[comp.windows.news] How to get the DPS manual

roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith) (02/12/89)

lchirica@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU (Laurian Chirica) writes:
> Could anyone please tell me how I can get a copy [of Adobe's Display
> PostScript System Reference manual]?

What I did is send off $30 to:

	DPS Reference Manual Offer
	Adobe Systems Incorporated
	1585 Charleston Road
	P.O. Box 7900
	Mountain View, CA  94039-7900

Whether this will work for you or not, is a good question.  A few weeks after
our order went out, a copy of The Red Book showed up in the mail.  I called
Adobe and told them that they mis-shipped and they said to send the book back
and the would send the DPS docs when they were ready (they were being printed
at the time).  Some time (well over a month) later, I still hadn't gotten the
DPS stuff so I called and was told that you had to be approved to order the
DPS reference manual!  This didn't make sense, so I asked them what they
meant and was told that not just anybody could order the DPS manual, that you
had to be on the approved list.  When I protested that I had already paid for
it and nobody had said anything about approvals, they said that if it turns
out that I wasn't approved, I would get a refund of my $30!

	Now, friends, this is about the most absurd thing I have ever heard
of; not being allowed to buy a book unless you're "approved".  Anyway, I
yelled and screamed a bit and a day or so later somebody called me back to
say that I would be getting the manual.  It just showed up the other day; I
havn't had a chance to do anything more than take the pages out of the
shrink-wrap and put them in the binder.  There was also a cover letter
telling me that this was my "free complementary copy" of the reference
manual.  Maybe you only get it for free if you're approved and otherwise you
have to pay for it?  I could understand that, but that's not what I was told
on the phone.
-- 
Roy Smith, System Administrator
Public Health Research Institute
{allegra,philabs,cmcl2,rutgers}!phri!roy -or- phri!roy@uunet.uu.net
"The connector is the network"

greid@adobe.com (Glenn Reid) (02/23/89)

In article <3678@phri.UUCP> roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith) writes:
>lchirica@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU (Laurian Chirica) writes:
>> Could anyone please tell me how I can get a copy [of Adobe's Display
>> PostScript System Reference manual]?
>
>What I did is send off $30 to:
>
>	DPS Reference Manual Offer
>	Adobe Systems Incorporated
>	1585 Charleston Road
>	P.O. Box 7900
>	Mountain View, CA  94039-7900
>
>Whether this will work for you or not, is a good question.  A few weeks after
>our order went out, a copy of The Red Book showed up in the mail.  I called
>Adobe and told them that they mis-shipped and they said to send the book back
>and the would send the DPS docs when they were ready (they were being printed
>at the time).  Some time (well over a month) later, I still hadn't gotten the
>DPS stuff so I called and was told that you had to be approved to order the
>DPS reference manual!  This didn't make sense, so I asked them what they
>meant and was told that not just anybody could order the DPS manual, that you
>had to be on the approved list.  When I protested that I had already paid for
>it and nobody had said anything about approvals, they said that if it turns
>out that I wasn't approved, I would get a refund of my $30!

This is, of course, highly embarrassing.  It stems from too many
different people knowing too little.  We really do have a consistent
policy :-)  Yes, you can order it if you just pay money for it, and
there isn't any approval policy, other than cashing your check.

The best thing to do is to address inquiries directly to Marci
Eversole, the adminstrative assistant for Developer Support, rather
than the more general address of "DPS Reference Manual Offer" (although
she may not agree with me).  The heck with generality and indirection,
it works better if you send it to a person.

The problem was that "DPS Reference Manual" and "PS Reference Manual"
(usually thought of as the red book) are just too similar....

Thanks for your patience.

--
Glenn Reid
Adobe Systems
Developer Tools & Strategies