Re: To Endless Mike (or is that Clueless Mike???)

[dalloff@freenet.columbus.oh.us (Dave Althoff)]

Tom Zuchowski (71214.1670@CompuServe.COM) wrote:
: <<<Hardly, guess which computer I am typing this on, and which 
: computer is getting packed up ready to be returned to the store 
: because  of some hardware or software failure?  A day after I set 
: up my Compaq  Presario, Windoze '95 keeps forcing me to reboot the 
: system, then  eventually the computer doesn't even get to Windoze 
: 95, instead hanging  at the start up screen.  I call up Compaq 
: techinal support who try to  help ($35 worth of help charged to my 
: credit card, and in the end they  didn't even know what the hell 
: was wrong).  >>>

: While I understand your frustration, you surely must realize that 
: your new computer simply broke down.  Believe it or not, that 
: happened to brand-new Apple IIs and happens to Macs, even to this 
: day.  The VAST majority of computer failures occur in the first 90 
: days of use.  It's called "infant mortality" or something like 
: that.

Why is it that among all of the Apple ]['s I have installed (and I used to
spend my summers installing classrooms full of brand-new ][e's for a
unique and now-defunct community education program), NOT ONE was "dead on
arrival."  Sure, the ]['s have their problems...I remember sending
innumerable AppleColor Composite Monitors (those really nice color
monitors with the monochrome switch, that you don't see much anymore) out
to have fuses replaced.  But I can't remember a single machine that didn't
work "out of the box."  And I'm talking about 20 ][e's per
classroom...something like 500 machines.  Sure, we had early illnesses,
but 90% of the time it was broken (i.e. snapped off) keyswitches.  The
rest of the time it was always incorrect disk drive speed, or blown
monitor fuses.  The exception was the time that someone miswired a switch
and sent 277 volts into the AC outlets in a classroom.  There, we lost a
bunch of monitor and printer fuses, and one ][e power supply.

Incidentally, the fuses in both the Apple composite monitor and the
ImageWriter II are inside where you can't get to them without taking the
case apart.  Great going, Big Beige!

On the other hand, I've set up relatively few PC-type machines.  A couple
of AST's, and a couple of other machines, all of them ostensibly "ready to
go."  Every one of them was misconfigured, incorrectly assembled at the
factory or distributor, or simply dead on arrival.

I've set up only a couple of Macincrashes, and those sometimes have
problems.  But generally not dead hardware.  And not nearly the trouble
I've had with the 80n86 machines

Just my experiences...

--Dave Althoff, ][.
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