Bell Tech hardware ( was Re: unlimited vs. 1-2 users )

[Jack F. Vogel]

In article <192 at van-bc.UUCP> sl at van-bc.UUCP (Stuart Lynne) writes:
>In article <983 at fiver.UUCP> palowoda at fiver.UUCP (Bob Palowoda) writes:

[ exchange over the character of Dimitri deleted....]

>While Bell Tech apparantly did make subtle changes to the Everex controller
>card and drive addressing, it was so that their software could recognize
>when it was being used with a Bell Tech controller. This prevented people
>from buying the hardware from other sources and using Bell Tech's driver
>software (ie pirating the software). 
 
Huh?!? You seem to believe that this is somehow honorable or reasonable
practice. A way to keep people from "pirating" software??!! Quite the 
opposite I would say. What about the person like myself who had a tape
drive, then went out and bought Bell Tech Unix only to discover that the
tape device driver would not work. And add to that that the only reason it
would not work was because the device driver was designed to detect a
modification to the controller firmware and would not work otherwise. Yet,
Bell was only OEM'ing someone else's hardware. Now you ask, why would they
do this, because at a time when this tape drive could be purchased for
around $600 by resellers through regular channels Bell was charging well
over $1000 for "their" tape drive, the only difference being the firmware
that would assure "pirates" could only use their inflated priced hardware.

Give us a bloody break!! I think it is clear who the "pirates" really were.

Disclaimer: Naturally these "heated" opinions are mine alone.

-- 
Jack F. Vogel			jackv at seas.ucla.edu
AIX Technical Support	              - or -
Locus Computing Corp.		jackv at ifs.umich.edu