jeh@abvax.UUCP (John E. Harkey) (05/26/89)
Recently, I purchased a 65MB disk drive manufactured by Progressive Peripherals in Denver, Colorado and sold by Computer Discount, which is, also, located in Denver, Colorado. I kept the drive and interface long enough to evaluate the product and subsequently returned the product to Computer Discount. After this ordeal, my advice to any prospective peripherals buyers is "Avoid dealing with either company and avoid their products." For me, it was both time consuming and costly. My main reason for returning the unit was that it would not work with my system. Upon calling Computer Discount for technical assistance, I was told that I must call the manufacturer, Progressive Peripherals. Upon calling the Technical Services Department at Progressive Peripherals, I was convinced that I had to replace some parts in my computer system. Proceeding on their advice, I soon reduced my Amiga to needing some repairs. After the repairs (and I should add, very costly repairs), the disk drive worked exactly the same as it had done before. I proceeded to try the disk drive on another Amiga. I got the same result. At this point, I began to get suspicious, although I should have begun to feel that way from first opening the box and realizing that the disk drive leaned to one side. It was missing two of the four rubber feet on the bottom. Nevertheless, I have dealt with the computer for the last 20 years and I thought that there should be a logical reason for the product's behavior. I suspected that the interface was mapped into an address occupied by my RAM. I asked the person in their Technical Services Department, "What is the address of the interface?" I was told that he did not know. I asked, "Can you find out?" I was told nobody could find out because the software designer was located in Germany, and the hardware was built in Taiwan. He had no schematics. I asked, "What do the DIP switches do on the connector?" I was told, "Nothing." I thought that they looked like they were connected to some address decoders, so they might solve the problem. The person in Technical Services told me that there was a new software driver that changed the address of the interface. At this point, I did not understand how software could possibly fix this problem, but maybe this person knew more about the interface than I did (which was nothing). He would send me a diskette with a new driver on it. It did not work either. At this point, I began to anger. I thought, "How can a company possibly sell a technical product and be either unwilling or unable to divulge any technical information about it? How can a retail outlet sell this product when they must know that it is not ready to market?" I returned the unit. I, also, returned the allegedly free software that came with the drive, because I thought that it was, also, flawed. I sent them a bill for the damages. I was told by the Technical Services representative that neither company was liable for anything they had told me. He said that the changes that he had recommended to my Amiga were "industry standard". I thought an industry standard was like RS-232. A happy ending to this horror story is that I bought another disk drive from a different company with a CLmtd controller. They gave me 30% more disk space for less money than the Progressive Peripherals drive. Another selling point is that it works, and it is a faster drive. The company I purchased this from is Computer Mart. If anyone ever gets the crazy idea of dealing with Progressive Peripherals or Computer Discount, save yourself the trouble and call Computer Mart first.