Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!lll-winken!uunet!microsoft!georgem
From: georgem@microsoft.UUCP (George Moore)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.tandy
Subject: Re: Tandy Printer + PC Compatible Query
Message-ID: <5511@microsoft.UUCP>
Date: 16 Apr 89 01:05:06 GMT
References: <1370@cunixc.cc.columbia.edu> <193300123@trsvax> <1419@csm9a.UUCP>
Reply-To: georgem@microsoft.UUCP (George Moore)
Organization: Microsoft Corp., Redmond WA
Lines: 38

In article <1419@csm9a.UUCP> japplega@csm9a.UUCP (Joe Applegate) writes:
>In article <193300123@trsvax>, reyn@trsvax.UUCP writes:
>> [... much deleted ...]
>> In a very real sense you've already won judging by the products 
>> Tandy is now selling.
>
> But I still have a computer that cost me over $2000 by the time I was 
> through, [...] and which has no upgrade path other than the garbage can...

I find it amusing that Mr. Applegate some how expects his 4 year old 
computer to be just as good as a machine you buy in the store today,
and if it isn't, then one should somehow magically be able to upgrade
it (for a nominal fee, of course.  Users don't expect upgrades for free
unless they are software ;-).

When this discussion was first started, Mr. Applegate was attempting
to tell everyone that Tandy's machines weren't any good and to stay
away from them.  After several people at Tandy posted articles
addressing each of his compatibility problems, which are fixed in the
current generation of machines, his argument degraded into a "b-b-but
what about *my* machine?"  Tell me, if you purchased a 1984 Porsche 944,
would you expect to somehow upgrade this into a 1989 Turbo-944?  Of
course not.  Besides the differences in engines, there are hundreds 
of enhancements elsewhere in the body.  You would wind up paying far
more than the cost of a new 1989 Turbo-944 to upgrade your 1984 944.
Computers go through evolutionary changes just like any other product.
One doesn't expect any manufacturer to get *any* product right on the 
first try.  Or even on the second try sometimes.

Please don't turn this into a "computer users need free upgrades" vs.
"computer users have to pay for upgrades" flame-fest.


-George Moore	(georgem@microsoft.com.UUCP)

[As usual, these ramblings are my own and not of my employer who probably
 wouldn't even know I worked here except that I often show up in tank-tops
 and bicycling shorts just to piss off the vendors in the front lobby...]