Jim's not the only one
Paul Beverley
After Jim had had the courage to go public with his tale of woe
as regards Microdigital, "Fred" rang me up to say "exactly the
same thing happened to me".
He too paid the full amount up front and then waited for months
before a computer was delivered.
He too had letter and phone calls ignored.
He too found that, when computer was delivered, it didn't work
and it didn't contain the things he had paid for.
He too asked for his money back.
He too was forced to go to court.
He too won.
He too did not get his money - well, not for a few months.
And then, just as he was considering paying for the bailiffs
to go in and enforce the court action, a cheque came through the
post.
It was summer last year when he eventually got the money for the
computer back - though he did not get his expenses.
One wonders if there are others who, like Fred, have had the
same, or similar, experience but who didn't dare speak up for
fear of the flak they would receive from people who genuinely
thought Microdigital were getting unfair criticism.
All the best,
Paul.
Paul Beverley, Editor, Living with Technology & Archive Magazine
-----------------------Phone: 01603-722544----------------------
For two FREE sample copies of LWT see: http://www.livtech.co.uk/
Chris Joseph
> Jim Lesurf <jc...@st-and.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>> 1) Are they still trading?
>> 2) If so, from what address?
>
>The implications of a telephone conversation I have had this week - using the
>advertised MD number
Strange how they seem happy to talk to you, and yet we hear from so many
people who say that
a) MD owe them money/working computers
and
b) MD don't answer the phone
> - is that 1) quite possibly and 2) as advertised or nearby.
If MD are trading from the publicised address and anyone connected
to them has told court baliffs that this is not the case (please note
that I'm not saying that this has happened, but the available evidence
does seem to point in that direction), then the person who told the
baliffs "MD don't trade from here any longer" committed a criminal
offence by doing so.
> I don't know for certain - but then neither do many others who are
>nevertheless happy to speculate. ;-(
So you're saying that you spoke to MD (one of the Davids, presumably?)
on the phone, but that they left you unsure as to whether they were
still trading? And that doesn't strike you as the tiniest bit dodgy?
Chris.
Sandy Morton
<jo...@cartmell.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> Microdigital *did* get a great deal of unfair criticism - and are
> still getting plenty of unfair criticism as a result of your
> comments here. Just because they are open to criticism for other
> reasons doesn't mean that the criticism that they got was fair.
I never did buy an Omega but I didn't buy an Iyonix either - both
were outside my budget.
I did receive excellent aftersales service for my Mico which I bought
second hand. I have always found DA to be approachable and helpful.
--
A T (Sandy) Morton
on the Bicycle Island
In the Global Village
http://www.millport.net
Kell Gatherer
Paul Beverley <pa...@archivemag.co.uk> wrote:
> After Jim had had the courage to go public with his tale of woe
> as regards Microdigital, "Fred" rang me up to say "exactly the
> same thing happened to me".
It'll be Sheila next....
--
Kell Gatherer
kell at the_locs dot com (remove underscore and expand)
www.locationworks.com
John Cartmell
> similar, experience but who didn't dare speak up for fear of the flak they
> would receive from people who genuinely thought Microdigital were getting
> unfair criticism.
Microdigital *did* get a great deal of unfair criticism - and are still
getting plenty of unfair criticism as a result of your comments here. Just
because they are open to criticism for other reasons doesn't mean that the
criticism that they got was fair.
--
John Cartmell john@ followed by finnybank.com 0845 006 8822
Qercus magazine FAX +44 (0)8700-519-527 www.finnybank.com
Qercus - the best guide to RISC OS computing
Jim Lesurf
> After Jim had had the courage to go public with his tale of woe as
> regards Microdigital, "Fred" rang me up to say "exactly the same thing
> happened to me".
I suppose I should start by making clear I am not the "Jim" who's
experiences have been reported earlier. I've not had any dealings with
Microdigital so far as I can recall.
> He too paid the full amount up front and then waited for months before a
> computer was delivered.
To be fair, we don't know if "Fred" is accurately reporting the events in
his case. However what comes out of the threads on this to me are an
impression that:
1) Microdigital seem 'unresponsive' in ways that do not seem to me to make
them look good.
2) That no-one seems to know of any new or alternative trading address. Or
at least, anyone who does is declining to state it for some reason.
So for me the questions remain:
1) Are they still trading?
2) If so, from what address?
3) If they are no longer trading, when did they cease, and why are the
court, etc, unaware of this? Would not receivers or similar have been
appointed? I assume that a registered limited company can't simply be ended
by the owners walking away and chucking the keys in a hedge - particularly
if there are outstanding court proceedings or judgements.
Not being burdened by having any education as a lawyer[1], I would -
perhaps niavely - assume that limited liability status is given in exchange
for the directors/owners acting in accord with a set of specific legal
requirements. Failure to comply may mean that the director/owner either
becomes personally liable, or has broken the relevant laws. Perhaps also a
contempt of court, or a criminal offence. I have no idea if any of these
are relevant or correct here. However it does seem important to determine
the answers to the questions above as a starting point for anyone involved
who may want to take any matters further.
In addition, not being knowledgeable about these things I would have
assumed the court, etc, would have initially tried to contact them by
simpler and cheaper means than sending baliffs.[2] If this is correct, then
the visit of baliffs implies that previous letters/communications produced
no response to a court order/judgement.
[1] Nor, indeed, anything about this situation beyond what I have read.
[2] When I had a dispute with an entirely unconnected company some years
ago, one of the first steps was a letter by post that had to be signed for
upon delivery. The refusal of those at the address to accept the letter and
sign for it, even though they did not know who it was from, was, I think,
an indicator in itself.
> One wonders if there are others who, like Fred, have had the same, or
> similar, experience but who didn't dare speak up for fear of the flak
> they would receive from people who genuinely thought Microdigital were
> getting unfair criticism.
Perhaps the obvious course here for anyone who has such problems would be
to contact Paul, who can then put them in contact with one another. They
may then be able to share experiences and co-ordinate any decisions, etc.
Slainte,
Jim
--
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scots_Guide/intro/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/Audio/armstrong.html
Barbirolli Soc. http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/JBSoc/JBSoc.html
TechWriter http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/TechWrite/Tips1.html
Compo http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/Compo/clues.html
David Holden
On 13-Jul-2005, cfe...@freeRemoveuk.com.invalid wrote:
> Acorn didn't have their HD interface working on the A310 - you just
> bought a SCSI podule - if you wanted a HardDisc.
The 310 didn't have a hard drive interface, only floppy. If you wanted
a hard drive you bought the model that did have it, the 440 ISTR.
--
David Holden - APDL - <http://www.apdl.co.uk>
cfe...@freeremoveuk.com.invalid
John Cartmell <jo...@cartmell.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> In article <b52bb98...@paul.archivemag.co.uk>,
> Paul Beverley <pa...@archivemag.co.uk> wrote:
> > One wonders if there are others who, like Fred, have had the same,
> > or similar, experience but who didn't dare speak up for fear of the
> > flak they would receive from people who genuinely thought
> > Microdigital were getting unfair criticism.
>
> Microdigital *did* get a great deal of unfair criticism - and are
> still getting plenty of unfair criticism as a result of your comments
> here. Just because they are open to criticism for other reasons
> doesn't mean that the criticism that they got was fair.
>
There has been enough written about 'what works' on the 'Omega' on the
news groups and in the Acorn Mags - for people not to know about 'what
worked' at the time of buying.
Sales patter about 'warp factor 10' Xscales was a bit like Acorn saying
about a StrongArm card when they made the first RiscPcs.
Castle seemed to have problems with getting the 'Iyonix' motherboard USB
working - so they fitted a PCI card - the same could be done with the
'Omega'.
Acorn didn't have their HD interface working on the A310 - you just
bought a SCSI podule - if you wanted a HardDisc.
--
Colin Ferris Cornwall UK
Jim Lesurf
> <pa...@archivemag.co.uk> wrote:
> > One wonders if there are others who, like Fred, have had the same, or
> > similar, experience but who didn't dare speak up for fear of the flak
> > they would receive from people who genuinely thought Microdigital were
> > getting unfair criticism.
> Microdigital *did* get a great deal of unfair criticism - and are still
> getting plenty of unfair criticism as a result of your comments here.
Afraid I am unclear as to what you mean in the second part of the above
statement. So far as I can see, Paul's "comments" are essentially him
reporting what he has been given to understand by others. These comments
being to explain why he was initially asking for information.
Not being involved myself, my impression is that what he reports seems
consistent with what others are reporting w.r.t. a lack of response by
Microdigital.
Perhaps the easiest way to clear this up would be for someone directly
involved to:
A) Confirm that Microdigital continue to trade, or state that they do not
and say when they ceased.
If the above confirms they are still trading:
B) Confirm that they trade from their currently-registered address, or give
their new address.
Anyone who has any argument or claim could then deal with that directly.
My understanding was that Paul was trying to establish the above in order
to assist someone who feels that have a claim to pursue. My understanding
of the essence of what he reports is that someone who feels they have a
claim is saying they can't proceed due to lack of the above info. Is it not
reasonable to expect to have this info for a registered limited company?
What particular "criticism" do you feel was unfair? Was it something Paul
said, or something said by someone else in response to his posting(s)? I am
wondering; if you had been put in Paul's position, what would you have done
differently to him?
I should repeat what I put in a previous posting. I am not the "Jim" Paul
refers to, and have had no dealings with Microdigital. Hence I have no
settled view of them. But given what has been reported the above questions
seem 'fair' to me, and it would seem strange to me if no-one is able or
willing to answer them.
> Just because they are open to criticism for other reasons doesn't mean
> that the criticism that they got was fair.
That may be so, but I guess we'd need to decide that on a case-by-case
basis.
Philip Ludlam
>In article <b52bb98...@paul.archivemag.co.uk>,
> Paul Beverley <pa...@archivemag.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> After Jim had had the courage to go public with his tale of woe
>> as regards Microdigital, "Fred" rang me up to say "exactly the
>> same thing happened to me".
>
>It'll be Sheila next....
'Tis what I was thinking ;-) .
Yours,
Phil L.
--
http://www.philipnet.com/ | http://director.sourceforge.net/
http://www.windowsadvice.com/blogs/philipnet/
Paul F. Johnson
On Wed, 2005-07-13 at 10:32 +0100, John Cartmell wrote:
> In article <b52bb98...@paul.archivemag.co.uk>,
> Paul Beverley <pa...@archivemag.co.uk> wrote:
> > One wonders if there are others who, like Fred, have had the same, or
> > similar, experience but who didn't dare speak up for fear of the flak they
> > would receive from people who genuinely thought Microdigital were getting
> > unfair criticism.
>
> Microdigital *did* get a great deal of unfair criticism - and are still
> getting plenty of unfair criticism as a result of your comments here
Rubbish. I think this must be the first time I've ever said that to you
John and I'm sorry it's now.
Yes, they did get a heck of a lot of flak over delays on the Mico and
Omega and then releasing boxes which were not completely (and for the
Mico, still not) functional, but they sorted that out by getting APDL to
handle the Mico.
The Omega is one of those boxes which takes on a Pheobe-esque history of
taking a deposit and people having to wait ages past the advertised
release date. When the cheques for the full amount were asked, it still
took ages for machines to start dribbling through. In the meantime, MD
were not exactly friendly to the press (such as Drobe) and not exactly
forthcoming on answering emails etc.
When the Omega was released, it was not a huge amount different to the
RPC, except the RPC actually fully worked. The machine sent to the ARM
Club died a death and after 3 months, they gave up trying to get a fix
from MD who just ignored their emails[1].
