VMS is not the evil empire

[Eric J. Johnson]

In article <12067 at brl-adm.ARPA> JSOTTILE%LOYVAX.BITNET at cunyvm.cuny.edu writes:
>            As far as support, our site has had *no* problems with getting
>help from DEC.  In fact, I can call in at 1pm (usually the "busiest" times)
>and if the department that I have my question for is unavailable, i can
>expect a call from them within a hour or two.

We, too have had VERY good luck with DEC support, that is, as long as
it is one of our VMS VAXen that has problems...

Not too long ago, one of our Ultrix 1.2 730's lost its R80 drive.  True
to form, their field service person arrived here within a few hours.
Diagnostics showed the drive bad, so a new one was shipped here over-nite.
The next day, the new drive was installed, diagnostics run on it (a-ok) and
we tried loading Ultrix.  No luck, once bootstrapped from tape, Ultrix 
rejected the new drive as bad. (I can't recall the exact message now)
While the local tech re-ran diagnostics, we got on the phone with the
Ultrix support people who (after some digging around: "now, where is that
IDC manual") were able to tell me that, yes indeed, the drive was bad.
Since the 'diagnostics' had told the tech that there was nothing wrong
with the drive, he was not, however inclined to believe the problem could
be there...  Just to prove it, we boot VMS, it works just fine.
Well, after another few days of swapping boards in the new drive itself,
the local people brought out a drive they were using in their local 
office.  We boot Ultrix, *a miracle occurs*, the new drive works.
Amazing, one week to replace a disk drive.

What does this have to do with choosing VMS over Ultrix?  Well, at least
in our area, one would probably receive better *local* support for VMS
than Ultrix.  KEEP IN MIND I am referring to LOCAL support!  Both VMS
and Ultrix 'OS' (long distance call) level support for us has been excellent.

-- 
Eric J. Johnson         UUCP: eric at hdr.UUCP || ...!{ihnp4, codas}!hdr!eric
Amperif Corporation.    CIS: 72460,11  BIX: ericj
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