tonyrich@titanic.cs.wisc.edu (Anthony Rich) (03/10/90)
In article <13048@burdvax.PRC.Unisys.COM> dave@PRC.Unisys.COM (David Lee Matuszek) writes: >Before I buy used equipment, I'd like to know whether it works. [...and wishes for more diagnostic software for the Mac...] Diagnostics would help identify problems in new equipment, too! I think every Mac (heck, every COMPUTER) should come with diagnostic software that puts every piece of hardware through basic tests and gives a summary about whether its performance is within spec. The summary should be in user-understandable form, not a scramble of cryptic numbers and technical jargon. I once bought a 256K RAM board for an old S-100 system, and there was a stuck bit in one of the memory chips. But the bad bit was in high memory, so the board seemed OK until one day when memory use was particularly high. The bad memory finally got used, and the program that was running aborted. I discovered the problem after the board's warranty had expired, although the defect was probably there when I bought it. But with no memory-test program, how could I have known? I'd prefer diagnostic programs that I could run when I wanted; I'd rather not have to wait for long automatic tests to be done each time the machine is turned on. The test programs wouldn't have to be as fancy as the kind technicians use. Something along the lines of "Performance of your bit bucket seems normal" or "There may be a problem with your bit bucket. Please have a qualified technician test it more thoroughly for leakage" would suffice. Some common-sense troubleshooting advice would be nice, too. A lot of people (like me) could use gentle reminders like, "The external hard disk is not responding. Please make sure the data cable and power cords are plugged in tightly and the unit is turned on." I appreciate the piecemeal diagnostic software that does exist for the Mac, but I wish it was comprehensive and came as standard equipment. Tony -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Email: tonyrich@titanic.cs.wisc.edu Phone: 608-271-8450 Disclaimer: The opinions above are mine. Others may agree or disagree. ------------------------------------------------------------------------
cl1x+@andrew.cmu.edu (C. Kenny Lin) (03/10/90)
Gee. Sounds almost like the Diagonistics diskettes that were shipped with the older IBM-PCs. They even did cool things like testing your hard disk, your FLOPPY disk, keyboard, and monitor. But of course, the Macintosh user is supposed to be shielded from that ugly stuff. That's why Apple has Dealer Support :-) (or :-(, depending on your experience with them) Maybe Apple should be suffering from IBM-envy. Naaaaaah. ---Ken