Companies that don't live up to the hype deserve the brown smelly stuff
that gets lobbed at them[2] - especially when they have taken money for
what is essentially vapourware. Recall what happened with Sinclair over
the Spectrum and the QL...
TTFN
Paul
[1] This was recounted to me a while back and may not be the case
anymore
[2] Yes, I do get the irony of me saying this.
--
"The city of Washington was built on a stagnant swamp some 200 years ago
and very little has changed; it stank then and it stinks now. Only
today, it is the fetid stench of corruption that hangs in the air" -
Simpson, L. Mr Lisa Goes to Washington (1991) Fox. 8F01 (Sep).
News poster
> In article <b52bb98...@paul.archivemag.co.uk>,
> Paul Beverley <pa...@archivemag.co.uk> wrote:
> > One wonders if there are others who, like Fred, have had the same, or
> > similar, experience but who didn't dare speak up for fear of the flak they
> > would receive from people who genuinely thought Microdigital were getting
> > unfair criticism.
>
> Microdigital *did* get a great deal of unfair criticism - and are still
> getting plenty of unfair criticism as a result of your comments here.
> Just because they are open to criticism for other reasons doesn't mean
> that the criticism that they got was fair.
In what way do you think criticism has been unfair?
Do you feel it is unfair to criticise any company that has taken
deposits* and not delivered the promised products and thereafter not
returned monies?
Or is that not OK for companies selling double glazing but fine for
companies selling into the RISC OS market?
IMHO it is the apologists for such RISC OS companies that refuse to
honour their commitments that do the RISC OS market no favours and not
those people doing the criticising.
Regards
Stan
* or indeed full payments
--
John Cartmell
Jim Lesurf <jc...@st-and.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> 1) Are they still trading?
> 2) If so, from what address?
The implications of a telephone conversation I have had this week - using the
advertised MD number - is that 1) quite possibly and 2) as advertised or
nearby. I don't know for certain - but then neither do many others who are
nevertheless happy to speculate. ;-(
--
Rob Davison
> In article <4d89f16...@softrock.co.uk>,
> VinceH (real address) <sp...@softrock.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>In article <4d89eb8...@cartmell.demon.co.uk>,
>> John Cartmell <jo...@cartmell.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>>>In article <b054eb8...@mistymornings.demon.nl>, News poster
>>><ne...@mistymornings.demon.nl> wrote:
[...]
>>>>It is a shame if the editor of the only RISC OS newstand magazine
>>>>left seems to think ignoring such issues is going to help anyone.
>
>
>>>For quite some time the RISC OS news media have been under pressure
>>>to sweep things under the carpet for the good of the market. I have
>>>a current disagreement with Paul about this. He thinks we should.
>
>
>>This thread seems to indicate that if what you say above
>>is true, then you are confusing yourself with Paul.
>
>
> No.
Would you like to borrow my digger John?
It's really very handy when you've a deep hole to dig...
Rob.
--
Maple Glen http://www.mapleglen.co.nz/
Images http://www.pbase.com/mapleglen/
Paul Beverley
Paul Beverley <pa...@archivemag.co.uk> wrote:
> (Casting my "purely factual statements" to the wind...)
Sorry, I meant that I was casting to the wind the idea that I
would henceforth only make "purely factual statements".
i.e. I *am* now going to let an opinion or two slip out. :-)
News poster
John Cartmell <jo...@cartmell.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> On 13 Jul in comp.sys.acorn.misc, News poster <ne...@mistymornings.demon.nl>
> wrote:
> > In message <4d89c0c...@cartmell.demon.co.uk>
> > John Cartmell <jo...@cartmell.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
<snip>
> > > Microdigital *did* get a great deal of unfair criticism - and are
> > > still getting plenty of unfair criticism as a result of your
> > > comments here. Just because they are open to criticism for other
> > > reasons doesn't mean that the criticism that they got was fair.
> > In what way do you think criticism has been unfair?
>
> > Do you feel it is unfair to criticise any company that has taken
> > deposits* and not delivered the promised products and thereafter not
> > returned monies?
>
> Not in the slightest. But Paul's statement opened up the possibility
> of justifying unreasonable criticism because there was some reasonable
> criticism.
So what was the unfair criticism of Microdigital in your eyes (asking
for the second time)?
>
> > IMHO it is the apologists for such RISC OS companies that refuse to
> > honour their commitments that do the RISC OS market no favours and not
> > those people doing the criticising.
>
> You're finding the wrong target. As far as I can see no-one is
> apologising for MD. But before you start throwing the rotten fruit you
> might just ask to have the details confirmed; if you don't then you're
> supporting lynch law.
So the information about customers having to send the bailiffs into
Microdigital is not reliable?
> And incidentally, Paul's action may simply ensure that no-one will get
> future support from MD.
The reasons why Microdigital customers fail to get customer support is
entirely to do with those people running Microdigital.
It has absolutely nothing to do with Archive mag, Drobe or any other
RISC OS news outlet. Brushing serious problems under the carpet is not
healthy for any market.
It is a shame if the editor of the only RISC OS newstand magazine left
seems to think ignoring such issues is going to help anyone.
Regards
Stan
--
Paul Beverley
> On 13 Jul in comp.sys.acorn.misc, News poster <ne...@mistymornings.demon.nl>
> wrote:
> > Do you feel it is unfair to criticise any company that has taken
> > deposits* and not delivered the promised products and thereafter not
> > returned monies?
>
> Not in the slightest. But Paul's statement opened up the possibility of
> justifying unreasonable criticism because there was some reasonable criticism.
(Casting my "purely factual statements" to the wind...)
Let me get this right... are you saying that I should not make
(any?) reasonable criticisms of Microdigital just in case
someone uses them as a springboard for making *unreasonable*
criticisms?
> > IMHO it is the apologists for such RISC OS companies that refuse to
> > honour their commitments that do the RISC OS market no favours and not
> > those people doing the criticising.
>
> You're finding the wrong target. As far as I can see no-one is apologising for
> MD. But before you start throwing the rotten fruit you might just ask to have
> the details confirmed;
How would you like the details to be confirmed? I have copies of
the court orders for "Jim" - will that do?
As regard "Fred", I'm afraid those claims are totally
unsubstantiated. Fred rang me up this morning after hearing
about Jim's experience and said that he hadn't made his
experience public before for fear of what people might say,
but Jim having come "out" gave him confidence to speak up.
> if you don't then you're supporting lynch law.
> And incidentally, Paul's action may simply ensure that no-one will get future
> support from MD.
I'm fascinated by your reasoning! How is my bringing to light
some of Microdigital's behaviour going to ensure that people
don't get support? Please do explain; I'd love to know what
your reasoning is.
John Cartmell
Paul Beverley <pa...@archivemag.co.uk> wrote:
> In message <4d89df0...@cartmell.demon.co.uk>
> John Cartmell <jo...@cartmell.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> > Following Paul's revelations there have also been responses on Drobe -
> > and probably elsewhere - and, as should be expected, speculation has gone
> > beyond what Paul stated without any facts to back up that speculation.
> I am determinedly not expressing my opinions, merely stating facts.
> I'd like to make it clear that, following good journalistic
> practice, Chris Williams of Drobe went to the source, "Jim",
> and requested more information. Chris did not do any speculating;
> rather he too reported the facts as obtained from his source.
I'd better make it very clear that I did not intend to refer to Chris whose
reportage is of a high standard and whose decision to clarify a matter in the
public domain can hardly be criticised.
RichardK
> In article <b52bb98...@paul.archivemag.co.uk>,
> Paul Beverley <pa...@archivemag.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>One wonders if there are others who, like Fred, have had the same, or
>>similar, experience but who didn't dare speak up for fear of the flak they
>>would receive from people who genuinely thought Microdigital were getting
>>unfair criticism.
>
>
> Microdigital *did* get a great deal of unfair criticism - and are still
> getting plenty of unfair criticism as a result of your comments here. Just
> because they are open to criticism for other reasons doesn't mean that the
> criticism that they got was fair.
I was under the impression that all the criticism they got was fully
justified, and life isn't fair.
Richard
--
RichardK - 1980s in a can. http://www.dmc12.demon.co.uk/music/
Retro computing - http://www.dmc12.demon.co.uk/retrotech/
Cars - 2004 Beetle Cabrio, 1989 Supra 3.0i, 1990 Sera, 1989 Volvo 740
MidiGuitar, AU/X. Apple 77-04. See links. Email - upgrade to 128 ;)
John Cartmell
Chris Joseph <chr...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
> So you're saying that you spoke to MD (one of the Davids, presumably?)
> on the phone, but that they left you unsure as to whether they were
> still trading?
I'm saying what I said. No more. Certainly MD have been happy in the past to
talk to me at a time when others have reported problems in contacting the
company as can be evidenced by the adverts that we printed last year. At that
time I did tell David A that we would not be publishing a review of the Omega
until we had access to a fully working retail version of the machine.
John Cartmell
> > In article <b52bb98...@paul.archivemag.co.uk>,
> > Paul Beverley <pa...@archivemag.co.uk> wrote:
> > > One wonders if there are others who, like Fred, have had the same, or
> > > similar, experience but who didn't dare speak up for fear of the flak
> > > they would receive from people who genuinely thought Microdigital were
> > > getting unfair criticism.
> >
> > Microdigital *did* get a great deal of unfair criticism - and are still
> > getting plenty of unfair criticism as a result of your comments here.
> > Just because they are open to criticism for other reasons doesn't mean
> > that the criticism that they got was fair.
> In what way do you think criticism has been unfair?
> Do you feel it is unfair to criticise any company that has taken
> deposits* and not delivered the promised products and thereafter not
> returned monies?
Not in the slightest. But Paul's statement opened up the possibility of
justifying unreasonable criticism because there was some reasonable criticism.
> IMHO it is the apologists for such RISC OS companies that refuse to
> honour their commitments that do the RISC OS market no favours and not
> those people doing the criticising.
You're finding the wrong target. As far as I can see no-one is apologising for
MD. But before you start throwing the rotten fruit you might just ask to have
the details confirmed; if you don't then you're supporting lynch law.
And incidentally, Paul's action may simply ensure that no-one will get future
support from MD.
--
druck
> For quite some time the RISC OS news media have been under pressure to
> sweep things under the carpet for the good of the market.
This is never good for the market. No RISC OS company is beyond reproach.
The two companies that took peoples deposits and full payments for machines
that did not exist at the time in one case or were ever likely exist in the
other, have done more damage to the reputation of all RISC OS companies than
anything else since the winding up of Acorn.
---druck
--
The ARM Club Free Software - http://www.armclub.org.uk/free/
The 32bit Conversions Page - http://www.quantumsoft.co.uk/druck/
druck
> The Omega is one of those boxes which takes on a Pheobe-esque history of
> taking a deposit and people having to wait ages past the advertised
> release date.
This was never the case with Pheobe, they no deposits were ever taken from
the public, and they weren't late, but cancelled before release. Acorn gave
developers the chance to put down an option on one, and the first machines
were due to ship on schedule, when Acorn closed the work station division.
[Snip]
> When the Omega was released, it was not a huge amount different to the
> RPC, except the RPC actually fully worked. The machine sent to the ARM
> Club died a death and after 3 months, they gave up trying to get a fix
> from MD who just ignored their emails[1].
And phone calls. Then when it was sent back for repair, they kept it and then
refused any further communication. But its not like it was worth getting
upset about, we've all got computers that work. But we would have raffled it
off to ARM Club members at the next show, as someone might have wanted a
doorstop.
druck
[JC sticking up for MD]
> In what way do you think criticism has been unfair?
>
> Do you feel it is unfair to criticise any company that has taken
> deposits* and not delivered the promised products and thereafter not
> returned monies?
