Floppyshop 2/Floppyshop - 2.zip/Floppyshop - 2.iso/diskmags/5791-.end/dmg-6143/maggie.pc/data/tatpc.doc/tatpc.doc

Text File | 1997-02-20 | 10KB | 202 lines

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                     A Very Cautionary Tale!



It all started  well  enough.  Living  in  a  household  which has had
computers since 1983,  the  male  members  of  our  family  have had a
healthy contempt for the computer industry for at least 12 of those 13
years. The pressure of having to  buy  every  new format of machine is
one that we have been able  to  resist  quite easily; this was a trend
that started when we realised  that  "Chuckie  Egg 2" for the Spectrum
never lived up to the hype  that  had surrounded it. However, with the
ever-growing demands of PC programs  upon  my Dad's beleaguered 486SX,
it was time for a bit of a refit.


                A C T   O N E


The first stage was for a new  hard  disk. His old 80meg effort is not
exactly state-of-the-art any more: in fact  it  is sitting on the desk
beside me and the poor desk is groaning under its weight. Added to the
fact that it made a noise like  a pig being strangled and the addition
of a disk stacker made it even  slower than Windows '95 under DOS, and
we  were  pretty  much  agreed  on   putting  the  old  stalwart  into
retirement.

We took it to a specialist shop and  had it replaced with a new 540meg
"mother." This all went well  too:  muggins  here was dragged along as
"Technical Expert" to make sure we didn't get ripped off. The exchange
in the shop after refitting was quite interesting:


Dad: "So it's all OK now is it?"

Shop Expert: (in thick Oldham accent  at  100 miles an hour) "Oh yeah,
we adabitofaproblem wi't; BIOS, like,  because it couldn't 'andle more
na' 270meg in partitions so we  had  ta  transfer allt' files on to't'
network. Now wev' got yer old drive here, simply zeroed the bootsector
and taken it out. That's it really."

Dad (confused): "That all right then Steve?"

Steve: "Err, what, sorry, wasn't listening. Could you say that again?"

[Expert looks cross. Steve grins  in  satisfaction - I'd always wanted
to do that]


                A C T   T W O

The drive worked perfectly. Dad however was not satisfied, and at this
point many a reader will  grit  their  teeth:  he  wanted a CD-Rom and
ÇSoundBlaster. Now this PC has no  games  on  its  HD, nor is Dad a big
multimedia fan, or into the type  of  CD  that  CiH always seems to be
mentioned in connection with....

 Steve: "So why do you want this stuff then?"
   Dad: "Err, well... you know, for data and stuff"
 Steve: (frowns) "But you don't really need it, do you?"
        [Several questions follow]

Seasoned cynics will know  the  answer  already:  he'd seen a friend's
computer. "It played a tune and a picture of a jukebox comes up on the
screen  and   plays   it!"   he   beamed   enthusiastically.   Not  so
enthusiastically that he was willing to pay  300 pounds for the set in
the specialist shop though. It was time for a trip to.... PC World.

        PC World could easily be  renamed  PC  Hell.  It takes all the
possible enjoyment (not that there is  much)  out of owning a PC. This
is a corrugated iron/ plastic hangar  near Old Trafford in Manchester.
We resisted the inconsiderable  temptation  to greet/kill Steve Bruce,
who was in there making an  impromptu  guest appearance. As usually in
Manchester he was pounced upon by the store manager:

Manager: Hi! Steve! Great to see you! How are you?
Steve B: Err, well, like, the printer I bought won't work...
Manager: (suitably crest-fallen) ....

        The rest of the store  is  like  one  huge advert for Easy-PC,
apart from the lack of Dads picking  mice up and thrusting them at the
screen (they aren't _that_ stupid.)  We  made  two purchases: 170 quid
for a combined Quad-Speed CD-Rom  and  Soundcard,  and £1.98 for a new
printer ribbon for a  Star  LC-10.  There  are  no prizes for guessing
which one has been returned to PC World.



                A C T   T H R E E

[Scene:  the  dining  table,   sheets   of   newspaper  strewn  about,
screwdrivers  aplenty,  my  Dad  (somewhat  over-cautiously,  I  felt)
wearing his anti-static wristband at  all  times. The PC lies belly-up
on the table. Nervous glances and  deliberate surgery takes place, and
the PC's innards are strewn.]
        There are  cries  of  "Blimey,  what's  all  them  wires!" and
"There's no ruddy instructions!" but after an hour the CD-Rom Drive is
fitted into its slot, IDE cables  are attached, jumper leads set. It's
time to rock and roll!

        Or maybe not.

        The disk appears to have different  contents to what its label
states, but  after  running  the  installation  software,  trying  the
soundtest ("hurray!"), playing a normal music CD ("hurray! Bit crackly
though?") then rebooting, we attempt to  use  the CD games. After all,
that's what a PC's for, isn't it?
Ç        "Theme  Park"  works,   after   installing   itself  onto  the
harddrive. Yes, it copies files FROM  a  CD  TO a harddrive. Nice one.
However the pull of hearing the  sample  of a small child vomitting 30
times per minute begins to wane very quickly, so let's try....
        "FIFA '96" proudly states that it  requires 8 megs for the CD-
spooled commentary (by Tony Gubba!  or  was  it  Alan Parry?) to work.
Quite why this is so is still beyond me, but we'd installed 8megs soon
beforehand.
        Fifa '96 failed to work. So... next!
        Windows 3.1 also failed to work.
        Windows 3.1 failed to work after a cold reset.
        Windows 3.1 failed to work AT ALL.



                A C T    F O U R

[Scene: a bedroom. PC, with  guts  spilling,  set up beside telephone.
Yours truly rings helpline. They  must  know  what  to do. Yours truly
waits 2 hours after getting engaged tone many, many times. Suddenly, a
ringing at the other end.]

Telephone Man: hello blah blah blah help you?
Yours Truly:   er, yes, I have  a  [describes machine and problem.] My
main worry is that Windows won't  work.  When  I  remove a line from a
windows set up file  that  runs  a  device  driver  for  the CD drive,
everything's OK  but  no  CD  functions  are  available.  Do  you have
problems with Windows drivers?
TM: [long pause] Right, can you load up the CONFIG.SYS file?
YT: [does so, describes text within]
TM: [sounds  puzzled]  Are  you  sure  you  have  CONFIG.SYS  and  not
AUTOEXEC.BAT?
YT: Yes.
TM: [pause] Oh yes, I remember now! You're right.

        It was about this point that  I  had a sneaking suspicion that
this call would be no help. Despite my repeating hinting that it was a
problem with Windows and not  DOS,  Telephone Man repeatedly forced me
to delete and reinstall multiple DOS  setups  for  2 hours. In the end
his boss intervenes. I am fobbed  off  with using different IRQ values
or something, and told to "ring back if it doesn't work."


        A C T S   F I V E , S I X   A N D   S E V E N

        It doesn't work.
        We even get a replacement from PlastiC World, but to no avail.
(We can install a CD-Rom in 20 seconds flat though.) In the end, Pater
insists on  a  refund.  The  traditional  "You  could  try  this [more
expensive and unnecessary] model instead, sir!" falls on deaf ears.

        The morals of this story?
        Number one is  to  avoid  PCs  like  the  plague  if  you're a
hardware novice, or even someone with a reasonable to slight knowledge
Çlike myself. The task of ringing  up  a helpdesk in London, at premium
rate in the daytime, can only be  done  by  someone not at work, for a
start. In most  cases  a  novice  will  have  correctly  installed the
device/software already - helplines usually  can only help very simple
case (have you  ever  tried  to  read  out  CONFIG.SYS  over the phone
without laughing?)
        Also, please make your  manuals  better! Most device companies
are multinational and rely  on  dreadful  translations, blurred photos
and in this case a leaflet with diagrams completely different from the
device supplied! The "installation video"  promised  on the box failed
to materialize as well, surprise surprise.
        In contrast, the local  specialist  store  was excellent: they
knew the PC inside out, were prompt, knowledgeable and gave good value
for money. Small is beautiful...

        The rest of my morals are points  more directed to the PC than
the peripheral industry.  In  truth,  the  innards  of  a  PC  are not
particularly complicated at all,  although  you  wouldn't  think so at
first sight. What IS complicated is  the  software needed to cope with
all the possible add-ons and configurations. This is the great myth of
PC ownership, which is being perpetuated  for the usual reason: money.
The do-it-yourself  approach  necessary  for  decent  PC  ownership is
leading ever more to a have/have not situation, where the "haves" i.e.
those in the know, can bodge  their  own  machines to an efficient and
impressive specification,  while  the  rest  are  conned  into  buying
Windows '96 Plug'n'Play, or a  complete  new machine, because they are
scared of being left behind.
        But why complain? We are  Atari  owners, safe in the knowledge
that we have so few configurations and  add-ons that the fear of being
left behind is negligible. So maybe small, slow and reliable IS better
after all. But we knew that all along, didn't we?


Steve Tattersall, 1996