rbrink@hubcap.clemson.edu (Rick Brink) (06/14/91)
How many users out there are using a BDT Sheet Feeder on their LaserPrinter? Have you ever had reason to call BDT with a problem? Well, I have. If you do, get your anti-depressants out. This is one company that seems to have very little interest in maintaining customers. Nice slick adds. A machine, that within limits, is pretty good. But they seem to think the world is a static place. I started calling them 4 months ago, when I switched over to 7.0 betas. I really didn't expect them to have a product ready, but I did expect them to be aware of the impending upgrade to 7.0. All I got them was some "Humms, wells, and maybe's". When they finally seemed to take it serious, a few weeks ago, all they had were suggestions on rearanging resources. The kinds of things we have had to do to get MacTCP to work. Only it doesn't work with BDT's software. Are you listening to the nets BDT. Do you like your dirty laundry out here? Was 3 years not enought time to plan on updating your product? Gosh, I feel like one of the Fantastic Four [you know which one...]
roy@phri.nyu.edu (Roy Smith) (06/15/91)
rbrink@hubcap.clemson.edu (Rick Brink) writes: > Have you ever had reason to call BDT with a problem? Well, I have. If you > do, get your anti-depressants out. I'm not surprised. Back in what now seems like the dark ages, we bought a nifty BDT 3-tray feeder (letterheads, blanks, envelopes) for a NEC Spinwriter 7700. Mechanically, it was very clever and worked well. The problem was that when you installed it, you had to replace a ROM in the Spinwriter to add a couple of escape sequences so you could select the various paper trays. Well, there was a bug in the BDT ROM which made the spinwriter forget where the left margin was every once in a while. It took us a while to figure out what was going on, but eventually we could prove, at least to ourselves, that this errant behaviour only happened when their ROM was in the machine, but we could never convince BDT that there was any problem. They kept insisting that it was in our software. Even after I told them that I could reproduce the problem with no software at all, but just by hooking the Spinwriter up back-to-back with a dumb terminal and typing at it, they refused to believe it. I think eventually they did admit that there was some problem and promised that they were working on new ROMS. I don't remember all the details other than that we never got a single day's use out of the sheet feeder and eventually tossed it and wrote it off as a total loss. The Spinwriter itself was a workhorse that gave us our money's worth many many times over. We outgrew the need for Spinwriters years ago and eventually gave it away, but I do believe it is still in use somewhere. Wonderful piece of machinery. -- Roy Smith, Public Health Research Institute 455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016 roy@alanine.phri.nyu.edu -OR- {att,cmcl2,rutgers,hombre}!phri!roy "Arcane? Did you say arcane? It wouldn't be Unix if it wasn't arcane!"