>
> Or is that not OK for companies selling double glazing but fine for
> companies selling into the RISC OS market?
Lets hope its not like double glazing firms, whos entire business model is
based on too good to be true offers with lifetime guarantees, and then
deliberately going bust every 18 months. They are then bought up by a shell
company owned by the same people, minus debts and liabilties ofcourse, and
then repear again trading under a very similar name and rippng off a whole
mew set of people. Google for Coldseal.
John Cartmell
I agree.
> It is a shame if the editor of the only RISC OS newstand magazine left
> seems to think ignoring such issues is going to help anyone.
For quite some time the RISC OS news media have been under pressure to sweep
things under the carpet for the good of the market. I have a current
disagreement with Paul about this. He thinks we should.
--
John Cartmell
Jim Lesurf <jc...@st-and.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> In article <4d89c0c...@cartmell.demon.co.uk>, John Cartmell
> <jo...@cartmell.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> > In article <b52bb98...@paul.archivemag.co.uk>, Paul Beverley
> > <pa...@archivemag.co.uk> wrote:
> > > One wonders if there are others who, like Fred, have had the same, or
> > > similar, experience but who didn't dare speak up for fear of the flak
> > > they would receive from people who genuinely thought Microdigital were
> > > getting unfair criticism.
> > Microdigital *did* get a great deal of unfair criticism - and are still
> > getting plenty of unfair criticism as a result of your comments here.
> Afraid I am unclear as to what you mean in the second part of the above
> statement.
Following Paul's revelations there have also been responses on Drobe - and
probably elsewhere - and, as should be expected, speculation has gone beyond
what Paul stated without any facts to back up that speculation.
[Snip]
> > Just because they are open to criticism for other reasons doesn't mean
> > that the criticism that they got was fair.
> That may be so, but I guess we'd need to decide that on a case-by-case
> basis.
My point exactly - and impossible to do once the genie has been released.
Paul Beverley
> Following Paul's revelations there have also been responses on Drobe - and
> probably elsewhere - and, as should be expected, speculation has gone beyond
> what Paul stated without any facts to back up that speculation.
I am determinedly not expressing my opinions, merely stating facts.
I'd like to make it clear that, following good journalistic
practice, Chris Williams of Drobe went to the source, "Jim",
and requested more information. Chris did not do any speculating;
rather he too reported the facts as obtained from his source.
All the best,
Brian Carroll
<jo...@cartmell.demon.co.uk> wrote:
[Snip]
> For quite some time the RISC OS news media have been under
> pressure to sweep things under the carpet for the good of the
> market. I have a current disagreement with Paul about this...
You can each apply your principle in your respective magazine
and leave the reader to ajudicate without bringing your
disagreement here. I wish you would keep your antipathy to Paul
out of this thread; it is far from helpful to us mere mortals'
understanding of the problems at Microdigital, if there are any.
Brian.
--
______________________________________________________________
Brian Carroll, Ripon, North Yorkshire, UK bric at f2s dot com
______________________________________________________________
VinceH (real address)
> <ne...@mistymornings.demon.nl> wrote:
> > Brushing serious problems under the carpet is not healthy for any
> > market.
> I agree.
> > It is a shame if the editor of the only RISC OS newstand magazine
> > left seems to think ignoring such issues is going to help anyone.
> For quite some time the RISC OS news media have been under pressure
> to sweep things under the carpet for the good of the market. I have
> a current disagreement with Paul about this. He thinks we should.
This thread seems to indicate that if what you say above
is true, then you are confusing yourself with Paul.
VinceH
--
http://www.softrock.co.uk http://www.webchange.co.uk http://www.vinceh.com
A bio with some actual bones for fido content:
http://www.vinceh.com/vinceh/
"Zombies, man... They creep me out."
John Cartmell
> John Cartmell <jo...@cartmell.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> > In article <b054eb8...@mistymornings.demon.nl>, News poster
> > <ne...@mistymornings.demon.nl> wrote:
> > > Brushing serious problems under the carpet is not healthy for any
> > > market.
> > I agree.
> > > It is a shame if the editor of the only RISC OS newstand magazine
> > > left seems to think ignoring such issues is going to help anyone.
> > For quite some time the RISC OS news media have been under pressure
> > to sweep things under the carpet for the good of the market. I have
> > a current disagreement with Paul about this. He thinks we should.
> This thread seems to indicate that if what you say above
> is true, then you are confusing yourself with Paul.
No.
Michael Gilbert
<URL:mailto:jo...@cartmell.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> In article <5Yk*yg...@news.chiark.greenend.org.uk>,
> Chris Joseph <chr...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
> > So you're saying that you spoke to MD (one of the Davids, presumably?)
> > on the phone, but that they left you unsure as to whether they were
> > still trading?
>
> I'm saying what I said. No more. Certainly MD have been happy in the past to
> talk to me at a time when others have reported problems in contacting the
> company as can be evidenced by the adverts that we printed last year.
And for which they paid in full and on time, I take it?
Cheers
Mike
--
Michael Gilbert: in his own write
http://www.lewisgilbert.co.uk/archiology for old Acorn software items
http://www.lewisgilbert.co.uk/access for Acorn peer-to-peer tools
http://www.lewisgilbert.co.uk/ebay.html for old Acorn hardware items.
Michael Gilbert
<URL:mailto:jo...@cartmell.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> In article <b054eb8...@mistymornings.demon.nl>, News poster
> <ne...@mistymornings.demon.nl> wrote:
> > Brushing serious problems under the carpet is not healthy for any market.
>
> I agree.
>
> > It is a shame if the editor of the only RISC OS newstand magazine left
> > seems to think ignoring such issues is going to help anyone.
>
> For quite some time the RISC OS news media have been under pressure to sweep
> things under the carpet for the good of the market. I have a current
> disagreement with Paul about this. He thinks we should.
So why are you castigating him for making public a serious legal issue
concerning a RISC OS company?
Paul Beverley
John Cartmell <jo...@cartmell.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> In article <b054eb8...@mistymornings.demon.nl>, News poster
> <ne...@mistymornings.demon.nl> wrote:
> > Brushing serious problems under the carpet is not healthy for any market.
>
> I agree.
>
> > It is a shame if the editor of the only RISC OS newstand magazine left
> > seems to think ignoring such issues is going to help anyone.
>
> For quite some time the RISC OS news media have been under pressure to sweep
> things under the carpet for the good of the market. I have a current
> disagreement with Paul about this. He thinks we should.
Right, OK, let me get this clear... you're saying that I think we
should sweep things under the carpet for the sake of the market
whereas you think... you think what?
You implied earlier that I shouldn't have revealed Jim and
Fred's plights because other people would then take my
reasonable critisms of Microdigital and use them to fuel
unreasonable criticisms.
One of us is very confused!
Paul F. Johnson
On Wed, 2005-07-13 at 22:32 +0100, druck wrote:
> On 13 Jul 2005 "Paul F. Johnson" <pa...@all-the-johnsons.co.uk> wrote:
> > The Omega is one of those boxes which takes on a Pheobe-esque history of
> > taking a deposit and people having to wait ages past the advertised
> > release date.
>
> This was never the case with Pheobe, they no deposits were ever taken from
> the public, and they weren't late, but cancelled before release.
I could have sworn that deposits were taken on the Pheobe - in fact, I'm
pretty sure they were as the first Wakefield show I went to, Clares
Micro Supplies were taking them. If memory serves me right, it was 150
quid. It's a heck of a long time ago, so I could be mistaken.
> Acorn gave
> developers the chance to put down an option on one, and the first machines
> were due to ship on schedule, when Acorn closed the work station division.
Yep, that sounds depressingly familiar :-(
> > When the Omega was released, it was not a huge amount different to the
> > RPC, except the RPC actually fully worked. The machine sent to the ARM
> > Club died a death and after 3 months, they gave up trying to get a fix
> > from MD who just ignored their emails[1].
>
> And phone calls. Then when it was sent back for repair, they kept it and then
> refused any further communication. But its not like it was worth getting
> upset about, we've all got computers that work. But we would have raffled it
> off to ARM Club members at the next show, as someone might have wanted a
> doorstop.
What matters though was the complete lack of any support or customer
care. The machine was rightfully the property of the ARM club and by MD
keeping it, it shouldn't be hard to claim that it was stolen! However,
IANAL and could be barking up the wrong lumpy woody thing.
TTFN
Paul
John Cartmell
Oops sorry! In that case it came out wrong. We have made different decisions -
that's all. I'm afraid we won't be performing a shoot-out at the next RISC OS
show! ;-)
S G
> Lets hope its not like double glazing firms, whos entire business model is
> based on too good to be true offers with lifetime guarantees, and then
> deliberately going bust every 18 months. They are then bought up by a shell
> company owned by the same people, minus debts and liabilties ofcourse, and
> then repear again trading under a very similar name and rippng off a whole
> mew set of people. Google for Coldseal.
What purpose does a LIMITED Company have other than to LIMIT the
liability of the owners for any debts they incur in their
business dealings?
--
Stewart Goldwater
http://www.janus.freeserve.co.uk/
Phil Michael
Sandy Morton <sa...@millport.net> wrote:
> In article <4d89c0c...@cartmell.demon.co.uk>, John Cartmell
> <jo...@cartmell.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>> Microdigital *did* get a great deal of unfair criticism - and are
>> still getting plenty of unfair criticism as a result of your
>> comments here. Just because they are open to criticism for other
>> reasons doesn't mean that the criticism that they got was fair.
>
> I never did buy an Omega but I didn't buy an Iyonix either - both
> were outside my budget.
>
> I did receive excellent aftersales service for my Mico which I bought
> second hand. I have always found DA to be approachable and helpful.
>
Seconded. But my purchase was an Omega which is my main computer and
is a rather nice machine, with excellent after-sales support from MD.
--
Phil
News poster
Phil Michael <philrm...@ukonline.co.uk> wrote:
Which is great for those who are in that fortunate position of getting
good support from MD.
It would appear from this and other threads that there are many more who
have not had such good support (and indeed are still owed money).
It just highlights the doubts that many people had over the consistency
of MD after sales support.
Regards
Stan
--
Jim Lesurf
IIUC The "purpose" so far as our society is concerned is that a set of
legal *obligations* and *requirements* are placed on the directors/owners
in exchange for providing limited liability. Failure to comply may be a
criminal offence. It may also mean that their actual liability is *not*
limited. The limit only applies to actions that are permitted under the
relevant rules. Failure to comply with the obligations may also mean an
individual is then prohibited from being a director of a limited company.
The problem is that someone may have to act to prosecute for any failures
to behave as required by law, and that this process may be costly,
difficult, slooooow, frustrating, and lead to trying to getting blood out
of a stone. All the usual snags of the UK attitude of leaving such things
for the victims to deal with via civil law if they require redress/damages.
The alternative is to find strong evidence of a criminal offence. The snags
being to then convince the relevant authorities to do anything successful,
and the likelyhood that this may provide no redress or compensation even if
a prosecution is successful.
Slainte,
Jim
--
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scots_Guide/intro/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/Audio/armstrong.html
Barbirolli Soc. http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/JBSoc/JBSoc.html
TechWriter http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/TechWrite/Tips1.html
Compo http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/Compo/clues.html
Richard Travers
Paul F. Johnson <pa...@all-the-johnsons.co.uk> wrote:
> I could have sworn that deposits were taken on the Pheobe - in fact, I'm
> pretty sure they were as the first Wakefield show I went to, Clares
> Micro Supplies were taking them. If memory serves me right, it was 150
> quid. It's a heck of a long time ago, so I could be mistaken.
It is a long time ago, but you are not mistaken. Dealers were taking
deposits on the Pheobe.
