To buy or not to buy.

[esa at kvvax4.UUCP]

		     ** WARNING **

Quite recently we bought an INTERACTIVE Z80 C cross compiler  for
our  4.1bsd.  I was in good faith when I recommended this product
to a project management.  

We've had quite a few problems with IS systems, especially  while
we  were  trying  to  get  started  with an IS/3.  Fortunately we
decided to throw away the IS/3 system and  are  quite  happy  now
with the 4.1bsd running on the very machine.

Okey, I got the Z80 C tape delivered  by  BTM  in  Belgium  (they
represent INTERACTIVES in Europe) a couple of weeks late and after
a few telexes and one phone call.  The enclosed letter said:

"the tape contains to tar format files with blockfactor 20"

I guess they ment 10 files.  Anyway,  that's  about  how  many  I
found.   So  I  was able to extract the files, no trouble at all.
The trouble started  when  I  was  looking  for  a  README  file,
makefile  or  something.   I found none of the kind.  Except that
there was a sub directory 'docs', which contained files  such  as
install.txt.p.   The  problem  was  that  those  files  were  not
readable,   file(1)   said   'data'.    After   trying   ccat(1),
uncompact(1) and od(1) without any results, I tried to  read  the
tape on an IS (IS/1 Workbench for VMS) machine which we happen to 
have,  too.   I couldn't get anything sensible done there either.
But we've got a uucp link between our machines, so  I  transfered
the  *.p  files  by uucp from the bsd machine to IS/1 machine (by
using -b option for raw or binary, which is  a  bit  special  for
VMS).   And look: IS's unpack[cmd] worked.  So I got the files in
readable format after all.  Maybe one should have  guessed  this,
because  of the suffix .p instead of .C, which is used on the BSD
for packed (or compact(1)ed) files.  


The install.txt.p file proudly stated the following

>        This guide tells you how to install the INTERACTIVE Z80 C Compiler
>   on a VAX, a PDP-11, or an IDEA machine running IS/1, IS/3, Bell UNIX, or
>   Berkeley UNIX.  Just ignore the special instructions for machines or
>   operating systems that aren't yours.

What the hell should I have done if I hadn't happen to have an IS
machine. I had ordered a compiler, which was to be installed on a
machine running Berkeley 4.1 Unix.

Later on there were the statements:

>(f)  The directory "docs" contains a subdirectory "man".  Under "man"
>     are all the manual pages for the various programs in the Z80 pack-
>     age, one file per program.

which is WRONG.  There was no such  subdirectory.   Neither  were
there any manual pages.  

In retrospect with the afore history, I  would  like  to  mention
that not so many weeks ago I installed  another  xcompiler,  this
was a Whitesmith's 68000 C, also on the 4.1bsd, and that job took 
about  10  minutes  using  a  makefile.   Whereas  now I found no
makefiles, no nothing.  

The whole thing wasn't ofcourse a big thing but I thought  it  to
be  interesting  enough  to be told.  (At least next time I know,
whom not to buy from).


   Esa K Viitala  (decvax!mcvax!kvport!kvvax4!esa)
   Corporate R & D
   Kongsberg Vaapenfabrikk, CTG4
   P.O.Box 25
   N-3601 Kongsberg
   Norway

P.S Incidentally, the prices:
   IS's Z80 C cross compiler $7500
   the Whitesmith's 68000 C cross compiler around $1700.