24 Jan
2007
24 Jan
'07
9:19 p.m.
On 24 Jan 2007 at 14:27, William Donzelli wrote:
When was this? Did you ever order modems online, using
the USR BBS? I
wrote the front end to that thing, although Jack Rubin does not
remember it. I was a youngun at the time, so I take no responsibility
if the front end sucked.
Late 80's, early 90's.
No, I can't say that I ever used the BBS to order anything. When it
comes to spending money, I still prefer using the telephone where
possible--unless there's a multi-level menu on the answering end,
particularly a voice-activated one. I've been known to scream at
those.
So you mean SRAM or EPROM? For a while some of the
higher end stuff
had an EPROM supply problem. The modems used 32020 DSPs, with a big
WaferScale Integration EPROM. WSI ran into production problems and
could not supply the parts very well, so USR had to make a piggyback
dual chip kludge using smaller WSI EPROMs. Perhaps with the upgrade
they wanted the proper, bigger EPROM back, to be reused.
No, I mean SRAM (62xx type) for the external Couriers that used the
80188. I recall sending back the EPROM (I figured that was important
because it contained USR software) but got a letter demanding the
SRAM back also. My reaction was "Why? You're not really going to
put a pull in a new product are you?" Very very strange.
Later, I upgraded some of the older Couriers to the V.Everythings and
called to ask what the heck USR was going to do with an old HST
return as part of the upgrade deal. The response was "Oh, we don't
really want them back. Fuggedaboudit."
I stuck with external Couriers for the entire time I was a sysop. I
didn't trust internal modems and my experience with the Sportster
taught me that the extra money for the Courier was worth it.
Sigh. Those were the days.
Cheers,
Chuck