--
Richard Travers
ri...@argonet.co.uk
Truro, Cornwall
01872 271125
Chris Evans
<URL:mailto:ne...@apdl.co.uk> wrote:
>
> On 13-Jul-2005, cfe...@freeRemoveuk.com.invalid wrote:
>
> > Acorn didn't have their HD interface working on the A310 - you just
> > bought a SCSI podule - if you wanted a HardDisc.
>
> The 310 didn't have a hard drive interface, only floppy. If you wanted
> a hard drive you bought the model that did have it, the 440 ISTR.
IIRC the PCB used in the A310 had provision for the components of a ST506 to
be fitted, and the A440's motherboard had significant changes in that area.
I never heard of anyone populating the A310 with the HD components hence
with the above information the inference that it didn't work.
It may of course have been an incorrect inference.
We may never know the truth!
Chris Evans
--
CJE Micro's / 4D 'RISC OS Specialists'
Telephone: 01903 523222 Fax: 01903 523679
ch...@cjemicros.co.uk http://www.cjemicros.co.uk/
78 Brighton Road, Worthing, West Sussex, BN11 2EN
The most beautiful thing anyone can wear, is a smile!
Rob Davison
> In article <3jkcboF...@individual.net>, David Holden
> <URL:mailto:ne...@apdl.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>On 13-Jul-2005, cfe...@freeRemoveuk.com.invalid wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Acorn didn't have their HD interface working on the A310 - you just
>>>bought a SCSI podule - if you wanted a HardDisc.
>>
>>The 310 didn't have a hard drive interface, only floppy. If you wanted
>>a hard drive you bought the model that did have it, the 440 ISTR.
>
>
> IIRC the PCB used in the A310 had provision for the components of a ST506 to
> be fitted, and the A440's motherboard had significant changes in that area.
> I never heard of anyone populating the A310 with the HD components hence
> with the above information the inference that it didn't work.
> It may of course have been an incorrect inference.
> We may never know the truth!
IIRC the original plans for the Archimedes included onboard SCSI.
Axed by the bean-counters, bless their grey suited souls.
Rob.
--
Maple Glen http://www.mapleglen.co.nz/
Images http://www.pbase.com/mapleglen/
David H Wild
> liability of the owners for any debts they incur in their
> business dealings?
It limits the liability of the **owners** - the shareholders - but does not
mean that the directors of a company have **no** legal liability in the
event of failure.
--
David Wild using RISC OS on broadband
Steffen Huber
> Hi,
>
> On Wed, 2005-07-13 at 22:32 +0100, druck wrote:
>
>>On 13 Jul 2005 "Paul F. Johnson" <pa...@all-the-johnsons.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>>>The Omega is one of those boxes which takes on a Pheobe-esque history of
>>>taking a deposit and people having to wait ages past the advertised
>>>release date.
>>
>>This was never the case with Pheobe, they no deposits were ever taken from
>>the public, and they weren't late, but cancelled before release.
>
>
> I could have sworn that deposits were taken on the Pheobe - in fact, I'm
> pretty sure they were as the first Wakefield show I went to, Clares
> Micro Supplies were taking them. If memory serves me right, it was 150
> quid. It's a heck of a long time ago, so I could be mistaken.
You are not mistaken. E.g. Clan members had the chance to put down
a deposit to be the first to receive a brand new Phoebe. I know, I was
one of them. However, there was absolutely no problem getting the
deposit back - Acorn still behaved like a reliable and reputable
company after axing the workstation division. So there is really
no analogy between Acorn/Phoebe and MicroDigital/Omega.
[snip]
Steffen
--
Steffen Huber
hubersn Software - http://www.hubersn-software.com/
Dave Plowman (News)
Chris Evans <ch...@cjemicros.co.uk> wrote:
> IIRC the PCB used in the A310 had provision for the components of a
> ST506 to be fitted, and the A440's motherboard had significant changes
> in that area. I never heard of anyone populating the A310 with the HD
> components hence with the above information the inference that it didn't
> work. It may of course have been an incorrect inference. We may never
> know the truth!
I fitted an HD to a 310 using IIRC a Simtec interface. It certainly wasn't
SCSI. But it was running OS 3, if that makes a difference.
--
*Some people are alive only because it's illegal to kill them *
Dave Plowman da...@davenoise.co.uk London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.
beamendsltd
That's not correct - it limits the liability of the Directors from,
amongst all the others, the shareholders so that the shareholders
cannot force the board to do illegal or take unprofitable actions, for
instance delaring an impossible dividend.
Directors may, or may not, be shareholders but they are only responsible
to the shareholders at the AGM, almost entirely only in a financial
connection as far as the law goes.
Shareholders have no financial obligations in the event of failure,
other than losing their money.
Richard
--
www.beamends-lrspares.co.uk sa...@beamends-lrspares.co.uk
Running a business in a Microsoft free environment - it can be done
Powered by Risc-OS - you won't get a virus from us!!
Helping keep Land Rovers on and off the road to annoy the Lib Dems
beamendsltd
Jim Lesurf <jc...@st-and.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> In article <nb70-2-0.2005...@ntlworld.com>, S G
> <nws...@ntlworld.com> wrote:
> > On 13 Jul druck wrote:
>
> > > Lets hope its not like double glazing firms, whos entire business
> > > model is based on too good to be true offers with lifetime guarantees,
> > > and then deliberately going bust every 18 months. They are then bought
> > > up by a shell company owned by the same people, minus debts and
> > > liabilties ofcourse, and then repear again trading under a very
> > > similar name and rippng off a whole mew set of people. Google for
> > > Coldseal.
>
> > What purpose does a LIMITED Company have other than to LIMIT the
> > liability of the owners for any debts they incur in their business
> > dealings?
>
> IIUC The "purpose" so far as our society is concerned is that a set of
> legal *obligations* and *requirements* are placed on the directors/owners
> in exchange for providing limited liability. Failure to comply may be a
> criminal offence. It may also mean that their actual liability is *not*
> limited. The limit only applies to actions that are permitted under the
> relevant rules. Failure to comply with the obligations may also mean an
> individual is then prohibited from being a director of a limited company.
>
As you say, if the obligations are met, then liability is limited.
> The problem is that someone may have to act to prosecute for any failures
> to behave as required by law, and that this process may be costly,
> difficult, slooooow, frustrating, and lead to trying to getting blood out
> of a stone. All the usual snags of the UK attitude of leaving such things
> for the victims to deal with via civil law if they require redress/damages.
>
Things have changed a lot in recent years. If a company fails a report
is automatically sent the Secretary Of State on the Directors, and if
it is not favourable the Directors are in big trouble. The days of
deliberately going bust and starting again easily are over.
> The alternative is to find strong evidence of a criminal offence. The snags
> being to then convince the relevant authorities to do anything successful,
> and the likelyhood that this may provide no redress or compensation even if
> a prosecution is successful.
>
> Slainte,
>
> Jim
>
Richard
John Cartmell
wrote:
> Acorn still behaved like a reliable and reputable company
Dealers who had stocked up ready for the Acorn Show that was cancelled with
minimal notice would doubtless dispute that description. ;-(
Steffen Huber
> I never heard of anyone populating the A310 with the HD components hence
> with the above information the inference that it didn't work.
> It may of course have been an incorrect inference.
> We may never know the truth!
We know. A German guy, I think it was Edgar Fuss, fitted all the
necessary components to his A310, and he had a working ST506 interface
afterwards.
Paul F. Johnson
On Thu, 2005-07-14 at 14:06 +0100, John Cartmell wrote:
> In article <3jn2boF...@individual.net>, Steffen Huber <sp...@huber-net.de>
> wrote:
> > Acorn still behaved like a reliable and reputable company
>
> Dealers who had stocked up ready for the Acorn Show that was cancelled with
> minimal notice would doubtless dispute that description. ;-(
The ones I know of had very few problems with returns and being refunded
by Acorn.
druck
> On Wed, 2005-07-13 at 22:32 +0100, druck wrote:
> > On 13 Jul 2005 "Paul F. Johnson" <pa...@all-the-johnsons.co.uk> wrote:
>>> The Omega is one of those boxes which takes on a Pheobe-esque history of
>>> taking a deposit and people having to wait ages past the advertised
>>> release date.
>>
>> This was never the case with Pheobe, they no deposits were ever taken from
>> the public, and they weren't late, but cancelled before release.
>
> I could have sworn that deposits were taken on the Pheobe - in fact, I'm
> pretty sure they were as the first Wakefield show I went to, Clares Micro
> Supplies were taking them. If memory serves me right, it was 150 quid. It's
> a heck of a long time ago, so I could be mistaken.
Well if they did it was completely without the concent of Acorn, who did not
take orders, never mind deposits for equipment before it was launched.
---druck
--
The ARM Club Free Software - http://www.armclub.org.uk/free/
The 32bit Conversions Page - http://www.quantumsoft.co.uk/druck/
John Cartmell
wrote:
> On 13 Jul 2005 "Paul F. Johnson" <pa...@all-the-johnsons.co.uk> wrote:
> > On Wed, 2005-07-13 at 22:32 +0100, druck wrote:
> > > On 13 Jul 2005 "Paul F. Johnson" <pa...@all-the-johnsons.co.uk> wrote:
> >>> The Omega is one of those boxes which takes on a Pheobe-esque history
> >>> of taking a deposit and people having to wait ages past the advertised
> >>> release date.
> >>
> >> This was never the case with Pheobe, they no deposits were ever taken
> >> from the public, and they weren't late, but cancelled before release.
> >
> > I could have sworn that deposits were taken on the Pheobe - in fact, I'm
> > pretty sure they were as the first Wakefield show I went to, Clares Micro
> > Supplies were taking them. If memory serves me right, it was 150 quid.
> > It's a heck of a long time ago, so I could be mistaken.
> Well if they did it was completely without the concent of Acorn, who did
> not take orders, never mind deposits for equipment before it was launched.
Odd then that one of the excuses given for cancelling the Phoebe was that
there weren't enough pre-orders.
Robert Seago
<jo...@cartmell.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> In article <5Yk*yg...@news.chiark.greenend.org.uk>, Chris Joseph
> <chr...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
> > So you're saying that you spoke to MD (one of the Davids, presumably?)
> > on the phone, but that they left you unsure as to whether they were
> > still trading?
> I'm saying what I said. No more. Certainly MD have been happy in the
> past to talk to me at a time when others have reported problems in
> contacting the company as can be evidenced by the adverts that we
> printed last year. At that time I did tell David A that we would not be
> publishing a review of the Omega until we had access to a fully working
> retail version of the machine.
Did he say it should be in August, but not say which year?
--
Regards from Robert Seago : http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/rjseago
Robert Seago
John Cartmell <jo...@cartmell.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> In article <b52bb98...@paul.archivemag.co.uk>,
> Microdigital *did* get a great deal of unfair criticism - and are still
> getting plenty of unfair criticism as a result of your comments here.
> Just because they are open to criticism for other reasons doesn't mean
> that the criticism that they got was fair.
Possibly they did is some aspects which have escaped me, but by and large
there cynical posturing did great damage to our platform. We had all those
ridiculous posts about OS's working on 32 bit processors weeks away, and
the campaign to discredit the genuine 32 bit OS when it was actually about
to arrive.
Robert Seago
John Cartmell <jo...@cartmell.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> On 13 Jul in comp.sys.acorn.misc, News poster <ne...@mistymornings.demon.nl>
> wrote:
> > IMHO it is the apologists for such RISC OS companies that refuse to
> > honour their commitments that do the RISC OS market no favours and not
> > those people doing the criticising.
