25 Jun
2002
25 Jun
'02
4:01 p.m.
see below, plz.
Dick
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tony Duell" <ard(a)p850ug1.demon.co.uk>
To: <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Tuesday, June 25, 2002 4:14 PM
Subject: Re: [OT] Waddizzit??
> Tandy & others did this as well... My CoCos
always had one screw taped
over
> with a tamper seal - if it was punched, they
wouldn't warranty it.
Granted,
Many of those Tandy seals could be peeled off in one piece and stuck back
later :-). And several manufacturers used generic seals (they were
intended to be initialed by somebody at the manufacturers, but generally
weren't) which you could buy anyway. Not that I ever did either of these
things ....
My own solution to this is simply not to bother with hardware that comes with
a warranty beyond the first few weeks. Warranties are, IMHO, just a
substitute for thorough testing. I've gotten defective boards from nearly
every major manufacturer, and, seal or not, warranty or not, if they arrive
dead or nearly so, they go back, if there is a "back" else they're bought at
a
price that is warranted by the lack of guarantee.
What interests me, however, is how you convince a merchant you didn't damage
the innards of his product. If he's determined to prevent you from claiming a
warranty replacement, I don't see much that you can do.
it didn't take long for the 90-day warranties
to expire, and when I was
more experienced with computers I knew I could fix anything necessary
inside one of my machines, so I didn't care... (just like my Tivo - The
Me too..... I just ignore the seals and dive in. If I break something
then I take full responsibilty for it. On the other hand, if there's a
defective part in there, then the shop who sold me the machine _is_
required to give me a refund whether I've broken the seal or not.
Provided, of course, I can prove I didn't do any damage.
As others have pointed out, the CoCo, C128, etc were not intended to be
taken apart by a general user. You could do all the expansion the
manufacturer intended by plugging things into external connectors.
But people do expect to be able to add expansion cards to their PC, fit a
larger hard drive, and so on. So the seal, while possibly justified,
might be bad marketing.