DOS 3.3 upgrade
Grant Prellwitz
to DOS 3.3. The last paragraph says in part: "Within 30 days of receipt of the
IBM DOS Program Version 3.30 Upgrade Kit, I agree to destroy the programs on
the original IBM DOS Program diskettes and all copies of the program."
In other words, Once you buy DOS 3.30, you have to use it and no other version
of DOS (unless you pay the full price for another version) EVEN IF YOU ARE
STRUCK BY THE HARD DISK INCOMPATABILITY PROBLEM. It appears to me that this
is another instance of IBM saying "you'll go where we want you to go with our
products or you don't count." Witness the following:
1) the above restrictions on upgrading.
2) their stating that 3.30 is the only official 3.x version.
3) discontinuing the PC/XT and AT lines, thereby forcing potential IBM
customers to go with the PS/2.
I used to think that the IBM bashing that went on here was a little excessive
at times. Now I'm not so sure.
customers
--
=====================Grant Prellwitz==========================
!ihnp4!gargoyle!sphinx!pre1 pr...@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP
76474,2121 (CIS) pre1 (BIX)
The DOCTOR didn't need a funny line, why do I?
no...@orstcs.cs.orst.edu
I missed this form for upgrading to PC-DOS 3.3, would someone please send me
(e-mail please!) a copy of it?
nomad@orstcs
-------------------------
LEE DAMON FidoNet: 152/201 (The Castle) - (503) 757-8841
no...@cs.orst.edu CSnet: no...@cs.orst.edu
"Real soon now!" UUCP : {hp-pcd,tektronix}!orstcs!nomad
"I've gone out and I don't think I'm expected back."
Nasser Al Ismaily
> I missed this form for upgrading to PC-DOS 3.3, would someone please send me
> (e-mail please!) a copy of it?
>
I would also appreciate if someone would send me a copy
Thanks........
Jim Jack Frost
>I used to think that the IBM bashing that went on here was a little excessive
>at times. Now I'm not so sure.
Oh boy. If you don't think IBM needs some bashing, you've been in a
closet. Never before have I seen a company that cares so little for
their customers. Never. I've been dealing with them for only 3 years
and I'm sick of it.
You want an IBM product? Pay 20 to 30% more than the price of
competitive models, expect poorer performance, gamble on IBM saying
"forget this" and moving on to other products, expect to pay 1% of the
price of what you paid for it in monthly maintenance (this works out
to be a substantial amount of money each year, BTW, but is often
necessary because the reliability of some of IBM's equipment is
horrendous).
Care to discuss my reasons for these statements? Here they come:
Price: compare the pricing of IBM's micros to competition. If you're
not suitably convinced, look at what you get for your money
when you buy a System/36. A sun workstation is about as
powerful and much, much cheaper.
Performance: IBM came out with an AT that COULD have been run at
8MHz initially. Why didn't they do this? More
recently, IBM shipped PS/2 model 50s with 80ms hard
drives. The model 50 is some 20% faster than the AT
(this is brought up a LOT in their new catalog), yet
the AT has a 35ms drive. Why? In the mainframe
world, IBM in the past has charged large amounts of
money for a "hardware upgrade" that boosted system
performance by considerable amounts. This upgrade
consisted of removing a jumper. Nice going, IBM.
Support: IBM has in the past just dropped items with zero
support for their loyal customers. The best case for
this is the famed Datamaster system, which was the
precursor of the PC. It was a horrid machine that
only understood BASIC, gave numeric errors (eg ERROR
2048), had the same ghastly keypad as the PC, used
8" diskettes, and was dreadfully slow. Not
surprisingly it did not sell well. IBM dropped the
machine and all support.
Maintenance: IBM maintenance is costly. We had an IBM System/32
(quite a reliable machine) who's maintenance cost was
$600/month. The machine had an initial cost of about
$60000. What warrants such costly maintenance? I saw
the IBM guy in our office just twice in over two
years; certainly the maintenance was overpriced in
this case. Sometimes hate maintenance people cannot
even find the problem. For instance, one rather large
organization I am associated with bought an IBM
mainframe a while ago. After the system was
installed, key people noticed that its performance was
something like half of what IBM advertised it to be.
Assuming a problem, they called in maintenance.
Nobody found anything wrong. Later, one of the people
operating the machine noticed a wire that went between
a couple of contacts. This wire held the machine in
sort of a hardware test state, cutting its performance
by some 50%. And the maintenance people never found
it. On a good note, IBM agreed to buy some non-IBM
equipment for said institution in order not to have
this event publicised (and, I'm sure, not to be sued).