> You're finding the wrong target. As far as I can see no-one is
> apologising for MD. But before you start throwing the rotten fruit you
> might just ask to have the details confirmed; if you don't then you're
> supporting lynch law. And incidentally, Paul's action may simply ensure
> that no-one will get future support from MD.
A number of people seem to never have had support from MD anyway.
David H Wild
<beame...@btconnect.com> wrote:
> > It limits the liability of the **owners** - the shareholders - but
> > does not mean that the directors of a company have **no** legal
> > liability in the event of failure.
> >
> That's not correct - it limits the liability of the Directors from,
> amongst all the others, the shareholders so that the shareholders
> cannot force the board to do illegal or take unprofitable actions, for
> instance delaring an impossible dividend. Directors may, or may not, be
> shareholders but they are only responsible to the shareholders at the
> AGM, almost entirely only in a financial connection as far as the law
> goes.
> Shareholders have no financial obligations in the event of
> failure, other than losing their money.
But that is the whole point of limited liability; if I am a shareholder my
liability is limited to my investment. Before the introduction of Ltd it
could be very risky investing in a company as you could become liable for
the whole of the debts of the company even if you had invested only a very
small part of the total capital.
druck
> In article <0824148a...@druck.freeuk.net>, druck
> <ne...@druck.freeuk.com> wrote:
>> Well if they did it was completely without the concent of Acorn, who did
>> not take orders, never mind deposits for equipment before it was launched.
>
> Odd then that one of the excuses given for cancelling the Phoebe was that
> there weren't enough pre-orders.
Not odd, just total rubbish. The decision had been taken regardless of the
market situtation.
News
> a deposit to be the first to receive a brand new Phoebe. I know, I was
> one of them. However, there was absolutely no problem getting the
> deposit back - Acorn still behaved like a reliable and reputable
> company after axing the workstation division. So there is really
> no analogy between Acorn/Phoebe and MicroDigital/Omega.
Agreed.
I took my money straightway across to Castle (at that time they hadn't
taken on manufacture and everything was still in the melting pot) and
bought a two-slice RPC.
--
Stuart Winsor
From is valid but subject to change without notice if it gets spammed.
For Barn dances and folk evenings in the Coventry and Warwickshire area
See: http://www.barndance.org.uk
RichardK
> In article <ant14101...@client.cjemicros.co.uk>,
> Chris Evans <ch...@cjemicros.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>IIRC the PCB used in the A310 had provision for the components of a
>>ST506 to be fitted, and the A440's motherboard had significant changes
>>in that area. I never heard of anyone populating the A310 with the HD
>>components hence with the above information the inference that it didn't
>>work. It may of course have been an incorrect inference. We may never
>>know the truth!
>
>
> I fitted an HD to a 310 using IIRC a Simtec interface. It certainly wasn't
> SCSI. But it was running OS 3, if that makes a difference.
>
And it still works, too ;)
Richard
--
RichardK - 1980s in a can. http://www.dmc12.demon.co.uk/music/
Retro computing - http://www.dmc12.demon.co.uk/retrotech/
Cars - 2004 Beetle Cabrio, 1989 Supra 3.0i, 1990 Sera, 1989 Volvo 740
MidiGuitar, AU/X. Apple 77-04. See links. Email - upgrade to 128 ;)
John Cartmell
He refused to give a date despite being pushed. I had already criticised him
for the original pre-announcement.
John Cartmell
wrote:
> On 14 Jul 2005 John Cartmell <jo...@cartmell.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> > In article <0824148a...@druck.freeuk.net>, druck
> > <ne...@druck.freeuk.com> wrote:
> >> Well if they did it was completely without the concent of Acorn, who did
> >> not take orders, never mind deposits for equipment before it was
> >> launched.
> >
> > Odd then that one of the excuses given for cancelling the Phoebe was that
> > there weren't enough pre-orders.
> Not odd, just total rubbish. The decision had been taken regardless of the
> market situtation.
But Acorn *did* say that - and it wouldn't have even made sense on the surface
unless they had been taking orders.
Lionel Smith
Kell Gatherer <nos...@nospam.invalid> wrote:
> It'll be Sheila next....
Now why does that make me think of PEEK and POKE? ;-)
Lionel
--
___ ______
/ / / ___/ 4 children | Sea Vixen for pugnacity
/ / ionel A.| \ mith 9 grandchildren, | Hunter for elegance
/ /____ __\ | no wonder life is a breeze | Phantom for clout
/_______/ /_____/ http://www.argonet.co.uk/users/lionels | ZFC B+4+4
From an OS that Windows is too young to remember. ;-)
Daniel Ellis
> In article <9071748a...@druck.freeuk.net>, druck
> <ne...@druck.freeuk.com> wrote:
> > On 14 Jul 2005 John Cartmell <jo...@cartmell.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> > > In article <0824148a...@druck.freeuk.net>, druck
> > > <ne...@druck.freeuk.com> wrote:
> > > > Well if they did it was completely without the concent of Acorn,
> > > > who did not take orders, never mind deposits for equipment before
> > > > it was launched.
> > >
> > > Odd then that one of the excuses given for cancelling the Phoebe
> > > was that there weren't enough pre-orders.
>
> > Not odd, just total rubbish. The decision had been taken regardless
> > of the market situtation.
>
> But Acorn *did* say that - and it wouldn't have even made sense on the
> surface unless they had been taking orders.
My place of work at the time ordered a Phoebe, I can't recall if any
money actually changed hands though. We were definitely not in the
practice of paying before receipt, we would have waited for an invoice.
--
Dan Ellis
Tim Hill
In article <4d8a7378...@talktalk.net>, David H Wild
<dhw...@talktalk.net> wrote:
> But that is the whole point of limited liability; if I am a shareholder
> my liability is limited to my investment. Before the introduction of
> Ltd it could be very risky investing in a company as you could become
> liable for the whole of the debts of the company even if you had
> invested only a very small part of the total capital.
Still today, if you form anything but a Limited Company.
There seem to be a few people hereabouts (not you David) who don't seem
to understand that a Limited Company (or a PLC for that matter) is a
separate legal entity to its owners and officers (directors et al) and
you quite rightly point out that a partnership or unlimited company is
not separate. A partnership is simply a joining of two or more people,
usually with Joint and Several Liability. (Which means you can go after
any one partner for a whole debt).
For this reason, banks normally expect director/owners of Ltd Cos to sign
Joint and Several Guarantees to cover company debts, whereas account
mandates are enough to establish that for partnerships. In both cases
often banks will take a Second Mortgage over their family homes as well
as a charge on all a Limited Company's assets (a Debenture). In a
partnership the assets belong to the partners.
Only when directors can be shown to have acted 'beyond their powers' or
illegally can a court step in and make them liable for a Limited
Company's liabilities which they incurred on its behalf. It may be found,
for example, that the activities of the company were taken outside the
remit of its Memorandum and Articles of Association by shady directors.
Often the quickest and best solution to cut through to people who try to
hide from you is to find them and in the company of several of your big
mates intimidate them into giving you what you are entitled to. Though
commonplace in the banking industry of old, it's probably frowned upon
now. Unfortunately my last foray to that other remedy, the Small Claims
Court, was too slow. The company had gone bust with only 400 quid to its
name and thousands upon thousands in debts. As an unsecured creditor I
has two chances of seeing any of the grand I was owed. None and Slim.
Unfortunately this was a 'simple case' of a company making losses and
going bust; I had no redress against the shareholders and directors who
were deemed to have done nothing wrong even though the 'general manager'
(who caused the problems) was already barred from being a director and
his relatives were the various company officers and shareholders.
Similarly, bailiffs may have the consent of a court to seize the assets
of a ltd company but it does not follow that they can then chase the
owners or officers when there is a shortfall or a disappearance. You need
someone to show that the director/owners acted improperly oh, and find
them, of course.
No doubt RISC OS scribblers who consider themselves journalists will be
out combing the streets for comments from MD's officers. It will only
harm their business when stories like this surface and the flames are
fanned by 'me too' responses.
--
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Michael Gilbert
<URL:mailto:jo...@cartmell.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> In article <9071748a...@druck.freeuk.net>, druck <ne...@druck.freeuk.com>
> wrote:
> > On 14 Jul 2005 John Cartmell <jo...@cartmell.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> > > In article <0824148a...@druck.freeuk.net>, druck
> > > <ne...@druck.freeuk.com> wrote:
> > >> Well if they did it was completely without the concent of Acorn, who did
> > >> not take orders, never mind deposits for equipment before it was
> > >> launched.
> > >
> > > Odd then that one of the excuses given for cancelling the Phoebe was that
> > > there weren't enough pre-orders.
>
> > Not odd, just total rubbish. The decision had been taken regardless of the
> > market situtation.
>
> But Acorn *did* say that - and it wouldn't have even made sense on the surface
> unless they had been taking orders.
>
A little learning, etc.
Acorn's main business was never the odd punter buying a personal
computer. If Phoebe was going to sell and be viable, it had to sell in
quantity to the core education business. At the time, education was
being supplied via Xemplar, who were the sole distributor. Xemplar's
customers were the regional Education Agents, one of whom I work for.
At the time, the government had not long introduced the NGfL, and with
it a vast amount of funding to schools for use in IT.
One of the effects (in the South West, anyway) of the NGfL funding was
a sudden damascene conversion on the part of LEA IT advisors who had
previously been customers for Acorn product.
If we were to have any chance of winning back that business, we needed
a product closer to the iMac. Something that was big, very expensive
and still had problems as far as the web browser went (plus ça
change...) was absolutely the wrong product for the time.
So, the "lack of pre-orders" thing was coming from the universal cold
shoulder from the education sector, nothing to do with retail at all.
Please note that the above posting is spaced to aid John's interesting
snipping tactics. I look forward to reading what I really meant later.
Cheers
Mike
--
Michael Gilbert: in his own write
http://www.lewisgilbert.co.uk/archiology for old Acorn software items
http://www.lewisgilbert.co.uk/access for Acorn peer-to-peer tools
http://www.lewisgilbert.co.uk/ebay.html for old Acorn hardware items.
John Cartmell
Michael Gilbert <mic...@lewisgilbert.co.uk> wrote:
> So, the "lack of pre-orders" thing was coming from the universal cold
> shoulder from the education sector, nothing to do with retail at all.
As many people were waiting for its appearace at the show before ordering the
lack of pre-orders was a red-herring. A lie. But the fact that such ordering
happened confirms my statement that Acorn accepted orders.
QED
Jim Lesurf
<beame...@btconnect.com> wrote:
> In message <4d8a3fe...@st-and.demon.co.uk> Jim Lesurf
> <jc...@st-and.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> > The problem is that someone may have to act to prosecute for any
> > failures to behave as required by law, and that this process may be
> > costly, difficult, slooooow, frustrating, and lead to trying to
> > getting blood out of a stone. All the usual snags of the UK attitude
> > of leaving such things for the victims to deal with via civil law if
> > they require redress/damages.
> >
> Things have changed a lot in recent years. If a company fails a report
> is automatically sent the Secretary Of State on the Directors, and if it
> is not favourable the Directors are in big trouble. The days of
> deliberately going bust and starting again easily are over.
Well, you may be right. However I suspect that all the above has done is
shifted around some deckchairs, and then given a basis for 'spin' about how
"the government have improved the situation". There would presumably still
need to be some person(s) who was able to actually collect evidence strong
enough to justify action. And then to get the relevant minion(s) of the
"Secretary of State" to actually ensure action at a suitably "big trouble"
level.
The problem therefore initially rests in your "report is automatically
sent". First catch your rabbit. :-) In this case, first ensure that an
investigation actually takes place *sufficient to discover the evidence*.
