Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!caen!spool.mu.edu!cs.umn.edu!uc!apctrc!drd!mike
From: mike@drd.com (Mike Rovak)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.handhelds
Subject: Re: HP Customer Service and the Serial Kit SCAM
Summary: thumbs down
Keywords: unbelievable
Message-ID: <1991Jun28.140150.18799@drd.com>
Date: 28 Jun 91 14:01:50 GMT
Article-I.D.: drd.1991Jun28.140150.18799
References: <1991Jun25.182629.1803@njitgw.njit.edu>
Sender: Mike Rovak
Followup-To: comp.sys.handhelds
Distribution: usa
Organization: DRD Corporation
Lines: 68

In article <1991Jun25.182629.1803@njitgw.njit.edu> jfa0522@hertz.njit.edu
(john f andrews ece) writes:
>Well, well, well. I am indeed surprised, but, perhaps I was naive.
>Just called HP about the upgraded "serial Interface Kit". I am quite
>sure this has been discussed here, but did it make any difference???
>I paid $50 for a kit to enable me to connect my new $300 calculator to my 
>PC (a prime reason for upgrading to the 48) only to find it was nothing
>more than a cable and KERMIT????? 
>...stuff...
>Alas, they will, for an additional $30, give me the software *only* from
>the new-improved "programmers development link"... when I queeried the
>effluent salesman on the technical details, he informed me (in many, many
>words) that it allows you to do wonderful things you can't really do
>with the Serial Interface Kit, like execute programs on the HP from your 
>PC, send commands without the need for difficult escape characters, etc. In
>short, all the things the serial interface kit was supposed to do.
>
>So is this true... HP rips us off and stands in our faces admitting it, but
>with no intention to make things right? Geeesh.... HP is taking a serious
>dive in the PR department on this one. Who do they think buys a 48sx? I,
>for one, will unquestionably look at Casio/other brands now. Before I 
>never even bothered (I am a 15 year HP user). 
>
>Anybody had any luck with this? Anybody upgrade for $30? What did you get
>(in real words, not package descriptions!)
>
>-=one annoyed HP customer with a seriously tarnished opinion of HP

It's worse than you think.  I upgraded in January.  They debited my VISA
card in January and shipped in March.  A questionable business practice,
to say the least.  Very sloppy.  My feeling is that someone at HP who
knows nothing about it was given responsibility for overseeing the upgrade
project, and THEIR boss dropped the ball by not seeing to it that things
were done correctly.  I don't think that HP would do this deliberately,
they're too big and have too much to lose by just flaunting the law.

You will NEED a hard disk to run the upgrade with the help files.  I have
a Tandy double-floppy laptop (masochist), and I can run it (as well as
Borland's Turbo C++, by the way, regardless of what they say) WITHOUT
the help files online.  IMHO as a programmer, the upgrade COULD have
been easily written to operate on my floppy machine WITH the help online.
No compression techniques were used on the help text at all.  All they
had to do was split the file in two.

After using the upgrade, my own personal feeling is that the $50 serial
kit should have been the Program Development Link.  As it is, I prefer to
develop on the PC, where I can continuously scan all of my source at one
time, where using the PDL gives you at most source code for 2 variables
at a time.  And I find the rest of it, relative to my own needs (yours may
be different) to be MARKETING HYPE, which I despise.

But I suppose that's to be expected when the bean counters get control :-)
Don't bother flaming me, I think I got a right to be miffed, I paid the
price of admission.

But don't get me wrong.  I will continue to buy HP calculators, because IMHO
nobody can touch them.  I can't help it if the marketing department has gone
nuts.

(And besides, I said I was a masochist, didn't I?  :->

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