The details of this event are not distributed because
I don't think I'm even supposed to know about it.
Reliability: How many people own an IBM PC? A real one? Now, how
many have had problems (initially) with it? In my
experience, all but one of the IBM PC systems owned by
people I knew were flawed when they purchased them. I
admit that current releases have done much better, but
even the AT had problems with its hard drives
initially. Anyone care to comment about IBM mainframe
reliability?
On other ground, why is it that the people who built the Selectric II,
which set the standard for typewriter key formats, took THREE MAJOR
REVISIONS of their PC keyboard before getting it right? Stupid. Just
plain stupid. The best way to a customer's heart is through his data
access devices. Give a typist a good keyboard and they'll ignore all
kinds of other problems -- I know, I am a typist. I'd rather work on
my ancient Kaypro (best keyboard ANYWHERE for typing) than on an IBM
AT, although the software on the AT is much, much better. Also,
notice the horrid flickering of some of the IBM video boards. The
person who allowed the public to see that should have been tortured
and killed slowly. It gives even dedicated IBM lovers a headache
inside of ten minutes.
Now, let's talk about IBM software. Have you ever seen a really good
software package made by IBM? I have not. Ever. Reviewers often
call it mediocre at best. I have to deal with just one IBM package on
a regular basis -- DisplayWrite. Now, Displaywrite is a pretty nice
package. It does nice formatting, has a great spelling checker, and
looks neat. But it's excruciatingly painful to use. When you want to
delete from the beginning of a line to the end of another, you hit
delete and then return. Since DisplayWrite automatically wraps words,
this is really, really annoying to people who are accustomed to just
backspacing their errors and blasting away. On other ground, this
particular package supports almost no printers. Specifically, it does
not support even one laserprinter. (Well, DisplayWrite III doesn't --
I haven't used DW4.) Grr. And the cost for this program? Hundreds.
Other, much much better, wordprecessors go for much less and do much
more. For example, PC-Write supports some 400 printers and ten
laserprinters. It supports 35 Hewlett-Packard font sets alone.
WordPerfect supports quite a few, too. And we won't even talk about
Microsoft Word or Lotus Manuscript, whose main thing in life seems to
be making awesome looking text. Oh, one more thing. IBM wanted the
PC version of Displaywrite to be compatible with files from their
bigger machines, so they made the files all EBCDIC (even though you
need special conversion stuff just to pull it off the floppy from the
other system -- why didn't they just give you a neat utility to
convert?).
I've done some major bashing here. In general, my complaints about
IBM come from their braindamaged look at customers. At least as far
as computers go, their attitude has been poor (at best). Rule number
one of surviving: do not bite the hand that feeds you. While IBM is
big enough and strong enough to survive the clone wars, the days are
coming (quickly, I may add) when the big mainframes will be threatened
by new, cheap, user-friendly mainframes by other companies. Unless
they change their tune before then, IBM is going to be a hurting unit
when that day comes.
Are you listening, IBM? Or do user complaints still go in one ear and
out the other?
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
Jim Frost * The Madd Hacker | UUCP: ..!harvard!bu-cs!bucsb!madd
H H | ARPA: ma...@bucsb.bu.edu
H-C-C-OH <- heehee +---------+----------------------------------
H H | "We are strangers in a world we never made"
dar...@hpsrlc.uucp
[ Gentle ribbing on ]
In comp.sys.ibm.pc, ma...@bucsb.bu.edu.UUCP (Jim "Jack" Frost) writes:
> In article <20...@sphinx.uchicago.edu> pr...@sphinx.UUCP (Grant Prellwitz) writes:
> >I used to think that the IBM bashing that went on here was a little excessive
> >at times. Now I'm not so sure.
>
[ ... ]
> On other ground, why is it that the people who built the Selectric II,
> which set the standard for typewriter key formats, took THREE MAJOR
> REVISIONS of their PC keyboard before getting it right? Stupid. Just
> plain stupid. The best way to a customer's heart is through his data
> access devices. Give a typist a good keyboard and they'll ignore all
> kinds of other problems -- I know, I am a typist. I'd rather work on
Actually, I really like the FEEL of the original IBM keyboard;
the layout definitely left much to be desired, though. I've yet to
see (er, feel) a keyboard whose feel even comes close to that of the
original one. Most of the keyboards that I've seen feel like a
pile of grits -- mushy, mushy, and mushy.