My impression from other areas is that those offiices that would be
responsible for investigating/checking such things will be under-staffed,
etc. The easiest way to generate an "automatic" report is simply to take
what is reported to you at face value, and make no real enquiries beyond a
fairly shallow and routine level. Minimum fuss, minimum effort.
I have no info on this though. How many ex-directors/owners per year are
now getting into "big trouble", and how does this compare with a few years
ago? I'd be interested to know the figures. I can't recall anyone like the
Consumer's Association being impressed by improvements in this area.
Slainte,
Jim
--
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scots_Guide/intro/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/Audio/armstrong.html
Barbirolli Soc. http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/JBSoc/JBSoc.html
TechWriter http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/TechWrite/Tips1.html
Compo http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/Compo/clues.html
beamendsltd
Jim Lesurf <jc...@st-and.demon.co.uk> wrote:
The insolvency is handled by an insolvencey pratitioner, who has to be
registered - either appointed by the company (voluntery liquidation) or
by the court (er, non-voluntery liquidation). If they don't do the job
properly they don't get paid, and can loose their licence. The report
is automatic in the sense that they must produce it in all cases, not
generate it automatically!
> I have no info on this though. How many ex-directors/owners per year are
> now getting into "big trouble", and how does this compare with a few years
> ago? I'd be interested to know the figures. I can't recall anyone like the
> Consumer's Association being impressed by improvements in this area.
>
I can't quote numbers, byt the FSB newsletters are pretty confident
that the new measures are working.
Chris Evans
<URL:mailto:1...@invalid.org.uk> wrote:
> For this reason, banks normally expect director/owners of Ltd Cos to sign
> Joint and Several Guarantees to cover company debts,
***** owed to the bank.
Banks are not interested in money owed to others.
> whereas account
> mandates are enough to establish that for partnerships. In both cases
> often banks will take a Second Mortgage over their family homes as well
> as a charge on all a Limited Company's assets (a Debenture). In a
> partnership the assets belong to the partners.
When I started my business I was advised by an accountant not to be a
Limited Company as at the time both the bank and the (lease) landlord what
director indemnities, and the business wasn't expected to have significant
trade creditors, also they quoted significantly higher Auditing fees for Ltd
Companies.
I do also now have a Ltd Company.
In hind sight trading unlimited has saved quite a bit of money, although I
now no longer use an accountant, even for the limited company.
Ltd Companies with a turnover less than certain amount (IIRC 1M GBP) do not
need by law to have thier accounts Audited by an Accountant. Though their
bank may insist!
Chris Evans
--
CJE Micro's / 4D 'RISC OS Specialists'
Telephone: 01903 523222 Fax: 01903 523679
ch...@cjemicros.co.uk http://www.cjemicros.co.uk/
78 Brighton Road, Worthing, West Sussex, BN11 2EN
The most beautiful thing anyone can wear, is a smile!
beamendsltd
Chris Evans <ch...@cjemicros.co.uk> wrote:
> In article <4d8a9...@invalid.org.uk>, Tim Hill
> <URL:mailto:1...@invalid.org.uk> wrote:
>
> > For this reason, banks normally expect director/owners of Ltd Cos to sign
> > Joint and Several Guarantees to cover company debts,
> ***** owed to the bank.
>
> Banks are not interested in money owed to others.
or in helping in any way, even if, say, a Director has buggered off
into the sunset.....
>
> > whereas account
> > mandates are enough to establish that for partnerships. In both cases
> > often banks will take a Second Mortgage over their family homes as well
> > as a charge on all a Limited Company's assets (a Debenture). In a
> > partnership the assets belong to the partners.
Only if you are daft enough to let them. Normally, if your personal
credit rating is good enough, the Director(s) guarenteeing a loan
and/or overdraft is all that is required.
>
> When I started my business I was advised by an accountant not to be a
> Limited Company as at the time both the bank and the (lease) landlord what
> director indemnities, and the business wasn't expected to have significant
> trade creditors, also they quoted significantly higher Auditing fees for Ltd
> Companies.
In my game, anyway, suppliers won't take you seriously unless you are
Ltd.
>
> I do also now have a Ltd Company.
> In hind sight trading unlimited has saved quite a bit of money, although I
> now no longer use an accountant, even for the limited company.
> Ltd Companies with a turnover less than certain amount (IIRC 1M GBP) do not
> need by law to have thier accounts Audited by an Accountant. Though their
> bank may insist!
>
... but as I have found out the hard way, Auditing these days means
doing some printouts from Sage (and only Sage) and signing them - an
utter waste of time and money which proves nothing - luckily at
least some banks are aware of this...
Oh, and while I'm at it....... Join the FSB and get *genuinely* free
banking from the Co-op!
> Chris Evans
John Cartmell
Paul Beverley
John Cartmell <jo...@cartmell.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> In article <83cee38a4d%beame...@btconnect.com>, beamendsltd
> <beame...@btconnect.com> wrote:
> > Join the FSB and get *genuinely* free banking from the Co-op!
>
> FSB?
>
Federation of Small Businesses
All the best,
Paul.
Paul Beverley, Editor, Living with Technology & Archive Magazine
-----------------------Phone: 01603-722544----------------------
For two FREE sample copies of LWT see: http://www.livtech.co.uk/
VinceH (real address)
beamendsltd <beame...@btconnect.com> wrote:
[...]
> I can't quote numbers, byt the FSB newsletters are pretty confident
> that the new measures are working.
Unfortunately, I know of a fairly recent case[1] where
a company was put into liquidation - just after the
tosser^W owner formed a new company and bought all the
assets of the old one. The last report from the
liquidators indicated that he (or rather, the new
company) was supposed to have paid for that purchase
in monthly installments and have only paid the first
three (or four - I forget).
What makes it even more annoying is that his new
company then moved into the unit next door to a company
to whom his old one owed quite a large sum of money.
[1] Due to the timescales involved, we're talking last
two/three years. I'm not at my office until Monday
(at the company who was owed the money), so I
can't check the specific dates.
VinceH
--
http://www.softrock.co.uk http://www.webchange.co.uk http://www.vinceh.com
A bio with some actual bones for fido content:
http://www.vinceh.com/vinceh/
"Zombies, man... They creep me out."
beamendsltd
> In article <83cee38a4d%beame...@btconnect.com>, beamendsltd
> <beame...@btconnect.com> wrote:
> > Join the FSB and get *genuinely* free banking from the Co-op!
>
> FSB?
>
Federation Of Small Businesses - very well worth joining for
advice, infomation about the latest rubbish, sorry, legislation
coming out of Whitehall, and legal fees cover against idiots and
best of all up to 100,000 fees cover against VAT or Tax disputes.
Tim Hill
<jo...@cartmell.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> In article <ant15062...@riscpc.local>, Michael Gilbert
> <mic...@lewisgilbert.co.uk> wrote:
> > So, the "lack of pre-orders" thing was coming from the universal cold
> > shoulder from the education sector, nothing to do with retail at all.
> As many people were waiting for its appearace at the show before
> ordering the lack of pre-orders was a red-herring. A lie. But the fact
> that such ordering happened confirms my statement that Acorn accepted
> orders. QED
Wasn't it dealers who accepted pre-orders?
I remember Phoebe's appearance at one of the Acorn shows and a
conversation in the bar afterward where many of us expressed concern that
our perception was that a huge amount of effort seemed to have gone in to
the development of a 'clever' case and a 'pretty' desktop but that there
was no killer app even of the likes of Draw and Paint which would make
users want to buy it.
Now that Apple has bitten the x86 bullet with the soon to appear MacTel,
I wonder how long it will be before the RISC OS hardware market realise
that our processors are being left behind the herd and something will
have to change. Some will say 'never' and 'impossible'.
--
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Tim Hill
> banking from the Co-op!
Judging by the mailshot which arrived this week, membership of the FSB is
not required.
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Tim Hill
<ch...@cjemicros.co.uk> wrote:
> In article <4d8a9...@invalid.org.uk>, Tim Hill
> <URL:mailto:1...@invalid.org.uk> wrote:
> > For this reason, banks normally expect director/owners of Ltd Cos to
> > sign Joint and Several Guarantees to cover company debts,
> ***** owed to the bank.
> Banks are not interested in money owed to others.
Not quite true. They are interested in other creditors who rank before
and alongside them, e.g. the Inland Revenue, Customs and Excise and other
secured creditors (or unsecured if the w^hbankers haven't done their job
properly in the first place). At least that would be the case if today's
bankers knew what they were doing.
[Snip]
> Ltd Companies with a turnover less than
> certain amount (IIRC 1M GBP) do not need by law to have thier accounts
> Audited by an Accountant. Though their bank may insist!
The secret is to tell the bank to get stuffed and go to another. They
usually change their tune. It's worth pointing out they have the primary
source of financial information at their fingertips: the bank account.
I have a partnership business account with a bank which is always in
credit. Each year they ask for audited accounts and I ignore their letter
and file it away in the small metal filing cabinet marked 'stupid
questions'.
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Simon Challands
Tim Hill <1...@invalid.org.uk> wrote:
> Now that Apple has bitten the x86 bullet with the soon to appear MacTel,
> I wonder how long it will be before the RISC OS hardware market realise
> that our processors are being left behind the herd and something will
> have to change. Some will say 'never' and 'impossible'.
"Moving in a different direction" would be fairer than "left behind".
--
Simon Challands
Tim Hill
Maybe so. I was thinking in terms of developments in processor speeds
only as this has implications on the availability of mass-market (cheap)
components for the rest of inside and outside the box. Unfortunately,
when processors 'move in a different direction' the peripheral hardware
seems not to follow suit but follow the mainstream.
--
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Chris Hughes
> In article <83cee38a4d%beame...@btconnect.com>, beamendsltd
> <beame...@btconnect.com> wrote:
>> Join the FSB and get *genuinely* free banking from the Co-op!
>
> FSB?
Federation of Small Businesses - I was a member for awhile while
Secretary of the West Yorkshire Sport Club.
They provide a range of good services.
--
Chris Hughes
Chris Hughes
druck <ne...@druck.freeuk.com> wrote:
> On 13 Jul 2005 "Paul F. Johnson" <pa...@all-the-johnsons.co.uk> wrote:
>> On Wed, 2005-07-13 at 22:32 +0100, druck wrote:
>> > On 13 Jul 2005 "Paul F. Johnson" <pa...@all-the-johnsons.co.uk> wrote:
>>>> The Omega is one of those boxes which takes on a Pheobe-esque history of
>>>> taking a deposit and people having to wait ages past the advertised
>>>> release date.
>>>
>>> This was never the case with Pheobe, they no deposits were ever taken from
>>> the public, and they weren't late, but cancelled before release.
>>
>> I could have sworn that deposits were taken on the Pheobe - in fact, I'm
>> pretty sure they were as the first Wakefield show I went to, Clares Micro
>> Supplies were taking them. If memory serves me right, it was 150 quid. It's
>> a heck of a long time ago, so I could be mistaken.
>
> Well if they did it was completely without the concent of Acorn, who did not
> take orders, never mind deposits for equipment before it was launched.
Sorry Druck, but you are wrong. Acorn had a pre-release deposit scheme
in operation (can't now remember how much). This was available either
direct or via dealers at the time. After Black Thursday, they had to
organise the refunds. Which they did OK.
--
Chris Hughes
Chris Hughes
> In article <4d8ac0b...@cartmell.demon.co.uk>, John Cartmell
> <jo...@cartmell.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>> In article <ant15062...@riscpc.local>, Michael Gilbert
>> <mic...@lewisgilbert.co.uk> wrote:
>> > So, the "lack of pre-orders" thing was coming from the universal cold
>> > shoulder from the education sector, nothing to do with retail at all.
