Nonstandard configuration on a vintage PC? Maybe it was gray market

Nonstandard configuration on a vintage PC? Maybe it was gray market

I saw an interesting question about the configuration of mid-1980s (pre-PS/2) IBM PCs on a vintage computer forum this week. The question regarded how various machines came from the factory, especially when some collectors have PCs they bought from the original owners, including an invoice, showing the machine didn’t match known factory configurations. This made me think of the gray market.

The gray market referred to the practice of discounters getting genuine IBM PCs and reselling them, sometimes modified. The most famous gray marketer was Michael Dell–the “Dell” in Dell Computer Corporation–who got his start by upgrading bare-bones IBM PCs and selling them out of his dorm room and later, out of a condo. Eventually he decided he wanted a steadier supply, and started manufacturing, becoming the company we know today.

But Dell was far from the only one. Read more

It’s not even out yet and Paul Allen’s book has a mistake

If I were Paul Allen, I wouldn’t be very happy right now. Here’s why.

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The SSD Decoder Ring

I occasionally get a question about an SSD, usually when one goes on sale somewhere. Inevitably, I’ll get an e-mail message with a URL and the words “any good?” with it. Often I’ll know off the top of my head, but depending on whose name is on the drive, I may not.

But here’s a cheatsheet with all the major drives on the market, and who makes the controller in them. http://www.pcper.com/ssd
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SSD myths

SSD myths

SSDs, like most disruptive technologies, face some questions and resistance. People will grasp at any straw to avoid adopting them. Thanks to this resistance, a number of SSD myths arose. Here are the myths I see repeated over and over again, and the truth, based on my experience actually using the things.

Note: I originally wrote this way back in 2010. The drive technologies I speak of as state of the art are rather aged now. But the principles still hold today, and will continue to do so. Hard drives have gotten better, but SSD have gotten better at a more rapid pace.

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Dinosaur hunting

Today I slipped over to Laclede Computer Trading Company for the first time in many years. I was in search of an ISA parallel card. They’re not easy to find these days, mostly because they aren’t particularly useful to most people these days, but I figured if anyone would have one, it would be them.

No dice. But man, what memories.

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The rise and fall of Shack, and how to fix it

Wired has a nostalgic piece on the not-quite-late, not-quite-great Radio Shack. I think it’s a good article, but it glosses over part of the reason for the store’s decline.

It blames computers.But blaming computers ignores Tandy’s long and successful run in that industry. Most Apple fanatics and other revisionist historians conveniently overlook this, but when Apple launched the Apple II in 1977, Tandy and Commodore were right there with competing offerings. I don’t know about Apple, but Tandy and Commodore were selling their machines faster than they could make them.

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Conservative economics vs. the oil crisis

I am a fiscal conservative. That should surprise no one. I’m extremely careful with how I spend my money, and I get frustrated when I see corporations and governments do otherwise.

So it’s hard for me to stand back and keep my mouth shut while Washington talks about oil companies.First and foremost, I am all for ending the tax breaks for oil companies. Maybe Rush Limbaugh would say that means I’m not a true Republican. That’s fine with me. When a group of corporations sets economic records for profits one year, then breaks those records a few months later, that tells me the industry no longer needs government subsidies. Giving tax breaks to big oil companies is interference with the marketplace. So who’s the economic conservative now?

True economic conservatives don’t want to give government aid to anybody. The problem is, anymore, the difference between a Republican and a Democrat is who they want to give welfare to–large corporations or people who don’t make much money.

I don’t think that giving a $100 check to every taxpayer who made more than $14,000 last year will accomplish all that much. It’s a symbolic gesture. I spend more than that every month on gas. When I bought my Civic, I drove a bit less, but with similar driving patterns, I would have spent about $40. That $100 will soften the blow at the pump for less than two months.

But then again, I also know that I’ll spend that $100 more responsibly than the government or the oil companies, and even those who choose to spend that $100 on beer aren’t spending it any less wisely than the government (who’d use it to build a bridge to nowhere) or the oil companies (who’d use it to give a bigger bonus to executives who happened to be in the right place at the right time).

Since it won’t make a difference, I’m neutral. But if that $100 check lands in my mailbox, you better believe I’ll be endorsing and depositing that puppy.

