Using UNIX to control experiments with a 386 box

[Wm E Davidsen Jr]

In article <33152 at beta.lanl.gov>, tss at beta.lanl.gov (Timothy S Sullivan) writes:
|  card. That they coudn't guarentee it would work is not surprising
|  considering the large number of boards out there. But they also
|  wouldn't let me have a no-risk trial. I can't afford anything like
|  $1600 without assurances that it will even run. Can anyone explain why
|  this is a sensible policy?  Seems to me that they would want to know
|  of additional systems that the software would work with?  (ISC said no
|  problem for 386/ix, but I didn't get the impression that the person I
|  talked to thought about it very much and the hardware is not on their
|  386/ix compatible devices list I got from VenturCom. Has anyone used
|  either of these boards with 386/ix?)

  Consider it from their point of view. Once you get the software they
have no way of knowing if you will keep a copy of the disks or not. You
could make the copies and return the product, buy a cheap set of SysV
manuals to go with photocopies of the changes in their manual...

  In general companies will do something like that for a large company
byt not an individual. There is less chance of theft and more chance of
a big order with the big company.

  I'm not defending it, you wanted to know why it was a sensible policy,
and I gave you my opinion.
-- 
bill davidsen	(davidsen at crdos1.crd.GE.COM -or- uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen)
"The world is filled with fools. They blindly follow their so-called
'reason' in the face of the church and common sense. Any fool can see
that the world is flat!" - anon