>
>> As many people were waiting for its appearace at the show before
>> ordering the lack of pre-orders was a red-herring. A lie. But the fact
>> that such ordering happened confirms my statement that Acorn accepted
>> orders. QED
>
> Wasn't it dealers who accepted pre-orders?
Dealers were certainly taking pre-orders for 100 ukp deposit. Found
two adverts so far in Acorn Publisher of the period.
>
> I remember Phoebe's appearance at one of the Acorn shows and a
> conversation in the bar afterward where many of us expressed concern that
> our perception was that a huge amount of effort seemed to have gone in to
> the development of a 'clever' case and a 'pretty' desktop but that there
> was no killer app even of the likes of Draw and Paint which would make
> users want to buy it.
Phoebe was launched as such at Wakefield 1998 show where officially
only Clan members could see it in action in the special preview area
at the end of the hall. You could join the Clan at the Wakefield club
stand during the show and then go see it.
[snip]
--
Chris Hughes
Lionel Smith
Michael Gilbert <mic...@lewisgilbert.co.uk> wrote:
> One of the effects (in the South West, anyway) of the NGfL funding was
> a sudden damascene conversion on the part of LEA IT advisors who had
> previously been customers for Acorn product.
And as many of us will recall Xemplar was part Apple, indeed I think
Apple had the whip hand WRT marketing and favoured their products. I
recall just such with 'interesting' juxtapositioning of Apple and Acorn
products on one double page spread. The fact that the two products were
not the best match in spec' and price, in the Apple's favour, was surely
designed to sway potential customers towards an Apple.
I saw the brochures at the time and recall the ire I felt. I had very
dubious feelings about the whole Xemplar set-up and expressed my feelings
on the likely outcome at the time.
> If we were to have any chance of winning back that business, we needed
> a product closer to the iMac. Something that was big, very expensive
> and still had problems as far as the web browser went (plus ça
> change...) was absolutely the wrong product for the time.
Who is to say that the desktop Phoebe was the only potential product from
this particular line of development?
> So, the "lack of pre-orders" thing was coming from the universal cold
> shoulder from the education sector, nothing to do with retail at all.
If you say so. I think the lack of USB was a mistake, but back then USB
was a still unsettled specification and many so called 'USB ready' PC's
proved anything but.
However another factor was in very aggressive marketing from the likes
of, a then lame duck, RM who managed to pull themselves out of the hole
they had dug with much help from MS. Then of course one of these WINDPC
box makers supplied a CEO just at the right time to remove Acorn before
big moneys came through with that very NGfL.
Surely another 'night of the long knives'.
Daniel Ellis
Tim Hill <1...@invalid.org.uk> wrote:
> In article <270adc8b...@helvellyn.plus.com>, Simon Challands
> <simon_...@helvellyn.plus.com> wrote:
> > In message <4d8b5...@invalid.org.uk> Tim Hill <1...@invalid.org.uk>
> > wrote:
>
> > > Now that Apple has bitten the x86 bullet with the soon to appear
> > > MacTel, I wonder how long it will be before the RISC OS hardware
> > > market realise that our processors are being left behind the herd and
> > > something will have to change. Some will say 'never' and 'impossible'.
>
> > "Moving in a different direction" would be fairer than "left behind".
>
> Maybe so. I was thinking in terms of developments in processor speeds
> only as this has implications on the availability of mass-market (cheap)
> components for the rest of inside and outside the box. Unfortunately,
> when processors 'move in a different direction' the peripheral hardware
> seems not to follow suit but follow the mainstream.
There are some ARM processors in the pipeline wich are rated at more than
a GHz, but until they're available I don't know if it makes commercial
sense to develop any new desktop machine unless it can be made
substantially cheaper (e.g. the A9).
--
Dan Ellis
druck
> There are some ARM processors in the pipeline wich are rated at more than
> a GHz, but until they're available I don't know if it makes commercial
> sense to develop any new desktop machine unless it can be made
> substantially cheaper (e.g. the A9).
They've designed the chips like the Samsung ARM11 that could run at 1GHz+,
but there currently aren't that many application areas that require such
power, so they aren't commercially viable just yet. This will probably change
when Microsoft make the next version of Windows CE run at half the current
speed, but all their best bloaters are still tied up working on Longhorn.
---druck
--
The ARM Club Free Software - http://www.armclub.org.uk/free/
The 32bit Conversions Page - http://www.quantumsoft.co.uk/druck/
Michael Gilbert
<URL:mailto:lio...@argonet.co.uk> wrote:
> In article <ant15062...@riscpc.local>,
> Michael Gilbert <mic...@lewisgilbert.co.uk> wrote:
>
> > One of the effects (in the South West, anyway) of the NGfL funding was
> > a sudden damascene conversion on the part of LEA IT advisors who had
> > previously been customers for Acorn product.
>
> And as many of us will recall Xemplar was part Apple, indeed I think
> Apple had the whip hand WRT marketing and favoured their products. I
> recall just such with 'interesting' juxtapositioning of Apple and Acorn
> products on one double page spread. The fact that the two products were
> not the best match in spec' and price, in the Apple's favour, was surely
> designed to sway potential customers towards an Apple.
At the launch of the joint enterprise, for it was a 50:50 joint
enterprise, we (the regional agents) were told that the policy was to
migrate users from Acorn to Apple. This was perceived by the various
suits as being easy; everyone hates Windows, and Apple were bigger than
Acorn. QED. However, they had underestimated us, and had no
understanding of the (education) market at all. Consequently, there
were stormy scenes at meetings. To be polite about it.
The thing to remember about Apple is that Apple now is nothing like
Apple then. The product range was vast and incomprehensible, the
management was awful and the overmanning appalling.
>
> I saw the brochures at the time and recall the ire I felt. I had very
> dubious feelings about the whole Xemplar set-up and expressed my feelings
> on the likely outcome at the time.
Whatever happened to Acorn was nothing to do with Xemplar. As an Acorn
agent who became an Xemplar agent, we kept right on pushing RISC OS
product to the vast bulk of our customers. One or two we sold Apples
to, mainly after the launch of iMac, and mainly because it was that or
lose them to RM.
We also gained the wonderful eMate as a product we could supply to
schools.
I would have said that the agents' experience was pretty much the same
everywhere, with regional strengths being reflected in continuing
business for a particular make. It didn't damage our Acorn business at
all.
>
> > If we were to have any chance of winning back that business, we needed
> > a product closer to the iMac. Something that was big, very expensive
> > and still had problems as far as the web browser went (plus ça
> > change...) was absolutely the wrong product for the time.
>
> Who is to say that the desktop Phoebe was the only potential product from
> this particular line of development?
Of course there are hundreds of potential developments from a new
product line. My point is that the potential customers for the Phoebe
project were few and far between, and that Acorn needed a better priced
entry level system, and that they needed to invest in software rather
than hardware.
>
> > So, the "lack of pre-orders" thing was coming from the universal cold
> > shoulder from the education sector, nothing to do with retail at all.
>
> If you say so. I think the lack of USB was a mistake, but back then USB
> was a still unsettled specification and many so called 'USB ready' PC's
> proved anything but.
>
> However another factor was in very aggressive marketing from the likes
> of, a then lame duck, RM who managed to pull themselves out of the hole
> they had dug with much help from MS. Then of course one of these WINDPC
> box makers supplied a CEO just at the right time to remove Acorn before
> big moneys came through with that very NGfL.
Olivetti had owned Acorn for years. They wanted shot of it. The
management at Acorn collectively showed themselves to be awful, with
their pirouetting around with splitting and rejoining the company, with
the launch of the Acorn PC, with the SchoolServer product to deliver
NT4, but only on Alpha processors because we couldn't have "Intel
inside" stickers on an Acorn box. They even managed to make a mess of
the NC, with one division of Acorn insisting that it could only work
and should only work using both a UNIX (BSD) server and a Windows
server, if you wanted to have Windows clients. Meanwhile, another
division went out and got TopCat written and the ICA Client developed.
>
> Surely another 'night of the long knives'.
Nah, just typical British corporate mess.
Russell Hafter
> Oh, and while I'm at it....... Join the FSB and get
> *genuinely* free banking from the Co-op!
FSB = Federation of small businesses??
Does membership of them really persuade the Co-op bank to
waive /all/ their exorbitant charges? eg £5 per month just
to keep the account open. 70p for each paying in slip used,
plus 28p for each cheque. 60p to write a cheque...
And all the others?
So, frankly I am not impressed with the Co-op bank, with
whom I still have a business deposit account. It pays
0.087%, (taxable, of course) compared with my Standard Life
Business Deposit account which pays 3.45%.
The account was originally opened to access their (at that
time) good value foreign exchange service, but this has gone
seriously downhill and these days they will not do forward
transactions under £25 000.00
The main reason I keep the account these days is to pay
postage over the post office counter without using cash.
My first ever bank account was with the Co-op - I switched
to the Royal Bank of Scotland in 1972 and have remained with
them ever since. Sure there have been problems, but I have
(almost) always been able to resolve them satisfactorily.
Last year I opened a SMILE a/c (Co-op bank online offering)
because of a promotion offering 6 bottles of wine free if I
did. The account gets excellent ratings from the financial
pundits; I found the website unintuitive and a pain to use
and the refusal of the bank to communicate in any way other
than through the website (which, on a dial-up line often
took 5 minutes to get through to the messaging part of the
website) drove me to close the account within a few months.
--
Russell
http://www.russell-hafter-holidays.co.uk
Russell Hafter Holidays E-mail to enquiries at our domain
Holiday specialists for Germany, Czech Republic, Belgium, bits of France...
Tel 01946 861652 Fax 01946 862085
Russell Hafter
<1...@invalid.org.uk> wrote:
> > Ltd Companies with a turnover less than certain amount
> > (IIRC 1M GBP) do not need by law to have thier accounts
> > Audited by an Accountant. Though their bank may insist!
> The secret is to tell the bank to get stuffed and go to
> another. They usually change their tune. It's worth
> pointing out they have the primary source of financial
> information at their fingertips: the bank account.
Makes sense. My main bankers (Royal Bank) do not ask for
audited accounts, though I do send them a set.
The much lauded Co-op bank do (probably because they get so
little business out of me.
Some of us /do/ have to get audited accounts for other
reasons. In order to sell package holidays there must, by
law, be a scheme of financial protection in place. I choose
to use an insurance scheme and the insurers require the
auditted accounts.
Chris Evans
> In article <4d8ac0b...@cartmell.demon.co.uk>, John Cartmell
> <jo...@cartmell.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> > In article <ant15062...@riscpc.local>, Michael Gilbert
> > <mic...@lewisgilbert.co.uk> wrote:
> > > So, the "lack of pre-orders" thing was coming from the universal cold
> > > shoulder from the education sector, nothing to do with retail at all.
>
> > As many people were waiting for its appearace at the show before
> > ordering the lack of pre-orders was a red-herring. A lie. But the fact
> > that such ordering happened confirms my statement that Acorn accepted
> > orders. QED
>
> Wasn't it dealers who accepted pre-orders?
We certainly were! Initially it was a 100GBP then about a month before black
Thursday they introduced a scheme where if you put 500GBP you got XXXGBP
off! I forget how much.
I suspect the change was a last ditch attempt to show top management that
Phoebe shoudn't be cancelled.
Chris Evans
<URL:mailto:1...@invalid.org.uk> wrote:
> In article <ant15121...@client.cjemicros.co.uk>, Chris Evans
> <ch...@cjemicros.co.uk> wrote:
> > In article <4d8a9...@invalid.org.uk>, Tim Hill
> > <URL:mailto:1...@invalid.org.uk> wrote:
>
> > > For this reason, banks normally expect director/owners of Ltd Cos to
> > > sign Joint and Several Guarantees to cover company debts,
> > ***** owed to the bank.