I suppose my conservative leanings waver when it comes to gas mileage. But if it’s OK for Rush Limbaugh to be a flaming liberal when it comes to giving handouts to oil companies, I suppose I can be a flaming liberal when it comes to mandating gas mileage. The problem is this: The average gas mileage of a typical American car today is at the same level as it was in 1986. 1986! Would you be willing to trade in your Pentium 4 for a nice PC/XT clone from 1986? The TV in my living room was made in 1986. It’s a nice, swanky fake-woodgrain console. Would you trade any TV being made today for that? Didn’t think so.

But because Americans are fundamentally unwilling to be responsible, by and large we continue to buy cars that are no better than what we were driving in 1986.

The only way we’re going to get better is through regulation. Because people keep buying their Suburbans, which they drive to work–alone, of course. I have no idea how they afford it. I guess they’re skipping lunch a few days a week to keep gas in them. So the pressure needs to come from the other end. Since the marketplace doesn’t care that the Suburban only gets 13 miles to the gallon, the government has to.

But the hybrid tax credit bothers me. It bothers me a lot. Somebody who buys a Ford Escape hybrid, which gets around 30 miles to the gallon, can get a tax credit. But my Honda Civic, which uses an old-fashioned drivetrain but gets better gas mileage and thus causes less polution, isn’t eligible for that tax credit.

I’m all for lower taxes, of course. I’m a fiscal conservative. But those taxes should be fair. If you’re going to give a tax break based on gas mileage, base it on gas mileage, not on what’s under the hood.

Regulation on one end and tax credits that mean something on the other might actually give us good results–make the automakers make cars that get decent gas mileage, and help make the public happy about buying them.

Not that I expect that kind of change. There aren’t a lot of hybrids being made, so there aren’t a lot of tax breaks being given out. Which is good, from the government’s perspective. The government needs taxes to build the Bridge to Nowhere. I guess Rambo-wannabe nouveau riche can drive their Hummers back and forth on it.

Confessions of a former Best Buy salesman

The State of Ohio is suing Best Buy. One former employee talked about his experiences working for the company.

I last worked for the company in 1995. To its credit, the company did much to persuade me to finish college: It motivated me to get an education so I could get a better job. A few things have changed since 1995, but what I’ve read today about the company rang so true.It might not be a good idea for me to say a whole lot more, seeing as my experiences are limited to working at two different stores nearly a decade ago, and seeing as my name is on it.

But what “Hopjon” said is very, very similar to my experience.

Extended warranties

They’ve never called them those, because extended warranties have a bad rap. They were called “Performance Guarantees” in my day. Now they’re PSPs, or “Performance Service Plans.” For a Benjamin or two, they’ll stand behind the product if it breaks outside of its manufacturer’s warranty period.

“Hopjon” says these warranties are misunderstood, if not downright misrepresented. My experience matches his. I was told that the “No Lemon” clause would replace the product the third time it had to come in for service. This was what my manager told me, and what I related to customers.

I found out the hard way, and to my great horror, that this isn’t the case. If you read the fine print very carefully, it stated that this replacement happens on the fourth service call. Not very clearly, mind you. Customer service knew the difference.

The difference is profitable.

Now, was it malicious? It’s hard to say. None of the managers who trained me were as smart as any of the managers I had when I worked fast food. The question is whether they were told the same thing I was told, or whether they were just told to read it, and someone higher up was hoping these misunderstandings would sometimes occur.

Upper management saw to it that much more time was spent explaining the benefits of 900 MHz cordless phones than all the terms of the extended warranties. (At the time, a 900 MHz phone was a $400 item.)

Whether to buy the extended warranty depends on the quality of the product and the cost of the product versus the cost of the warranty. If you choose to buy one, go over the terms with customer service. Don’t go by what the salesperson says.

Was I pressured to sell the warranties? Yes. Did I? It depended. When there was something in it for me, I sold more warranties than anyone else in my department. When the incentive wasn’t there, I could go weeks without selling one.

Employee expertise

The people who work there very rarely know much of anything special about what they sell. The managers were moved around from department to department. During my second summer with the company, the former computer manager was managing audio. The computer manager had been the manager of CDs and VHS tapes the summer before.

For a few weeks that summer, I worked in audio. I had been the most knowledgeable person in the computer department, by a long shot, especially when it came to any computer more than a year or two old. If the question involved a 286 or an XT, I was the only one who had a chance of answering the question. A customer only ever stumped me once, and that was someone who wanted to hook up an IEEE-488 printer to a PC. I’d never seen the cable he brought in before.

