Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!lll-crg!mordor!sri-spam!nike!ucbcad!ucbvax! DECWRL.DEC.COM!reid From: r...@DECWRL.DEC.COM (Brian Reid) Newsgroups: mod.computers.laser-printers Subject: an apology.... Message-ID: <8608210621.AA12606@saturn.DEC.COM> Date: Thu, 21-Aug-86 02:21:00 EDT Article-I.D.: saturn.8608210621.AA12606 Posted: Thu Aug 21 02:21:00 1986 Date-Received: Fri, 22-Aug-86 08:11:48 EDT Sender: se...@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Organization: The ARPA Internet Lines: 48 Approved: laser-lov...@washington.arpa As many of you know I am on a leave of absence from Stanford at DEC Western Research. Today I got a message from my acting supervisor at DEC, saying that he had received an Official Phone Call from a person at Xerox, complaining that I was unjustly criticizing Interpress in public, and that in sending mail from DEC instead of logging on at Stanford to send the mail I was somehow creating the image that DEC was attacking Interpress. The particular message in question was the one where I proudly announced that my wristwatch calculator now accepted FORTRAN (computational subset). I guess the Xerox employee must have been afraid that people who read the message would somehow conclude that the 9700 Interpress subset represented approximately the same fraction of the language as the wristwatch Fortran. The man who made the phone call is actually someone that I know, and he is certainly a fine fellow, and smart, and hard-working, and deeply devoted to Xerox. If my memory serves me right he is even the recipient of a Xerox "President's Award" a couple of years back, for his diligent work in getting another Xerox protocol accepted as a official national standard. I can therefore only draw the conclusion that some evil marketing person must have forced him to make the phone call. It's OK. I forgive you. My acting supervisor at DEC didn't take the phone call very seriously either, so no harm really came from it. I would like to suggest that if people from Xerox don't like what I say about Interpress in public, that they might try countering with actual facts instead of phoning my boss. Facts do have an alarming habit of resolving disputes like this. I have never knowingly said anything at all in public about Interpress that is false, and if I should make a false statement about Interpress in this forum, I would very much like to be corrected. In closing, I would like to mention that I am very pleased that there is an actual full production implementation of Interpress taking place at a certain small company right now. There has been so much blather on the network in the last couple of years about how Interpress will be able to do this or that as compared to its chief competitor. It will be nice to have, at last, full implementations of both languages available in the marketplace for comparison. My spies tell me that the certain small company that is doing this implementation will likely have it ready for release by the end of this calendar year, so those of you who enjoy the Wars of the Page Description Languages will actually be able to purchase a Full Interpress printer, probably by the middle of next year, and thereby be able to decide for yourselves. Brian Reid (Not an official spokesman for any organization)
Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!lll-crg!mordor!sri-spam!nike!ucbcad!ucbvax!BU-CS.BU.EDU!bzs From: b...@BU-CS.BU.EDU (Barry Shein) Newsgroups: mod.computers.laser-printers Subject: Re: an apology... Message-ID: <8608230236.AA11702@bu-cs.bu.edu> Date: Fri, 22-Aug-86 22:36:12 EDT Article-I.D.: bu-cs.8608230236.AA11702 Posted: Fri Aug 22 22:36:12 1986 Date-Received: Sat, 23-Aug-86 05:19:01 EDT Sender: dae...@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Organization: The ARPA Internet Lines: 31 Approved: laser-lov...@washington.arpa I sent a note off to Brian Reid about a similar experience I had with a different large company (a comment on a network mailing list prompted a call to my higher-ups from the company involved.) I get the feeling this is more common than we all care to speak about, probably because after such an incident one might feel a little shaken and reticent to start it up all over again. I would warn companies that if they choose to harass people instead of dealing with the problems all they do is drive us off the electronic networks and into our 'old-boy' (for want of a better term) networks. At least out in the open you can respond. In the case I refer to, two very large (potential) customers of the company in question happened to call me shortly thereafter for my opinion of the products involved. I not only reiterated my view (being as nothing had been done to improve the situation with the vendor's products) but added to the story the new twist of coercive tactics. Both thanked me and as far as I know never bought a thing from them. Think about it. And pass *this* note around before you pass around the other kind, or at least staple them together. -Barry Shein, Boston University [[Editor's note: Well, we've gotten a bit far away from laser printers now. Unless one of the companies involved wants to have the last word, let's leave the topic. --Rick]]