>
> > Banks are not interested in money owed to others.
>
> Not quite true. They are interested in other creditors who rank before
> and alongside them, e.g. the Inland Revenue, Customs and Excise and other
> secured creditors (or unsecured if the w^hbankers haven't done their job
> properly in the first place). At least that would be the case if today's
> bankers knew what they were doing.
>
> [Snip]
>
> > Ltd Companies with a turnover less than
> > certain amount (IIRC 1M GBP) do not need by law to have thier accounts
> > Audited by an Accountant. Though their bank may insist!
>
> The secret is to tell the bank to get stuffed and go to another. They
> usually change their tune. It's worth pointing out they have the primary
> source of financial information at their fingertips: the bank account.
True, but providing their charges are reasonable then keeping a good working
relationshio going can be in your own best interest.
About 10 years ago my bank manager changed and I was very late with giving
copies of my accounts, so he cancelled my rather large overdraft, I did
persaude them to reinstate it at a lower level.
I've reorganised things [1] so I don't have to use an overdraft to any
extent, but do know that I could quite easily ask to double it if necessary.
The one gripe I have is that if say I write a cheque for 5,000 I do have to
have funds in the account or a suitable overdraft at the start of the day
that it is presented, I used to be able to log on and transfer money to keep
each account within its limits any time during the day that a cheque was
presented.
The upshot is either I leave dead money in the business accounts that could
be offsetting my mortgage or I have to have an overdraft facilty and pay the
annual 1.5% arrangement fee. I've choosen the later as I think it cheaper.
> I have a partnership business account with a bank which is always in
> credit. Each year they ask for audited accounts and I ignore their letter
> and file it away in the small metal filing cabinet marked 'stupid
> questions'.
I do have another banking gripe at the moment, my credit/debit card
'merchant provider' Barclays Merchant Services has just increased their
take, they claim 'slightly'! I don't call 33% slight.
They say all Merchant providers are putting up thier cost as Visa & Maestro
have to them, are others 'Merchant Providers' increasing thier %ages?
[1] Offset mortgages can be very useful :-)
Qercus editor
Chris Evans <ch...@cjemicros.co.uk> wrote:
> In article <4d8b5...@invalid.org.uk>, Tim Hill
> <URL:mailto:1...@invalid.org.uk> wrote:
> > In article <4d8ac0b...@cartmell.demon.co.uk>, John Cartmell
> > <jo...@cartmell.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> > > In article <ant15062...@riscpc.local>, Michael Gilbert
> > > <mic...@lewisgilbert.co.uk> wrote:
> > > > So, the "lack of pre-orders" thing was coming from the universal cold
> > > > shoulder from the education sector, nothing to do with retail at all.
> >
> > > As many people were waiting for its appearace at the show before
> > > ordering the lack of pre-orders was a red-herring. A lie. But the fact
> > > that such ordering happened confirms my statement that Acorn accepted
> > > orders. QED
> >
> > Wasn't it dealers who accepted pre-orders?
> We certainly were! Initially it was a 100GBP then about a month before black
> Thursday they introduced a scheme where if you put 500GBP you got XXXGBP
> off! I forget how much.
> I suspect the change was a last ditch attempt to show top management that
> Phoebe shoudn't be cancelled.
The trouble being that so many people were waiting for the Show. I know of a
good number that had near definite orders agreed internally but wanted to see
the machines at the Show before finally committing.
beamendsltd
Russell Hafter <see...@walkingingermany.invalid> wrote:
> In article <83cee38a4d%beame...@btconnect.com>,
> beamendsltd <beame...@btconnect.com> wrote:
>
> > Oh, and while I'm at it....... Join the FSB and get
> > *genuinely* free banking from the Co-op!
>
> FSB = Federation of small businesses??
>
> Does membership of them really persuade the Co-op bank to
> waive /all/ their exorbitant charges? eg £5 per month just
> to keep the account open. 70p for each paying in slip used,
> plus 28p for each cheque. 60p to write a cheque...
>
> And all the others?
It does - cash depostits up to £4000 per month, free cheques
up to something or other etc etc, and deposits can be made
free at any Post Office, and you can have an agreed OD,
loan etc without loosing the benefits like the other
"free" abnking schemes. It does look to be the best on offer.
I don't actually use it (yet) for political reasons, but
judging by the reaction from other small businesses in I have
dealings with, the other banks are going to have to react
soon.
>
> So, frankly I am not impressed with the Co-op bank, with
> whom I still have a business deposit account. It pays
> 0.087%, (taxable, of course) compared with my Standard Life
> Business Deposit account which pays 3.45%.
>
> The account was originally opened to access their (at that
> time) good value foreign exchange service, but this has gone
> seriously downhill and these days they will not do forward
> transactions under £25 000.00
>
> The main reason I keep the account these days is to pay
> postage over the post office counter without using cash.
>
> My first ever bank account was with the Co-op - I switched
> to the Royal Bank of Scotland in 1972 and have remained with
> them ever since. Sure there have been problems, but I have
> (almost) always been able to resolve them satisfactorily.
>
> Last year I opened a SMILE a/c (Co-op bank online offering)
> because of a promotion offering 6 bottles of wine free if I
> did. The account gets excellent ratings from the financial
> pundits; I found the website unintuitive and a pain to use
> and the refusal of the bank to communicate in any way other
> than through the website (which, on a dial-up line often
> took 5 minutes to get through to the messaging part of the
> website) drove me to close the account within a few months.
>
--
Chris de Cordova
Russell Hafter <see...@walkingingermany.invalid> wrote:
> Last year I opened a SMILE a/c (Co-op bank online offering)
[Snip]
> I found the website unintuitive and a pain to use
I use Smile and agree with the above. I emailed complaining, and the
resulting dialogue got nowhere.
Even logging in is messy - though not quite as bad on a peecee.
Some things I have to go back and do again because they are not clear
and I don't want to make a mistake!
It's also plastered with services I don't want on my home page.
I just put up with it now because parking near any non-internet banks
near here is such a pain, as you know!
Anyone *really* recommend an internet bank? Particularly one which
looks the same on RO as in windoze?
--
Chris de Cordova
I am in shape. Round's a shape...
Alan Calder
Chris de Cordova <deco...@ukgateway.net> wrote:
> In article <4d8c50be...@walkingingermany.invalid>,
> Russell Hafter <see...@walkingingermany.invalid> wrote:
> > Last year I opened a SMILE a/c (Co-op bank online offering)
> [Snip]
> > I found the website unintuitive and a pain to use
> I use Smile and agree with the above. I emailed complaining, and the
> resulting dialogue got nowhere.
[Snip]
> Anyone *really* recommend an internet bank? Particularly one which
> looks the same on RO as in windoze?
Bank of Scotland works fine, as far as I can tell with my use of it, with
O2. However this probably doesn't count as an 'internet bank'. :-)
Cheers
Alan
--
Alan Calder, Milton Keynes, UK.
Please note that I have a new email address
Dr Peter Young
>
> Anyone *really* recommend an internet bank? Particularly one which
> looks the same on RO as in windoze?
S(WMBO)+(WILAC) uses Alliance & Leicester for current account and Ing
for savings; both work OK (ATM at any rate) with RO Firefox, and Ing
works with O2 also, as does my HSBC account. They look slightly
different on the Dark Side, but not significantly.
HTH,
With best wishes,
Peter.
--
Peter \ / \ Prestbury, Cheltenham, Glos. GL52
Anne \ / __ __ \ England.
and / / \ | | |\ | / _ \ http://pnyoung.orpheusweb.co.uk
family / \__/ \_/ | \| \__/ \______________ pny...@ormail.co.uk.
Russell Hafter
Cordova <deco...@ukgateway.net> wrote:
> I just put up with it now because parking near any
> non-internet banks near here is such a pain, as you know!
Actually I do not find it too bad, though things got a lot
worse for a time when the former Co-op shop's parking
suddenly had to be paid for...
No internet bank is much use for paying in cheques over a
branch counter.
:-)
I know I can use the post, and do for relatively small
amounts, but for the kind of large sums I am usually paying
in I like to get a receipt from the bank.
Three years ago I did send the Co-op Bank 7 cheques for
£545.84 (7 customers on the same holiday all paying with
their own cheque). The bank "lost" six of the cheques and
the customers had to issue new ones, and I had to get the
Co-op to agree to refund any bank charges that the customers
might have had to incurr through stopping their cheques.
> Anyone *really* recommend an internet bank? Particularly
> one which looks the same on RO as in windoze?
I have never tried to do banking under RiscOS, except with
my German bank, which was the first I tried. At that time
the system required java. End of story. Using six banks in
the UK and one each in Germany, France and Belgium it was
clear that RiscOS was not even worth considering. Some of
them refuse to accept users of MacOS too.
Dave Plowman (News)
> looks the same on RO as in windoze?
Funnily, Barclays seems to work fine on Oregano 1. Not that I'm
recommending them as a bank - but I have no experience of others anyway.
--
*Don't sweat the petty things and don't pet the sweaty things.
Dave Plowman da...@davenoise.co.uk London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.
News poster
Chris de Cordova <deco...@ukgateway.net> wrote:
<snip>
>
> Anyone *really* recommend an internet bank? Particularly one which
> looks the same on RO as in windoze?
Not an internet bank but I have used Nationwide Internet banking for
some years now, using the main PC site (initially the Bush Internet TV
site). Having had to use the PC site from a PC earlier this year it
appears to look very similar under RISC OS browsers.
Seems to work fine in all aspects with 01 and 02, haven't tried it with
Firefox as yet. The only thing that has given me problems is where I
had to print out a form for a SWIFT transaction, which shows up the
limitations of printing from 02.
I have banked with the Nationwide for around 30 years. Good service
through use of modern systems and generally very good telephone customer
service.
While I am on the subject I can confirm that the internet banking
website of TD Canada Trust (funnily enough a bank in Canada :) is
accessible under RISC OS using O2 http://www.tdcanadatrust.com and
https://easyweb.tdcanadatrust.com . Not sure what does not work but we
have been able to set up and make payments in Canada using the website
and view our accounts.
Perhaps worth pointing out to your bank that there are banks in the
world that can produce internet banking websites that work under RISC OS
even though the developers have almost certainly never heard of RISC OS
let alone seen it.
Regards
Stan
--
beamendsltd
Chris Evans <ch...@cjemicros.co.uk> wrote:
> In article <4d8b5...@invalid.org.uk>, Tim Hill
> I do have another banking gripe at the moment, my credit/debit card
> 'merchant provider' Barclays Merchant Services has just increased their
> take, they claim 'slightly'! I don't call 33% slight.
> They say all Merchant providers are putting up thier cost as Visa & Maestro
> have to them, are others 'Merchant Providers' increasing thier %ages?
>
>
> [1] Offset mortgages can be very useful :-)
>
> Chris Evans
>
Lloyds havn't - yet.........
Richard
Simon Challands
"Dave Plowman (News)" <da...@davenoise.co.uk> wrote:
> In article <4d8ccfeb0...@ukgateway.net>,
> Chris de Cordova <deco...@ukgateway.net> wrote:
> > Anyone *really* recommend an internet bank? Particularly one which
> > looks the same on RO as in windoze?
>
> Funnily, Barclays seems to work fine on Oregano 1. Not that I'm
> recommending them as a bank - but I have no experience of others anyway.
Lloyds works fine on O2 for me, apart from it making a mess of displaying
the main page. The actual Internet banking parts work, although I've not
tried doing everything possible with it.
--
Simon Challands