Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!usc!ucsd!helios.ee.lbl.gov!pasteur!ucbvax!van-bc!
From: lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: re: C-Ltd
Message-ID: <1032@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca>
Date: 13 Jan 90 21:32:49 GMT
Lines: 70
Return-Path: <lpami!lphillips>
To: van-bc!rnews

In <90014.125436JKT100@PSUVM.BITNET>, JKT100@PSUVM.BITNET (JKT) writes:
>In article <1007@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca>, lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry
>Phillips) says:
>>C Ltd., in my opinion, was not a good company to do business with even
>>when they were CardCo, producing half-baked peripherals for the C64.
>>They were not a good company to do business with when they were C Ltd.,
>>producing half-baked peripherals for the Amiga.
>
>I, for one, was very satisfied with CardCo products - They were well
>designed, nicely priced, and had long lifetimes.  Does this sound like
>a company that still exists now?  Yes:  SUPRA.  Cardco was bought out
>by Supra, not C. Ltd.  I purchased CardCo products, was satified
>(my CardCo printer interface for my 64 is still working), and I will
>buy Supra prodcuts in the future.

Perhaps Supra bought the assets of CardCo when they went under. I can assure
you that the principal mover in C Ltd. came out of the ashes of CardCo and
started C Ltd. I have the utmost respect for Supra. I have zero respect for the
person who treated every customer like yet another sucker, when he was CardCo,
C Ltd. and Linden Labs doing business as C Ltd. Supra supports their customers;
from my personal experience and that of close friends, CardCo, C Ltd, and
Linden Labs dba C Ltd. did not. Perhaps 'half-baked' was too strong a term for
cardCo products. They were more like 'nearly there', and trying to penetrate
the wall of technical doubletalk bullshit with CardCo was an excercise in
futility. I ended up peddling off the CardCo interface to someone who didn't
need to have it work as advertised.

I stand by what I said about C Ltd. and their half-baked products. Disk
enclosures without fans that caused extreme overheating; the same enclosures
with fans, said fans being mounted on a piece of aluminum hacked to shape with
a pair of tinsnips and hot-melt-glued in place; plastic drill shavings all over
the inside of the enclosure; a power supply that was almost adequate for the
job, placed where it could block the most airflow with its non-component side.
Sickening.

This is not to mention their promises broken, and outright lies proferred when
asked about ship dates missed by weeks and months; the promise that an OMTI
controller 'definitely worked', only to be finally forced to admit that "well,
we are working on it", after months of time, trouble, and expense trying to
figure out the problem; their constant technobabble about the inherent
superiority of programmed I/O over DMA, latching onto a single bug in one other
manufacturer's controller to 'prove' their point; their promise to ship a
'TimeSaver' to anyone who could come up with the solution to a problem, said
solution being forthcoming, used by them, but with no appearance of the
TimeSaver to the person supplying the solution.

That's just their customers. They also were instrumental in the demise of
SoftCircuits, having paid a programmer to steal work already done by the
programmer, and owned by SoftCircuits, then refusing to pay SoftCircuits for
the work. Interestingly, they didn't bother to pay the programmer either, and
he is trying to sue them.

Another friend of mine said it very well. He works for a company that bought
quite a few C Ltd. products. He said that though they are now left with a
number of orphaned cards, the strongest emotion they can muster at the demise
of C Ltd. is one of relief.

Before I step down off my soapbox, let me say again that I have the utmost
respect for Supra, and in no way wish to malign them or their products, of
which I own at least one.

-larry

--
"Cavett Emptor - Let the talk show host beware!" - Evan Marcus
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ 
|   //   Larry Phillips                                                 |
| \X/    lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca -or- uunet!van-bc!lpami!lphillips |
|        COMPUSERVE: 76703,4322  -or-  76703.4322@compuserve.com        |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+