Unbundling - we all do it, so let's stop complaining

[karl]

In article <393 at uport.UUCP> plocher at uport.UUCP (John Plocher) writes:
>In article <739 at mccc.UUCP> pjh at mccc.UUCP (Pete Holsberg) writes:
>>In article <382 at uport.UUCP> plocher at uport.UUCP (John Plocher) writes:
>>...What does the extra $783 get you from Microport?
>>...  o  Me :-)
>>...  -John Plocher
>>
>>OK - so where's the answer to my oft-repeated questions about "assign"
>>and the LogiTech mouse, already?
>
>With DosMerge 1.0 (and not 0.2 or 0.3) you add the following line to the file
>	-John Plocher

Hi john, first, I'd like to thank you for at least making a example by replying
to me with a list of promises.  Just after your response, I tried calling you
the very next day.  You were in a meeting.  And the day after, you were also
in a meeting.  Now knowing, full well that people in California are either in
a meeting or at lunch, I found it reassuring at that at least you were in the
building.  I was able to get some help, from a 386 support person, until we
both ran into a problem getting my 386 DOS merge beta release 0.2 to talk to
my printer.  The support person could'nt figure it out, and just said...
"I dunno..play around with it, maybe you can get it to work."  Well, now that
I paid that extra $783, could you please tell how much more I have to spend
to get a working DosMerge?  Please explain to everyone on the net how those
poor unspecting people who glading ordered and paid for Dosmerge, found it
very interesting to see that what they purchased was a "PRE-RELEASE".  I
still can't get dos to talk directly to the printer (/dev/lp) and my SERIAL
logitech mouse doesn't work.  Talk about truth in advertising, maybe its time
your ads should say "DosMerge" and "Greenhills" comming soon.  I still can 
get any answer about Dosmerge 1.0, and what I have to do to get it.

Important note: I'm not trying to give microport a bad name or John a hard
time.  I just a poor customer trying to get my computer to work.  I'm going
to get very mad, though when one of my customers forces me to give them
a $10,000. refund on a hardware package, because my hands are tied and I
can't support them.  They tell me I lied to them about Greenhills, I lied
to them about getting their tape drive to work, I lied about that promised
"pre-release" version that was being sent out, the next day (two months ago)
to fix their floating point problem.

Now, an un-emotional re-cap of open problems with system V/386:

	- Tape driver for Everex 60M cassette style tape back does nothing.
	  (system just hangs). EV-830.  I of course fixed this by eating
	  a $600.00 tape drive and replacing it with one that works.  If
	  you won't fix it or everex isn't helping, stop telling people it
	  works.  It would have saved me $600.00.  (know anybody who wants
	  a 60M tape drive for DOS?)

	- No documentation on using the link kit for the Beta 0.2 pre-release
	  version of the DosMerge kernal.  I figured this one out by playing
	  with the /etc/mkunix shell script.  The support person at microport
	  never played with it, and if fact never heard about "/etc/mergeconf".

	- No way to directly connect /dev/lp to DosMerge, and the spooler
	  program under unix truncates all those nifty graphics files down
	  to some unknown line width.  I've made a device with 128 added to
	  the device driver.  At least I can print by sending everything to
	  a file, and "cat <file> > /dev/lp".  The support person (a nice guy)
	  said "I donno...maybe try the new lp driver from the BBS".

	- My logitech mouse, (after directly connecting it to COM1 to dos),
	  scatters the pointer rapidly all over the screen, and the buttons
	  don't work.  This is very strange to me since my DosMerge doc tells
	  me the Microsoft mouse does not work, buy a logitech. (or at least
	  their driver.  By the way I am using a serial mouse connected to
	  COM1. Which is directly connected to dos with the dosdev file.

	- Floating point operations on a WedgeTech. 386 mother board does
	  not work.  The compiler crashes, a simple program...
		main() { float x; x=1.0; }
	  will not compile, and most of the time it just stops the system.
	  A support person a microport said "oh we've fixed that already in
	  house, so I'll send you a special version to fix it".  I been able
	  to work around this by letting them to compile their application
	  on my system, and take binaries to their office.  Of course, this
	  reduces them to a integer only 386 system.  Fun. (I'm sorry 
	  I said no-emotion)

	- Greenhills updates, and Pre-release DosMerge 386s.  The customer
	  with the floating point problem, was very excited to see that in
	  your ad back in april, when I talked them into buying it. And in
	  May, they purchased it, and without warning, no greenhills.  Now
	  every time their programmer comes over to my office to use my system
	  to compile, I get an earfull.  And since I only have a Two user
	  license, I have to kick my other programmer off of the system, just
	  so I can pay him to watch the other guy program.

JOHN...IF YOU ARE OUT THERE...PLEASE LISTEN, if you can't call, send me mail,
send me a letter, send me a FAX, but please tell me just what is going to
happen you my "pre-release" DosMerge.  Getting mad, and throwing around sarcastic
comments is un-productive.  Its hard because while I'm typing this I get
emotional.  Lets be friends, and fix these problems.

Thank you ahead of time.

Karl Vollbrecht  (Vollbrecht & Associates)
Voice / FAX  :  (414) 358-1180