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From: stephenk@netcom.com (Stephen Knilans)
Subject: Re: Why to not buy Matrox Millennium
Message-ID: <stephenkDq62u3.7En@netcom.com>
Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest)
References: <3176AFE0.28146F7@lambert.org> <stephenkDq3B99.FDq@netcom.com> <31785BB6.99F81FD@lambert.org>
Date: Sat, 20 Apr 1996 15:25:15 GMT
Lines: 203
Sender: stephenk@netcom.netcom.com
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In article <31785BB6.99F81FD@lambert.org> Terry Lambert <terry@lambert.org> writes:
>Stephen Knilans wrote:
>
>
>
>
>"People pay for a FASTER system, not one that STRICTLY ADHERES to
> your bogus definition of what is or is not a VGA card!
>
Actually, FASTER DOES imply that it WORKS! If it is the fastest card on the
planet, yet can't run your application, it isn't very fast afterall, now
is it?
>[ ... predicted response:
> 'PEOPLE pay FOR a FASTER system THEY can USE!'
> ... ]
>
>Preemptive strike: Like one that comes with binary drivers
>derived from proprietary documentation, or Matrox would not
>be in business today. And they are in business, no matter
>how much that fact twists your nipples.
What an odd way of stating things. Yeah, and people actually bought YUGOS!
SO? Gee, I wish every company that was bad went bankrupt! THEN, we wouldn't
have such problems.
BTW it does NOT come with drivers for BSD, LINUX, windows 97, dos 8, and perhaps
not even for SCO!
>
>
>If you assume something, and then spend money on the basis
>of your assumption, and your assumption was wrong in the
>first place ("VGA means a generic driver will make the card
>run", etc.), then you will suffer.
>
>Eventually you will learn not to make stupid assumptions.
COME ON! YOU make assumptions! Do you know how I know? If you DIDN'T, you
wouldn't even have a computer to use! Do you assume that a PC compatible
computer runs PC software? Do you assume a pentium 100 is compatible with
a pentium 90?
Well, I USED to assume that all tape recorders could rewind, but found they
DON'T! I USED to assume similar things because of past experience. Should
I REALL have to ask the salesperson "Is this register compatible with VGA?",
or similar questions? I'll tell you, MOST salespeople don't even understand
the questions, and MANY lie!
I couldn't even get a person at a number listed in an IBM ad to answer questions
about a particular card listed there(The ONLY item in the AD!)! To answer a
SIMPLE question about an ADVERTISED attribute! I LATER found out that that
was all HYPE! The card couldn't display 132 column, unless you used a driver
which hadn't even been written yet. That driver was to use graphics mode!
In OTHER words, they were advertising that their card could do something
no other card could do(although ALL could), using a driver that they hadn't
even written! NOW, should I have assumed? Luckily, I had ALREADY found that
80% of people asked about this particular feature LIE! Why should I have
expected more from IBM?
>Failing that, one day you will assume one assumption too
>many, run out of money for food, die, and average human
>intelligence will go up. And the ghost of Charles Darwin
>will dance on your grave, for the species will have been
>affected by an evolutionary pressure.
>
>The same as if you made the "simple assumption" that "foam
>peanuts are food".
Actually, with something that simple it wouldn't have a problem if I was
born yesterday.
I once tried to write a book concerning all the HYPE in the computer industry,
and questions that needed answers to determine usefulness, quality, etc...
The list of questions would have been LONG(so I abandoned that idea!). Most
salespeople don't know the answers ANYWAY! The book was about 30 pages long,
and today would be 4 times as long! Even ISDN is hyped up. MANY think it
is 128Kbps, when it is REALLY 64Kbps per channel which SHOULD have the
capability to produce one virtual 128Kbps link. SOME, however, can't do that!
Just the list of assumptions(based on general industry hype) on ISDN could
fill a few pages!
People consider computers complicated enough without all the extra garbage.
As computers get bigger, faster, the older questions will become more
important. Why add thousands more to the list?
>] If you grind that phillips head down to where it looks like
>] a flat blade, I GUARANTEE it will work! Likewise, if the
>] registers are the same and do the same, then similar code
>] will work the same!
>]
>] Of COURSE a phillips won't work with a flat blade screw,
>] BECAUSE THEY ARE DIFFERENT!
