Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!chinacat!balkan!wrangler!bill
From: bill@wrangler.WLK.COM (Bill Kennedy)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ncr
Subject: Re: Vr2 to Vr3 upgrade, CAVEAT!!!
Summary: More current Doctor, it's starting to move...
Keywords: FPP Vr3 Vr2
Message-ID: <554@wrangler.WLK.COM>
Date: 15 Mar 91 18:15:52 GMT
References: <551@wrangler.WLK.COM>
Organization: W.L. Kennedy Jr. & Associates, Pipe Creek, TX
Lines: 55

In article <551@wrangler.WLK.COM>, I wrote:
> I have just been told something and while I would like to believe that
> it is incorrect, I'm told that it's the final and definitive answer.

[ I explain that I was told that in order for my 68881 floating point
  chip to work I need to buy a $2000 option card... ]

> Questions:  Yes, I'm upset, but I'll try and contain my upset to just
> the preface.  Please also note that my upset presupposes that Wyle and
> I have been told the truth.  I'm outraged and apalled that I'm sold a
> software upgrade with a pre-requisite hardware option that costs nearly
> three times as much.  I'm angry that I was not warned (I've read the
> RELDEF) that my FPP was going to stop working after I installed the new
> operating system without buying a $2000 hardware option.  I'm really
> miffed that I was given the royal run around only to end up $2000 away
> from something that I already had, WORKING!

[ I go on to complain loudly and to try to appear not to be flaming NCR
  or Wyle Labs, my distributor... ]

I included the paragraph above because that's really what I want to follow
up.  There is, however, progress being made and it turns out that Wyle and
I were misinformed.  The $2,000 option card is only required if you are
upgrading a PMC-III 16.67MHz processor to a PMC-IV 25MHz processor and you
need to keep your 68881 FPP running at 16.67MHz (which you must), it has
nothing to do with the problem I'm having.

Having read my article a couple of times I get the feeling that I'm
grunting pretty hard to spew out a flame while claiming to not be flaming.
I think that I was understandably upset but the tone was one of hissing
polite remarks through clenched teeth.  Please write that off to my being
_extremely_ frustrated by being helpless to get the problem solved.  The
problem still exists but there are people looking into it.  Further, I'm
of the opinion that the other day might have been the first time that
NCR/CODAR heard about it.  I could be wrong on that point but nobody seems
to have heard of it before, therefore my hunch that I had just rattled
around Wyle for six months.  I said that I felt that NCR deserved a fuel-air
weapon sized flame if they had indeed made some change in Vr3 that required
a $2,000 hardware upgrade and indeed they would deserve it, but they didn't
and don't.  I was misinformed.

I'm taking your time to read this because it's a point we should remember.
There are some white hats behind the ivy covered walls and a couple of them
have rushed to help me cut away the ivy and get to the bottom of the
problem.  That's the kind of "quiet" expertise that we have access to if
we can overcome the frustration and try to be rational about it.  Polite
would be better, but I managed to prove that it isn't required.  I nearly
came unhinged when I got the "bad news" and apologies to those that still
think my hinges came all the way off.  Many thanks to the folks inside NCR
and outside who have pitched in to help with this.  I will post a summary
when it's all settled so that someone else doesn't go galloping off into
a minefield that has my footprints in it.
-- 
Bill Kennedy  usenet      {att,cs.utexas.edu,pyramid!daver}!ssbn.wlk.com!bill
              internet    bill@ssbn.WLK.COM   or attmail!ssbn!bill