e! HD install response!
23 messages in this thread
A while ago I complained in this forum about the hard drive install program in
"excellence!" and how MSS was not too receptive to constructive criticism based
on a phone conversation I once had with the company. The other day I received
an upgraded hard drive install program from MSS completely unsolicited. The
program, though I haven't tested it, seems great. It is everything an HD
install program should be and the docs are very complete. Personally, I fooled
around with my startup-sequence and some drawers and got the program working on
my HardFrame/Quantum 80 just fine. (More than I can say for some other
programs I'm working on! I STILL can't get "KindWords" dictionary to add new
words no matter how I alter the startup-sequence!) Even though this install
program comes too late for me I'd like to thank the folks at MSS for listening
to me and responding to my problem. Now, if the program can be speeded up and
not crash when loading some HAM pictures…
Not crash when loading SOME ham pics, how about all. I thought it was
ridiculous. Not only didn't they state this in the manual, you don't even get
an error message. Its just "goodbye". Oh, E! has a lot of potential, but is too
slow and buggy now…
— Ethan
I did manage to load a HAM picture. It was black and white but in HAM format.
The other thing that bugs me about "e!" is the spell checker. The
recommendations are almost never of use. On the same token, KindWords
dictionary has been able to correct my spelling errors except when I REALLY
murder a word. I'd be nice if "e!" could imbed printer escape codes in the
text like the 8-bit word processors (PaperClip, AtariWriter, etc.) No Amiga
word processor that I am aware of can do that.
In programs like WP, you I believe can create a macro which inserts the
printer codes.
— Ethan
That is INTERESTING. That means I could use the printers built in double wide
font. Thanks for the info. I'll have to check that out.
Leslie,
WordPerfect allows embedded printer codes.
//
\X/ Lynn
DesignText (I know, yet to be seen and believed-But coming soon) can imbed up
to 10 User defined printer sequences (Control 0-Control 9) into your document.
They can be entered as ASCII, Hex, Decimal or Octal.
Sincerely,
Brian R. Niessen
Thanks for the info. I'll look for it.
That'll be fixed, I hear. I talked with MSS last week at WOC and they promised
to fix all bugs and even enter new features very soon. Like maybe a month or
two. It'll be a 1M version, but it'll be faster and better. And if they don't
do that they may lose a big sale, so I did do some extortion… 🙂
andre
Andre, the mail I got today says alot about MSS's priorities. There may or may
not be a V2 of e!, but today I got an offer for me to spend about $50 on a new
version of scribble! Now I know that MSS sends out upgrade notices 6 months to
a year before something is ready, at least judging from past experience. Also,
who in their right minds would use scribble today (except for extremely limited
situations) enough to want to pay that much for a new version? Any other
company would have done only bug fixes on scribble and would have had the new
e! months ago.
Ron
Like always, the indians at MSS know what's going on, but the management hs
other thoughts. The company is run by conservatives who believe that a product
out there is usually ok, with or without bugs. I got him to believe otherwise;
now let's see what happens.
Other people at WOC also compained about scribble, and I told them myself that
I never use it also. andre
Andre, when I first bought Scribble, I found it so hard to use that I simply
never did, and went back to Textcraft. When E! came along, I retired
Textcraft, but was always disappointed by the slow screen handling. At that
time, though, MSS was much easier to talk to. Since then, I've twice met them
at shows, and each time they're farther from reality then ever. I still will
keep E! for certain work, but I think that other vendors (yes, I have one in
mind) have much more usable products. Still, I have some hope for a usable E!
2 if you reached a certain person.
Ron
Ron, is there a noticeable speedup when you limit bit-planes to one or
two?
— Ethan
When you may lose a sale of several thousand units and be able to get the
mileage of using the publicity of "MSS being used by the Fortune 100 Company
Cogswell Cogs" etc. That makes your priorities twitch a little.
Let's hope things come through. So far they have been more than receptive.
andre
I hope they respond better to you then to some of us. The last time I spoke to
Esther, she was in orbit around Mars, for all the good it did. I like her but
she makes me look like an incredibly easy to get along with type.
BTW, is there any way I could get someone from CBM to show off the abilites of
a nicely equipped 2500 (including someone's DECNET for Amiga and Xwindows) to
my boss at the top ten bank I work for? He's looking to buy some VAX 3100
workstations, unless he finds something with the power off
that's much more cost
effective and easy to work with. It would be a hard sell but with potentially
useful results. Note I'm in NYC.
Ron
They'll lose a big sale? To whom? For what????
Also, they already put out a 1 meg version. In fact, that is the one I
have. But it doesn't matter, I'll soon have pagestream. SoftLogic can thank
their sale to the Amiga Sentry, which gave it a fabulous review.
— Ethan
Funny, the guy I talked to at the MSS booth at WOC said that there would be an
upgrade to e! eventually but that there was no time frame for completing it.
In fact, the impression I got was that it was at the bottom of their list. I
did get the 1 Meg upgrade (v 1.14 I think), and it does seem to be a bit faster
on text insertion. Still waiting to see Pen Pal which Steve Wagh said would
be out mid- June.
Steve
When I talked to the people at the MSS booth they said exactly the same
thing, sometime eventually. They were even a little defensive about the whole
thing!
— Ethan
Probably you misread their frustration as defensiveness. Privately many of
them were mad at how slow the budget and time was getting allocated in making
improvements in the product. I like it a lot for simple correspondence since
the Glossary feature makes writing easy. I hate mailmerge because it seems so
impersonal, and I let glossary do the gruntwork of the letter.
But, to close the subject, I think; Actions speak louder than Words. We'll see.
andre
I don't think he did Andre. I have seen nothing but defensiveness from MSS.
Early on, They whined and snivelled about Aterm being unfair competition for
Online! Imagine… Aterm being too much competition. They never thought to look
at their own product and see what it lacked, to looak at the bugs, to look at
the total lack of imagination, features, and so on.
The representative who used to come here was defensive, as well as rude, and
now he doesn't come here any more, but still alienates those that call the
company, and is still defensive.
"Can I get a version where XModem works?"
"No, you're only the second person that's asked for that feature."
Sheesh!
-larry
They didn't seem defensive to me. They seemed like they could care less.
Steve