Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!pyrdc!grebyn!ckp From: ckp@grebyn.com (Checkpoint Technologies) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy Subject: Re: Why are Amigaoids hell bent on proving the Amiga is better ? Message-ID: <1991Jun29.005127.17803@grebyn.com> Date: 29 Jun 91 00:51:27 GMT References: <1991Jun27.170049.21231@grebyn.com> Organization: Grebyn Timesharing Lines: 39 In article greg@pfloyd.lonestar.org (Greg Harp) writes: >In article <1991Jun27.170049.21231@grebyn.com> ckp@grebyn.com (Checkpoint Technologies) writes: >> Here's the thing: Game machines require only medium >>reliability. If a game machine crashes, you lose what? Your best high >>score? If your business computer crashes, you may lose untold $$ worth >>of data. So you guard it with things like, oh, parity RAM, so that > ^^^^^^ ^^^ >>you are assured that incorrect answers are not propogated. And you >>choose a vendor that has a reputation for reliability. > >I have always had a bit of a beef with this one. What the *hell* kind of >good does 1 parity bit do you? It does exactly one bit more good than no bits. :-) > Ok, so you know the memory is screwed. >Just what are you going to do about it? Hmmm? Fix it? Sorry... Yes, fix it. But at least, don't bet your portfolio on the answers you got just before your machine printed "MEMORY PARITY ERROR" and crashed. What do you do now when your machine has a bad memory bit? Nothing, 'cause you may not know it happened. >PC clones are _not_ known for reliability in any way, shape, or form, >BTW. I know that. I work with enough of them myself. I think customer perception is the main thing. It's not whether or not it's REALLY reliable, but whether the customer BELIEVES it's reliable. I think the Amiga should be verbose about it's startup self tests. Sure there are the screen colors, but some text that exclaims: "Testing CPU...Custom Chips...Chip RAM...Expansion devices...OK" would give me a warm fuzzy feeling, even if I didn't know what chip RAM was. (Commodore: consider this a request for KS 2.1, OK?) -- Richard Krehbiel, private citizen ckp@grebyn.com (Who needs a fancy .signature?)