What makes you think that IBM has finally gotten the keyboard
right :-)? I almost like the new IBM keyboard, but the @$&*(!?!
function keys are in the wrong place!!! Placing the function keys
as two rows of five on the left was one of the few things IBM did
right on the original keyboard. With the old keyboard, you could
hit a shift/control/alt function key very quickly with one hand.
Try that with the new keyboard.
[ ... ]
> Now, let's talk about IBM software. Have you ever seen a really good
> software package made by IBM? I have not. Ever. Reviewers often
Actually, a little-known program called "Personal Editor II"
is one of the best low-cost editors I've seen. It's VERY fast, has a
reconfigurable keyboard (even letters), has a simple macro language,
can edit multiple files, can handle files larger than memory, etc.,
etc.. I don't think they sell it any more, however. :-(
[ ... ]
> %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
> Jim Frost * The Madd Hacker | UUCP: ..!harvard!bu-cs!bucsb!madd
> H H | ARPA: ma...@bucsb.bu.edu
> H-C-C-OH <- heehee +---------+----------------------------------
> H H | "We are strangers in a world we never made"
> ----------
Stephen M. Gerard
>In comp.sys.ibm.pc, ma...@bucsb.bu.edu.UUCP (Jim "Jack" Frost) writes:
>> In article <20...@sphinx.uchicago.edu> pr...@sphinx.UUCP (Grant Prellwitz) writes:
>> Now, let's talk about IBM software. Have you ever seen a really good
>> software package made by IBM? I have not. Ever. Reviewers often
>
> Actually, a little-known program called "Personal Editor II"
>is one of the best low-cost editors I've seen. It's VERY fast, has a
>reconfigurable keyboard (even letters), has a simple macro language,
>can edit multiple files, can handle files larger than memory, etc.,
>etc.. I don't think they sell it any more, however. :-(
Actually, IBM did not write the Personal Editor, a person by the name of Jim
Wyllie did. IBM only distributed it in their Personally Developed Software
library. So the quest continues is search of a good program written by IBM :-).
PE2 has one very nice feature, the ability to copy/move a block of text from
any starting to ending column with any number of lines and maintain perfect
columnization of that text. I wish vi could do this.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Stephen Gerard - Total Support Computer Systems - Tampa - (813) 876-5990
UUCP: ...{codas, gatech}!usfvax2!tscs!gerard
US-MAIL: Post Office Box 15395 - Tampa, Florida 33684-5395
Mark Chance
> Actually, IBM did not write the Personal Editor, a person by the name of
Jim
> Wyllie did. IBM only distributed it in their Personally Developed Software
> library. So the quest continues in search of a good program written by IBM
:-).
Do not jump to conclusions so fast! It happens that Jim Wyllie works at the
Almaden Research Center of IBM. The initial version of PE was written over a
Thanksgiving holiday. It was released inside IBM as ED and used and tested
quite heavily. Then it was released as Personal Editor in a pastel denim
binder (pdb). He then created PE II some time later which was sold through
Personally Developed Software. Actually 'Personally Developed Software' was
a euphemism for 'Developed by IBM employees in their spare time at home'. It
is unfortunate for everyone that the program has been discontinued. The good
news for PE is that I believe there has been a 'statement of intent' to
support some form of it under OS/2.
Mark Chance
mc35+ @ andrew.cmu.edu
Information Technology Center
Carnegie-Mellon / IBM
Michael Lodman
>Actually, IBM did not write the Personal Editor, a person by the name of Jim
>Wyllie did. IBM only distributed it in their Personally Developed Software
>library. So the quest continues is search of a good program written by IBM :-).
How about the utility program Disk Repair? It was much better for file
and sector manipulation of disks than anything then available that I used.
It still was better at editing things like directory entries than Norton
and may still be as I don't have a current copy.
--
Michael Lodman (619) 485-3335
Advanced Development NCR Corporation E&M San Diego
mike....@ivory.SanDiego.NCR.COM
{sdcsvax,cbatt,dcdwest,nosc.ARPA,ihnp4}!ncr-sd!ivory!lodman
Timothy L. Kay
>dar...@hpsrlc.UUCP writes:
>>ma...@bucsb.bu.edu.UUCP (Jim "Jack" Frost) writes:
>>> Now, let's talk about IBM software. Have you ever seen a really good
>>> software package made by IBM? I have not. Ever. Reviewers often
>>
>> Actually, a little-known program called "Personal Editor II"
>
>Wyllie did. IBM only distributed it in their Personally Developed Software
I have been wondering for a long time if anybody who works for IBM ever
wrote a good software package for IBM PCs.
