Axe to Grind

From: Jeff Kaneko <jeff.kaneko_at_ifrsys.com>
Date: Thu Jul 17 12:57:39 1997

Guys:

Thanks to everyone who submitted information on my *controller*
cards. I got pretty much everything I need to know on the -05 cards,
but the -TB1 is still a problem. WD implied over the phone that this
was custom made. OK. It is currently mounted in a Radio Shack
cabinet with a Tandon 15Mb drive. Any Ideas?

>
> > > > One is a WD-1000-05, one's a WD-1000-50, and a WD-1000-TB1. If
> > > > anyone has docs for these (or can tell me where to get them) I would
> > > > really appreciate it.
> > >
> > > The Emulex SCSI controllers (adapting to MFM, SMD, or ESDI drives) are also
> > ^^^^^^
> >
> > I have a *MAJOR* axe to grind with these guys, dating from way back,
> > BTW.
>
> Oh, really? Seeing as how the old Emulex was split up into little
> tiny companies and the new Emulex is almost entirely in the network
> business, I don't think you have anything to fear by telling your
> story :-)
>
> Tim.
>

OK, maybe it's not really *that* relevent to this forum, but I'll
relate the story anyway. In the early to mid 1980's, EMULEX
purchased Persyst, a manufacturer of PeeCee display adaptors.
Persyst (now EMULEX) made a pretty cool (for the time) 16-bit hi-rez
display adaptor for the PC-AT called the BoB-16. They named it that
because it represented the "Best of Both" the MDA and EGA adaptors in
use at the time (that, and it was 16-bit).

I bought one of these (cheaply, I'll admit) in 1988. I was gonna use
it with a Mitsubishi Multisynch monitor (Which was pretty cool in its
own right-- it could handle CGA, MDA, EGA, *and* composite video!).
I got the docs and the driver kit from EMULEX (they did that much).
So far so good.

But the Windoze driver was for ver. 1.00! Another call to Emulex,
and I was informed that "We don't make that board anymore, and we're
not going to support it under Windoze 2.0".

"Okay, that's cool, I understand how that goes. So, could you
please give me the source for the 1.0 driver, so I can modify it?"

"I'm sorry sir, but that's against company policy . . ."

After many weeks of wheedling, cajoling, begging, pleading, and
otherwise being a real pest, I gave up, swearing to Everything Holy
that I would NEVER under any conditions purchase anything from EMULEX
ever agin.

Of course were something like this happen today, I could broadcast
this on the Newsgroups or on a Web Page, and all of the bad press
would stomp the likes of EMULEX into submission.

End of Story. I still have the BoB-16 in a closet somewhere . . .


Jeff
Received on Thu Jul 17 1997 - 12:57:39 BST