Int 13h buffer 64k boundaries

[Chuck Guzis]

On 04/20/2018 03:23 AM, Peter Coghlan via cctalk wrote:

> That reminds me of when I phoned IBM here in Ireland looking for software
> support for their VM mainframe operating system not too many years later,
> sometime in the early 1990s.  I spelled out every variation of the name
> I could think of but they kept asking me what version of OS/2 I had.
> I guess by then the circle had turned again.

Around 1983-4, we were looking for a smallish minicomputer to share the
workload of our VAX 11/750.  So we were considering alternatives.  Since
the 750 was running BSD, we definitely wanted another Unix box.

I saw a product announcement for the AT&T 3B5 mini and it looked like
something that might fit the bill.  So, I wanted to find out about
pricing and where we could benchmark one.  AT&T had just gone through
its breakup/"consent decree", so I placed a call to AT&T Sales and asked
about the 3B5.   I was transfered several times to various sales types
who didn't have the faintest idea of what I was talking about, even
after I read them the product announcement.  It was an hour of being
transfered from department to department, with absolutely no satisfaction.

We eventually gave up--if AT&T was going to be this difficult just to
*sell* us a system, what kind of nightmare was *support* likely to be?

The only computer anyone knew anything about was the PC 6300.  I told
them that I could drop by the Sears Computer Store (remember those?) on
El Camino and take one home this evening if that's what I wanted.

In the end, they offered to send us some literature--you guessed
it--that described the 6300.

--Chuck