do you suppose inspired the Bournouli (sp?) Box? > -- particularly when separated from their > controllors and software device driver routines. So we don't use "industry standard" Western Digital cards either? OK, so I'd forgive you if you were using RLL... Software device drivers? What have you done to "industry standard" DOS? Tweaking the bios too? > These points and > the stories of how may miles Mr. White drove through the ice and snow > because of his own naivete' not withstanding, there are many possible > reasons for the differences among the many fixed disk drives which > Compaq supports. FLAME ON And you, sir, are way off base, at least for my market segment. My naivete was in believing the crapola Compaq puts out about being industry standard. I will stick to clones that don't deviate from my comfortable perception of the PC as a commodity. > I doubt that anyone would expect to be able to simply plug one of these > drives into a "foriegn" system (controllor/ROM/driver) and have the data > be accessible. The same holds true for many of the earlier Compaq > fixed disk drives. Anyone for a circular argument? If our previous products did it, it must be a good idea for newer products. What myopia! Why don't you ask some folks? Yes, Compaq screwed everyone up with that wierd shock mounted hard disk in the portable. Boy, they were expensive to replace. I'm not the only one who likes to swap hard disks around, am I? Net - send mail to me and I'll post the results. Answer the following: Is it important to you to be able to buy "off the shelf" hard disks and put them in your machine? Do you need to swap disks occasionally among your PCs? > The exact nature of Mr. White's complaint is unclear. Does he feel > that the fixed disk drive failed because of poor quality control or > is his complaint mainly with the poor sevice which the retail dealer > provided? Maybe it seems odd to you that a hard disk should start to fail after six months? I'm concerned with the quality control aspect here. I have several AT clones floating around and have never had a disk hardware problem with any of them. I expect a disk drive to last at least two years. I'd hope the problem I'm having is an isolated experience. > If the Compaq system were still in warranty and the dealer > could not correct the problem then a call to Compaq customer support > would obtain information on other service channels for repair under > warranty. The machine is a leased unit. We could return it and go without it for eight weeks. I'd prefer to return it and buy a clone. When it wears out, I'll buy mail order replacement parts, or buy a new one. I can afford to keep extra serial, video, even motherboard cards on hand. > Mr. White's flamage is colorful, but short on fuel to keep the fires > really burning brightly. If these were the worst complaints > concerning compatibility of a non-IBM PC, then all the Korean and ROC > manufacturers would "wish that they had it so bad..." Mr. White's > oath to never purchase a Compaq product seems a little silly when > compared to the trade journals' and general market's view of > Compaq,-- particularly the new 386 systems. I'm not so sure about that. Please don't back up your point of view with trade journals - the number of times they've been dead wrong could fill a 130 meg news disk several times over. I'm not concerned with proving the world hates Compaqs. As far as my business is concerned, they are inappropriate. If there are enough people like me, you will adapt your strategies to accomodate us, or lose out on this market segment. I drive a Hyundai and I type on a Hyundai. Such problems I've never had with any of my clones. Compaq's strategy with their 386 machines was a good one - and I respect that ability. My flames are directed towards hardware level compatibility. The point to remember is that I had some terrible problems with a high end machine that I never expected. Maybe clone makers are making a mistake by not capitalizing on this marketing point. Maybe Compaq is just full of baloney when it says "compatible". Why spend double my money for a headache? If I want a headache, I can bang my head against the wall. Maybe I don't fit in with your idea of what a customer should want. [hype deleted] Please direct sales hype to comp.newprod. I don't spew forth about the relative merits of my company's products in this forum, and you shouldn't either. { Robert White } -- //////////////////286 Moderator -- comp.unix.microport\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ Email to microport@uwspan for info on the newsgroup comp.unix.microport. otherwise mail to microport@uwspan with a Subject containing one of: 386 286 Bug Source Merge or "Send Buglist" (rutgers!uwvax!uwspan!microport)