But for a couple of weeks I worked in audio, because my old boss wanted me. Eventually I moved back into computers because the computer people kept dragging me back over there to answer questions, and it didn’t look good to have some guy from audio answering all the computer questions.

The training is nothing. They have training sessions once a month, where they hand out manufacturer-supplied literature that gives an overview of the product, and then you take a test. You eventually have to pass it in order to stay gainfully employed, but the tests aren’t all that hard. I only missed one question on the Windows 95 literacy test on my first try, without ever looking at the educational literature.

Whatever the employee knows was gained on his or her own time. On company time, you’d better find a way to look busy, or else a manager will find something for you to do. Probably unloading the truck.

No pressure

That’s the mantra. It’s bull.

Now it’s true that the salespeople aren’t paid on commission. When I was hired on at age 19, I made a flat $5.35 an hour. That was 55 cents an hour more than I had made as a cashier at a now-defunct roast beef chain. Minimum wage was $4.25 an hour, as I recall.

Occasionally there were contests based on performance. Sometimes it was sponsored by one of our suppliers. Some days a store manager felt generous and would come by and tell us whoever sold the most warranties that shift would get a free CD.

But store managers got monthly bonuses based on sales. So, in effect, the managers were paid on commission. And yes, they did pressure the people under them.

So the people who do most of the legwork aren’t paid on commission, but the pressure is still there. In effect you get the worst of both worlds.

Bait and switch

I only remember one specific incident involving a printer and the person at customer service refusing to honor the posted price, and the department manager getting involved. Ultimately the customer was offered another, much more expensive printer, which he refused. The details are pretty hazy though. The customer was clearly right and the manager yelled at me after he left.

I do remember employees being accused of bait and switch by customers, and sometimes bragging about how close to the legal limit they’d come, but had just skirted the line.

The general attitude was that since they offered rain checks on sale merchandise that was out of stock, bait and switch was impossible.

Used merchandise sold as new

I had one manager who was especially fond of re-shrink-wrapping returned merchandise and selling it as new. This is against corporate policy, and it doesn’t necessarily go on everywhere. But the capability is there, and with it, the temptation.

As far as whether open-box merchandise was opened in the store or was a return, don’t let anyone fool you.Someone probably returned it.

People return merchandise for any number of reasons. You can save some money by buying open-box stuff, but you’re taking a chance. Customer service inspects the merchandise before taking it back. But it’s a fast inspection, and whoever is available does it. It’s not an expert inspection.

The story you may hear is that another customer wanted to see inside the packaging, so someone opened it in the store. That happens on rare occasions. Rarely was that item then marked down and sold as open-box merchandise. I usually saw someone re-seal it to sell as new. I’m pretty sure this was against corporate policy. I don’t know if it’s legal or not.

Do I shop there?

For seven years I didn’t, and I still try to avoid it but sometimes don’t have a choice. Circuit City used to be the closest alternative, but it had its own problems and closed. Silo left St. Louis way back in about 1990. The local chain, Goedekers, closed its South County store in about 2002.

In the name of competition, I buy all of that kind of stuff that I can at Office Depot or OfficeMax or Kmart. When it comes down to Best Buy or Wal-Mart, then I’ll buy at Best Buy. Not because I think Best Buy is a better company–I don’t like either company–but because Best Buy isn’t as big and powerful.

I wish people would realize that all so-called “Big Box” stores will have these tendencies, because the name of the game is maximizing profits. The smaller, local stores will charge higher prices, but in almost every case they give better service.

Linux gets more attractive on the Xbox

There’s been another milestone in getting Linux running on Microsoft’s Xbox game console. It’s now possible to get it going if you bridge a couple of solder points on the motherboard to enable flashing the unit’s BIOS, then you use the James Bond 007 game and a save game that exploits a buffer overflow, and with a few more tricks, you can unlock the hard drive, put it in a Linux PC, install Linux, then move the drive back to the Xbox and turn it into a cheap Linux box.

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How IBM and DOS came to dominate the industry

How IBM and DOS came to dominate the industry

Revisionist historians talk about how MS-DOS standardized computer operating systems and changed the industry. That’s very true. But what they’re ignoring is that there were standards before 1981, and the standards established in 1981 took a number of years to take hold.

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