Xref: utzoo comp.binaries.ibm.pc:1004 comp.sys.ibm.pc:14760
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!steinmetz!davidsen
From: davidsen@steinmetz.ge.com (William E. Davidsen Jr)
Newsgroups: comp.binaries.ibm.pc,comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: ZCOMM is very buggy
Message-ID: <10534@steinmetz.ge.com>
Date: 22 Apr 88 15:11:43 GMT
References: <2598@pasteur.Berkeley.Edu>
Reply-To: davidsen@crdos1.UUCP (bill davidsen)
Distribution: na
Organization: General Electric CRD, Schenectady, NY
Lines: 45

In article <2598@pasteur.Berkeley.Edu> iverson@cory.Berkeley.EDU.UUCP (Tim Iverson) writes:
| 
| After reading the docs on ZCOMM, I thought that it looked liked a very
| promising program - not so.  Most of the time it doesn't even run (immediate
| hang on startup).  The times it does run, it hangs as soon as I try to
| connect (hang=time to *cold* boot).  Has anyone got this to run on your TRUE
| BLUE AT?  It sure doesn't work on mine.  For those of you who are wondering,

  Works on an XT and AT, at least three brands of clones, a 386 clone,
and seems to work on a PS/2 (at least it the user hasn't complained).

| [...]
| Now, about the "documentation": whoever wrote this seems to have a very
| large chip on his shoulder - the tone is defensive in the extreme and the
| poor organization just about renders the entire 150k manual useless.  The

  The organization is very bad, I agree, but the data is there, and in
painstaking detail. The program is so complex I doubt that you are ever
going to get all the detail into one of those six page flyers that pass
for documentation these days.

| [...]
| Enough zcomm bashing (what should I expect from shareware, right :-).
| However, judging from the other programs Chuck has posted, I was considerably
| surprised at the lack of functionality of the program.  Since Chuck didn't
| post it himself, I'm wondering if this isn't a pre-release or if some other
| mistake has been made.  If not, well, it has just about assured that I will
| never buy any product from Omen Technology.

  I doubt that Chuck will care, as long as you don't use it without
paying for it. I admit that I decided zcomm was too much trouble for
what I wanted, but I would consider using it if I needed to present a
friendly menu to a user who objected to typing in baud rates, etc, and
phone numbers, and login sequences... ie. the person who uses a computer
because s/he must, and gets no joy from it.

  I get the impression that this is another "I can't make it work so the
software is bad" postings, but perhaps you got a bad copy or something.
I feel that zcomm is a fine product for a technical person to configure,
and a lazy person (aren't we all) to use. It saves a lot of time and
seems reliable on all of the machines on which I tried it. I didn't continue to use it for personal preference, not because of technical problems.
-- 
	bill davidsen		(wedu@ge-crd.arpa)
  {uunet | philabs | seismo}!steinmetz!crdos1!davidsen
"Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -me