On Thursday 17 December 2009, R-Elists wrote: >as far as museum pieces go, i submit that my first was an Apple 2E if i >remember correctly.. > >BRUN BEERRUN > >was an interesting game, or something to that effect... ;-) > >...and (snore) i also programmed a helicopter to fly across the top and > drop a bomb on a "space invader" and go boom... > >wow huh? > >anyways, my FAVORITE was always the VAX !!! > >DEC VAX 11/785 to be more concise... although 11/780's and 11/750's and >microVAXes were fun to play, errr work with too... > The absolute, without a doubt, biggest POS I ever had to live with was an 11/23 that had more hdwe bugs than all issues of windows combined since DOS5.0. Dec field engineers changed every piece in that thing except the frame rail with the serial number and all they managed to do was convert a daily crash into an every 10 minute crash. When it started costing us money because we were selling tooth paste instead of dog food when a switch didn't get done, I blew up, and before I was off the phone, the head computer guy at CBS was packing up his test mule to send to me that he used to check stuff out with before sending it out to the affiliates. We got the legal dicks at DEC at accept that CBS and WDTV were trading seriel numbers so we still had a support contract. A contract which at the time I considered worthless, but at the time, the docs on that 11/23 were not for sale except possibly at gunpoint in the parking lot, so my hands were also rather effectively tied.
Hugo's machine worked flawlessly, but because the machine I sent Hugo was a genuine lemon, he could no longer fix other stations problems & CBS was forced into replacing the whole maryann at all affiliates with an industrial IBM, and an artic card. So Dec's ineptness at honoring a service contract at a single affiliate out in the WV mountains cost CBS at least $300K, and that, multiplied a few times no doubt contributed to the demise of DEC. Couldn't have happened to nicer folks. Field office was 30 miles away in Morgantown but they often didn't show up in the same week they were called. Funny thing, the the service contract said 4 hour response. They treated us like stray dogs AFAIAC. -- Cheers, Gene "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author) The NRA is offering FREE Associate memberships to anyone who wants them. <https://www.nrahq.org/nrabonus/accept-membership.asp> Ad astra per aspera. [To the stars by aspiration.]