I have actually seen one good PC software package written by IBM, but
it is labelled
IBM Internal Use Only
I guess they don't mind having good software for themselves, but God
forbid they should write good software for the world to use.
The search continues ...
Kevin Crocker
> Actually, a little-known program called "Personal Editor II"
> is one of the best low-cost editors I've seen. It's VERY fast, has a
> reconfigurable keyboard (even letters), has a simple macro language,
> can edit multiple files, can handle files larger than memory, etc.,
> etc.. I don't think they sell it any more, however. :-(
>
I just looked through an IBM document call The Directory (Personally
Developed Software for IBM Personal Computers direct from IBM) and on
page 44 under the Secion Productivity Family is a listing for the
Personal Editor II written by Jim Wylie the same as the original
Personal Editor. BEWARE: this booklet is a CANADIAN publication so it
may be different elsewhere. Price $74.99 Cdn PArt No. 6276560.
As an avid user of Personal Editor I am extremely happy to see this new
product. I cannot wait to get my copy!!
PERSONAL EDITOR II and PERSONAL EDITOR are quite likely copyright IBM.
disclaimer: I do not work for IBM and am just a happy customer or this
product.
alberta!auvax!kevinc (Kevin Crocker Athabasca University)
Do our employers have opinions or is that what we get paid for!
Timothy L. Kay
>and sector manipulation of disks than anything then available that I used.
>It still was better at editing things like directory entries than Norton
>and may still be as I don't have a current copy.
Funny you should mention Disk Repair. A friend had a bad disk, and nothing
would read it. We tried every utility. Then we decided to try Disk Repair,
eventhough we have never had a bit of luck with ANY package ever written
by an IBMer. To our surprise, the contents of the file appeared on the
screen! We were amazed. Then, we were even more amazed that there was no
option in Disk Repair to do anything with the data. We could see it but
we couldn't put it anywhere (like the other floppy drive). We couldn't
patch anything because some of the sectors on the floppy physically were
bad. So, we copied the data onto paper one sector at a time.
As others have, I challenge you to name just ONE decent piece of software
(available to the public) ever written by an IBM employee.
Michael Lodman
In article <35...@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu> t...@cit-vax.UUCP (Timothy L. Kay) writes:
>Funny you should mention Disk Repair. etc.
I had this same exact problem. My solution: use the grab feature of
Sidekick to copy the screen to a file. Recovered two papers while I was
at Caltech this way. Worked like a champ. I still think Disk Repair is
a great program.
--
Michael Lodman (619) 485-3335
Advanced Development NCR Corporation E&M San Diego
mike....@ivory.SanDiego.NCR.COM
{sdcsvax,cbatt,dcdwest,nosc.ARPA,ihnp4}!ncr-sd!ivory!lodman
When you die, if you've been very, very good, you'll go to ... Montana.
Tom Levin
>would read it. We tried every utility. Then we decided to try Disk Repair,
>eventhough we have never had a bit of luck with ANY package ever written
>by an IBMer. To our surprise, the contents of the file appeared on the
>screen! We were amazed. Then, we were even more amazed that there was no
>option in Disk Repair to do anything with the data. We could see it but
>we couldn't put it anywhere (like the other floppy drive). We couldn't
>patch anything because some of the sectors on the floppy physically were
>bad. So, we copied the data onto paper one sector at a time.
You could have saved yourself a lot of work by using one of the
many programs that can do screen capture. For example, SmartKey and
Memory Shift can both capture a text screen.
I guess this is kind of off the subject, huh? Well, to get back on it,
...no I haven't found any IBM software that was much good. But then, I
don't like their hardware either!
--
Tom Levin (The Robo-Programmer) {ihnp4|sdcrdcf|ttidca|scgvaxd|nrcvax|
1/2 man, 1/2 machine... jplpro|hoptoad |csun|quad1|bellcore|
all hacker! logico|rdlvax}!psivax!tommie
scor...@titan.uucp
the IBM financial modeling package IFPS on a 360 into Lotus files
on a PC?
Please reply through net mail as I don't read this newsgroup (I'm posting
for a friend).
Thanks in advance,
Vernon Lee
scor...@rice.edu
"Science, from its very beginning, has been surrounded by a halo of
pseudo science, which rises like steam from various half-educated heads..."
- Stanislaw Lem, _His Master's Voice_