Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!cornell!batcomputer!itsgw!steinmetz!daredevil!vita
From: vita@daredevil.steinmetz (Mark F. Vita)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: ZOOM Telephonics???
Message-ID: <11993@steinmetz.ge.com>
Date: 26 Aug 88 17:07:55 GMT
References: <20087@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> <46700056@uxf.cso.uiuc.edu>
Sender: news@steinmetz.ge.com
Reply-To: desdemona!vita@steinmetz.UUCP (Mark F. Vita)
Organization: General Electric CRD, Schenectady, NY
Lines: 29

In article <46700056@uxf.cso.uiuc.edu> thompson@uxf.cso.uiuc.edu writes:
>I paid (what did I pay? I haven't the foggiest).  I'd say it sounds allright
>to me (your offer that is).  But I'd probably keep a copy of Red Ryder
>around in case the software ain't what it's cracked up to be.

It ain't.  In fact, it's one of the worst pieces of Mac software I
have ever seen.  The menus have various online services "hard-wired"
into them (i.e., CompuServe, Dow Jones, The Source).  There is also a
"Terminal Mode" which I tried.  I found that I couldn't do much in
Terminal Mode, so I figured I'd just quit and chuck the thing.  Guess
what?  The "Quit" option was *greyed out*!!!  Can you say
"brain-damaged"?  I had to reboot. I can't imagine any possible
justification for disaling the "Quit" option.  My suggestion is to
reformat the disk that it came on so that you at least get a free disk
out of the deal.

No complaints about the modem, though.  We've tried it with both a Mac
and a VT100-clone, and it works great.  It's very compact and appears
to be quite well-constructed.  For $169, it's well worth the price
even without the cruddy software.  (Note that the package also comes
with a MS-DOS terminal program called Procomm, which I understand is
pretty decent.  Too bad they couldn't come up with a Mac program of
similar quality.)

----
Mark Vita                              ARPA: vita@ge-crd.ARPA
General Electric Company               UUCP: vita@desdemona.steinmetz.UUCP
Corporate R & D                              vita@desdemona.steinmetz.ge.com
Schenectady, NY                              desdemona!vita@steinmetz.UUCP