Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!fernwood!hercules!gilham From: gilham@csl.sri.com (Fred Gilham) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: Amigas -- why the 90 day warranty? Message-ID: Date: 1 Nov 89 17:36:22 GMT References: <1989Oct15.021329.2118@ddsw1.MCS.COM> <23196@cup.portal.com> <1989Oct24.193454.23743@ddsw1.MCS.COM> <72137@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> <1989Oct31.180252.7798@ddsw1.MCS.COM> Sender: usenet@csl.sri.com Distribution: na Organization: Computer Science Lab, SRI International, Menlo Park, CA. Lines: 38 My own opinion about my A1000, which I've had since Nov. of 1985, is that it is a reliable, well-built computer. The only problem I've had with it in these 4 years is that the internal disk drive stopped reading reliably and I had to replace it. For the last 3 years or so I have had an external disk drive, and for about 2 years I have been running it with an internal memory board. Other than the disk drive I have had no problems. I have used it a lot, both for programming while I was a student, and for my own amusement. I leave it on most of the time. As far as the keyboard is concerned, I like it. It may not be constructed as heavily as the sun keyboard I am typing on now, but it has good feel (not mushy) and the keys are generally in the right place. It is more sensitive than the sun keyboard. I think the sun keyboard is ruining my fingers because I have to press so hard on the keys. For a long time I had my color monitor on top of the case, and I did notice flexing, but it didn't cause any problems. It seems like the A500 may not be as reliable as the A1000, from reports on the net. My own practice, when I buy any new piece of electronic equipment, is to try to break it within the first 90 days. I turn it on and off a lot, and leave it on a lot. If it doesn't malfunction then, it probably won't for a long time. After this period, I try to leave the equipment on as much as possible, to avoid thermal cycling and power surges. I never buy "extended warrantees", since most electronic devices break early or late in their lives. I think a 1 year warrantee on your computer is kind of like an IBM nameplate on your computer; you pay for it but it doesn't get you much. My own experience has born this out; I have never had any electronic device break on me after the warrantee expired (except the aforementioned disk drive), though at least once (with a commodore 64) I had to return something within the warrantee period. -Fred Gilham gilham@csl.sri.com