Bell Tech Ad (was: Re: semi-review of Bell Tech Unix for the 386)

[jimi]

In article <148 at dcs.UUCP>, wnp at dcs.UUCP (Wolf N. Paul) writes:
> In article <2321 at sugar.uu.net> karl at sugar.uu.net (Karl Lehenbauer) writes:
> >... Nroff/troff are not included, because, according
> >to BT, they haven't gone through the validation suite and aren't up to the
> >quality of everything else, but they'll sell it to you....
> 
> Now, THAT is no longer ambiguous, if this is true, then their ad is purposely
> misleading the consumer.
> 
> The ad states "The price includes ... and all other UNIX utilities, files
> and programs, ...", but that seems to be OUTRIGHT UNTRUE.
> What sort of reasoning is this, "It hasn't passed the tests so we'll
> charge you extra for it"?
> I get to be less and less impressed with the honesty of whoever makes
> marketing decisions at Bell Technologies.

This comment applies to n/troff only.

These programs and their associated utilities (tbl, pic, etc.) are
not part of UNIX SVR3; they have been unbundled from UNIX and are
sold as Documenters' Workbench.  The last AT&T UNIX version that
provided n/troff as part of the base product was SVR1. That was
the C/A/T version of troff (no device independence).

I'm not sure exactly what Bell Tech is trying to say about n/troff
and I don't know what you get when you ask for it. Since n/troff
are no longer part of (AT&T) UNIX the fact that they aren't provided
shouldn't be a reason to say Bell Tech's statement is "OUTRIGHT UNTRUE."

[extra lines to force the fascist vnews program to post this reply]

-- 

Jim Ingram	                                              uunet!h-three!jimi
h-Three Systems Corporation   	P.O. Box 12557 RTP NC 27709   	    919 549 8334