>
>"Of COURSE a Matrox won't render 3D objects FOR you if you
> DON'T call the 3D object RENDERING API"...
>
>"Of COURSE your VGA card does NOT support a STANDARD 3D object
> rendering API, or you WOULDN'T need a Matrox CARD!"...
Who is talking about 3D rendering? I wasn't.
>
>
>] >Works fine as a standard VGA card, as long as I only select modes
>] >supported by VGA using the mode select interface (INT 10) supported
>] >by VGA, and draw to memory (which is mapped where VGA requires it).
>]
>] Frankly, you are only about the second to say this. People
>] have stated that they COULDN'T get it to work with XFREE!
>
>"Well, SOME people are more EQUAL than OTHERS"...
>
>] ALSO, diamond made this SAME claim! Guess what folks? My
>] Diamond VGA card did NOT work in ANY mode until I had
>] the drivers installed. I ACTUALLY had to install them BLIND!
>
>"PROBABLY had NOTHING to do with the FACT that XFree86 on
> FreeBSD AND Linux doesn't USE INT 10 VM86() calls to SELECT
> video modes because THEY don;t SUPPORT VM96() sufficiently"...
Linux supports VM86 well enough to run DOS programs WITH DPMI! It also uses
the cards BIOS! That is better than SCO ODT 2.0 could ever do!
XFREE probably doesn't use this because it is NOT standard, and slows things
down!
>And now they release drivers on their web site, and still don't
>use table lookups, so bowing to pressure from the likes of you
>has destroyed their ability to change PAL's and BIOS to allow
>them to add capabilities to their cards without redesigning
>them. The reason for the proprietary interface on Diamond,
>as any idiot *should* know, is that the only way to latch
>good input values on their clock chip input was to give their
>PAL appropriate inputs, since it's the PAL output that latches
>the values. And the PAL inputs were looked up from a table
>in their BIOS when you made an INT 10 mode select call, and
>their EE programmer stupidly didn't make their table a standard
>format or location, so protected mode drivers could find it
>and latch the right PAL inputs. *DUH*... the hazards of the
>wrong person for the job.
Let me get this straight. You are saying that one guy made a mistake that made
their card incompatible with all others, and they deicded to NEVER change their
card because it would be yet another card to provide info/drivers for? Further,
APPLE had the SAME exact problem with their APPLE II series! To save a few
cents, the first apple had a "super 7" line interlace format. Everyone got
tired of this by the time the GS was about to be introduced, so the GS had BOTH
the S& AND the traditional serial layout. Granted, it was more work and a
higher cost, but THEY, as MANY, did it! Diamond could have easily done the
same. Heck, intel had pentiums that had FDIV bugs, and they FIXED them
(though some software relying on them may fail).
>
>
>
>It's only going to make you look too stupid to figure out
>the causal loop that caused the policy to come into existance
>in the first place.
>
>"I'd BETTER look for my CONTACT lens here UNDER the street
> lamp because THE light is better than OVER there where I
> actually LOST the thing"...
>
>
>[ ... the "saga of the printer" and why "HP doesn't stand for
> 'Low Priced'" ... ]
Who cared about price? To tell you the truth, my boss was willing to pay
MUCH more. However, he would have paid twice as much to get it NOW, rather
than wait a few weeks. It would have taken weeks to use it with that NDA,
etc...
>
>Look, I'm sorry you foolishly believed a salesman over printed
>specifications, and it cost you 7.1% of what you already paid
>to learn the lesson that you should believe only printed
>specifications, and that you should interpret them literally
>(I hope that is the lesson you learned).
>
>Small price to pay for such a valuable lesson, in my opinion.
>
>
Gee, all these insults, and then you indicate you never even read this part!
The specs were REAL, I saw the printer do the things. In FACT, the important
specs were printed all over the HP box! Had we been misled there, we would
have simply disputed the charges, etc... What I said was that THEY, like
matrox, considered their command set proprietary! They wanted an NDA and
$99 for a manual. That was AFTER I told them that it simply was NOT
possible to use wordperfect(with window drivers) for a program that could
run on about 200+ platforms.
They FINALLY decided to give me 7 books for FREE, of which only two came CLOSE
to what I requested. They were enough, however, to get the printer to work
right.
My real disgust with that is that it is the FIRST printer I EVER bought that
came with NO instructions on how to USE it. Had they done this from day one,
they would probably have gone bankrupt.