Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!sdd.hp.com!wuarchive!uunet!cbmvax!bj From: bj@cbmvax.commodore.com (Brian Jackson) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.misc Subject: Re: Anyone using prodigy with an AMIGA? (long) Message-ID: <21407@cbmvax.commodore.com> Date: 8 May 91 21:00:45 GMT References: <1991May02.160135.20734@convex.com> <1991May5.205134.665@bilver.uucp> <1991May7.001840.8440@bilver.uucp> <62040@masscomp.westford.ccur.com> Reply-To: bj@cbmvax.commodore.com (Brian Jackson) Distribution: na Organization: Commodore, West Chester, PA Lines: 44 In article <62040@masscomp.westford.ccur.com> mark@calvin.westford.ccur.com (Mark Thompson) writes: >In articles too numerous to enumerate many paranoid people carry on about >Prodigy's software... >> ... >I have not been following this thread so I am sorry if this is old news >but here is some info on Prodigy and the STAGE.DAT file that seems to >indicate that the above arguments about MS-DOG being at fault are incorrect. >Read on if you are interested. I think this is called "beating a dead Prodigy". The _entire_ thread about this can be read in comp.dcom. Most of the (excessively) paranoid messages are being posted out of context and with pertinent information omitted. A. Think about this for a second. Do you *really* think that both IBM and Sears would *really* believe that they could do such a thing and never be found out? Do you *really* think that they would be blind to the deadly PR value of having this 'discovered'? I think not. B. You can't run Prodigy on the Amiga (unless you have a BridgeBoard) so, aside from the "urban folklore" aspect of all this, who cares? I expect to see this story in next weeks National Enquirer, right under the "Alien gives birth to Elvis' baby" story. Sheesh. Commercial computer services like GEnie. Prodigy, Compuserve, BIX, etc. have a LOT of $$$ invested and they all have a lot of competition. So they can ill afford to have such horrendous PR headaches which can send users scurrying to the competition (and Prodigy learned this first hand when their censorship flap (combined with a coincidentally timed change/drop in GEnie prices) caused quite a few Prodigy folks to switch to GEnie.) I will be most surprised if, when someone without an axe to grind actually runs a test of this stuff, it is found that Prodigy is/was really doing what this all suggests. Brian ----------------------------------------------------------------------- | Brian Jackson Software Engineer, Commodore-Amiga Inc. GEnie: B.J. | | bj@cbmvax.cbm.commodore.com or ...{uunet|rutgers}!cbmvax!bj | | "does logic really go hand-in-hand with computer-literacy??" | -----------------------------------------------------------------------