Rod, at 07:33 on Apr 04 1996, you wrote to Bill Grimsley...

RS> enough. BUT its still obscenely overpriced, and I really would
RS> like to have a decent external continuous status display too,
RS> particularly with modern V34 modems which may well be changing
RS> their speed and stuff on the fly in most real live sessions.

BG> Not everybody sits with their eyes glued to their modems though Rod. 

RS> No one suggested they did Bill, thats why I said 'I would like' etc.

Fine, then buy a $900 Microcom.  They're even dearer than the Courier.

RS> You just cant bring yourself to concede that there
RS> is the slightest thing that the Courier could have done
RS> better. Or the Sportster either on the lack of a flashrom.

I'll ignore the Sportster, as it's designed as a low-end modem.  If you
want stuff like flash-ROM, there's nothing preventing you from buying the
Courier if you think it's worth the extra $$$.  And sure, I suppose that
even the Courier could be better, but as it stands right now, it's still
has more features than any other currently available V.34 modem.

BG> I thought people bought the latest hardware these
BG> days simply because it IS, and for no other reason.

RS> Some people certainly do, I do not. Particularly with
RS> the obscene prices that USR wants for the Courier.

Neither do I, just quietly.  And I've NEVER paid anywhere near full price
for any of my USRs either.  Nor would I, at those outrageous prices.

RS> I someone wasnt a solid decent machine today, a 486/100 may well
RS> be a viable proposition rather than a hot Pentium for example.

Couldn't agree more, although I'm likely to be in a position to upgrade my
DX4/100 to a DX5/133 at almost no outlay, so I'd be pretty mad not to.

RS> Corse if suckers like yourself want to keep up with the Jones and pay
RS> huge wank factor premiums to pay for USRs R&D costs, thats fine be me
RS> too. The more there are like you, the cheaper it is for me to buy later.

Not me, old son.  There's no way I'd pay $700 for ANY modem.  In fact, the
most expensive outlay I've made on my PC in the last 18 months was another
16Mb of RAM, and I got that for a song as well, even cheaper than current
RAM prices.

RS> My problem with Netcon is more their obscene ripoff charges for
RS> fixes outside warrantee and they have FAR too any new models as well.

BG> Don't they have 4 years warranty now though (or is it 5) ?

RS> Well, rom upgrades arent necessarily included in the warrantee.

They certainly used to be, but I don't know what their current policy is.

RS> They often deliberately play silly buggers pretending to have a new modem 
RS> when its actually shafting the buyers of the fuckup they did the first time 
RS> around.

So tell me something about NetComm that I DON'T know.

BG> He could just as easily have bought a US/Canada
BG> Courier on their sysop deal for US$249 if he wanted.

RS> I'm not convinced. My reading of the USR stuff is
RS> that they wouldnt do a non austel sysop deal for him.

If you call their BBS and DL sysop.txt, you'll see that they do indeed
supply modems to anybody in the world, provided that they qualify as a
sysop with at least 6 months standing.  I didn't, which is why I'm going
the trade-in route.

Regards, Bill

--- Msgedsq/2 3.20