Re: Hacker FAQ (please comment and help fix)

Article: 7718 of alt.hackers
From: wsantee@cyberspace.com (Wes Santee)
Newsgroups: alt.hackers
Subject: Re: Hacker FAQ (please comment and help fix)
Date: 26 Apr 1995 19:19:35 -0700
Organization: C y b e r S p a c e  (206) 505-5577
Lines: 40
Approved: You're getting warmer!
Message-ID: 3nmuvn$70@case.cyberspace.com
NNTP-Posting-Host: case.cyberspace.com
Status: RO

Alistair James Robert Young sez:
>
>In article <grobsonD7KE78.2vD@netcom.com> grobson@netcom.com
(Gary D. Robson) writes:
>
>   You're missing the point.  It would have cost IBM a quarter to throw
in a
>   5-1/4" boot disk, and it would have cost them *nothing* to
provide a
>   method for making a 5-1/4" boot disk, both of which would
have allowed
>   the installation to occur.  I don't care if I have to *use* 3-1/2"
>
>Well, OK, it wouldn't cost much. But I can see their point of view -
>OS/2 works (in real terms, not officially) on 486/25s with at least
>8Mb RAM. It runs on lesser machines, but slowly enough that I wouldn't

Neither of you have ever worked in tech support, have you? :) The cost
of packaging and shipping a peice of software pales in comparison to
the cost of supporting it.  Even providing what seems to be a "free"
method of generating 5.25's from the 3.5" boot disks would probably
generate enough calls from super idiots to make it more hassle than it
is worth (remember, for the most part the net community is the
*exception*, not the norm).  There are a lot of seemingly benign
changes that can be made to a package that will have grave
consequences during the support cycle.  I remember jumping for joy
when it was announced that the product I was supporting wouldn't be
available in 720K format anymore...

ObThinkingAboutItHack:

My local provider provides static IP and hostnames, but doesn't
provide local newfeeds right now.  I'm too used to reading news on a
local spool and not over NNTP so I figure I might write a program to
pull my spool via standard NNTP and sort them out into a local-spool
directory heirarchy.  Has something like this already been done for
UNIX boxes?  Please don't say UUCP... :)

Cheers,
--
( -Wes Santee            | And the sun is the same in a relative way )
( wsantee@cyberspace.com |  but you're older                         )
( O S / 2  W A R P       | Shorter of breath                         )
( F r e e B S D          |  And one day closer to death --Pink Floyd )

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