Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!know!sdd.hp.com!hplabs!hpcc05!hpcuhb!hpda!hpcupt1!pvallis From: pvallis@hpcupt1.cup.hp.com (Paul Vallis) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: "IMAGINE" .. a rip off? Message-ID: <-286609994@hpcupt1.cup.hp.com> Date: 12 Nov 90 21:15:48 GMT References: <730016@hpmwngf.HP.COM> Organization: Hewlett Packard, Cupertino Lines: 108 Mike writes... > I called Impulse regarding Imagine and update policies from Turbo > Silver. > I'm a bit pissed off. You must have been talking with the president of the company. Everytime I talk with him I have the same reaction. > They informed me that the upgrade period is almost over (the middle > or end of November). They also informed me that the upgrade cost > was $150. I paid LESS for Turbo Silver! THEN I'm told that Imagine > 1.0 is not ready, and that actually I'd be getting a .9xx version! I think that the window of opportunity that Impulse , Inc. has given REGISTERED owners of Turbo Silver to upgrade to Imagine is downright rude. Especially since they are asking T/S users to upgrade to Imagine SITE UNSEEN. > I simply can't imagine (no pun intended) PAYING $150 to be a gamma- > tester! (in fairness, 1.0 will eventually come as a free upgrade). This adds further salt to the wound! > "May I return the software if I'm not satified?" "No." Now, according to the letter I received (enclosed with Imagine), I CAN return Imagine if I'm not satisfied for a complete refund! > "Would you consider extending the 'upgrade' period past the release > date of 1.0 so that I might have a chance to evaluate it first?" > "No. Don't you have faith in us?" Yep! You MUST have been talking with the president! > I understand that .9xx doesn't have cast shadows, does not have > a sphere primitive, has WORSE requesters than Turbo Silver (It took > Silver users years to get impulse to make the improvements that > went into Turbo Silver... will we have to do this again!?!) I am a Turbo Silver owner. And, I can't stand it! I personally feel that it is a completely unusable product (even though I've seen many wonderful works created with it by some obviously VERY patient people with lots of time). I seriously considered paying twice the price to upgrade to a competitive product because I really felt that Impulse had sold me a piece of . I sent Impulse a sizzling nastygram about Turbo Silver and received a personal call from the president. After an hour long conversation with him, he convinced me that I should at least give Imagine a try. Soooooooo, reluctantly I wrote out the check for $150.00 (stomach churning) and sent it to Impulse. A few weeks later I got Imagine in the mail. Two disks, a letter and a half completed manual. The letter said that the disk with the yellow dot was the floating point version and the disk without the yellow dot was the integer version (which is what I need for my stock Amiga 2000/HD). I plopped my "integer" version in my machine and Wa-la! GURU! I called Impulse who explained that they made a mistake and sent me two floating point versions. They told me to send them the disk without the dot and they would replace it with the integer version. I did and they did. No reimbursement of postage, not even a letter of apology. But, I now have a working version (version .9) of Imagine. > Could a owner of Imagine .9xx please take a few moments to present > their views about the program? (strong and weak points), especially > in direct comparison to Turbo Silver. Many thanks in advance. Imagine is far from perfect. There are many things that still aren't all that intuitive... BUT ... When compared to Turbo Silver, Imagine is a godsend! It is much easier to use and much less frustrating than Turbo Silver. It's quite a bit easier to select individual points and it will eventually have a lot more features than Turbo Silver. You get quad view (three views plus perspective) which makes it MUCH easier to visualize what the heck you're doing. There are new ways of picking points (drag box and lasso). The requestors are indeed more complicated and the whole task of setting up an animation is a bit confusing at first, but overall, and I REALLY hate to admit this... I LIKE Imagine! My biggest complaint, so far is that you must set your stack size to 10,000 or Imagine will guru on you when you try to render your object. I have no complaint that Imagine needs 10000 bytes. Only that you must REMEMBER to set it ahead of time. I'm not a real hacker/programmer type but I can't "Imagine" (pun intended) that it would be too difficult for a program to look at its stack size as it starts up and present the user with an error message or warning. And, if it can do that, why can't it set reschedule itself with a larger stack size? If Imagine Version 1.0 comes out SOON (as promised), and if it is complete when it arrives, I'll be a happy camper. Would I recommend it? Wow, that's a tough one. As an upgrade to Turbo Silver, yes! As a standalone purchase, probably not. If I were to do it all again today, I'd lean toward the video toaster (hardware upgrades and all). Don't be upset about the $150 you'll spend to upgrade to Imagine; be REALLY pissed off about the money you ALREADY spent on Turbo Silver. We'll, that's my dollar ninety five's worth. Paul Vallis ----------