Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!know!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sdd.hp.com!hplabs!hpl-opus!hpnmdla!dan
From: dan@hpnmdla.HP.COM (Dan Pleasant)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc
Subject: Re: Another reason to use something other than FastBack II
Message-ID: <10250004@hpnmdla.HP.COM>
Date: 21 Sep 90 16:11:12 GMT
References: <26624@boulder.Colorado.EDU>
Organization: HP Network Measurements Div, Santa Rosa, CA
Lines: 51

>I've been playing telephone tag with the folks at Fifth Generation
>Systems support.  My question is simple.  I'm a FastBack II owner,
>and I want to know if a newer version of the program supports DEC's
>SCSI TK-50 tape drive (I no longer have a working Apple unit).  My
>problem: their message center refuses to take any message other than
>"so-and-so called with a question".  Since the University hasn't seen
>fit to give lowly graduate students phones in their offices, and I'm
>often in class, I'm not around when they call back.  Three times
>around this useless loop is too much.
>
>On the strength (or lack thereof) of their technical support message
>center, Fifth Generation Systems has convinced me that FastBack II is
>not a viable option for backing up my HD anymore.  I've heard of
>Retrospect, but what are the other options?  (You can bet I'll try
>their support procedures before I buy, too.)
>
>Richard
>johnsonr@spot.colorado.edu
  
----------

[Disclaimer in advance: I'm one of Fastback II's authors, but I don't work
for Fifth Generation Systems and I don't get royalties from sales of
Fastback II.]

Frankly, I don't see how you can blame FGS just because you don't have
a phone.  FGS *is* calling you back, right?  If you think it's so easy
to explain your problem to a secretary-receptionist type, then why not
explain it to your secretary (or whoever is answering your phone and
taking messages for you), who can then explain it to FGS tech support
when they call back?  In general, you can't expect most secretaries to
take technical messages and get them right, and I assume that's why
the FGS phone-answerer doesn't try.  Maybe you have a secretary who
can.

I know that CU is cheap (except where the football team is concerned)
-- I got my B.S. there.  But let's not flame well-intentioned,
hardworking tech support people just because you're going to an
underfunded university.

In answer to your original question, I must say that I'm not familiar
with the DEC TK-50, and you're the first person who has requested it
that I know of.  In fact, I won't even go so far as to say that the
TK-50 will work on the Mac *at all* -- does DEC use differential or
single-ended SCSI?  But if you have version 2.1 of Fastback II, and
the TK-50 doesn't work, then it won't work on version 2.5 (the latest)
either.

Flames to /dev/null, please.

Dan Pleasant