*BSD News Article 7019


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Xref: sserve comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware:34324 comp.unix.bsd:7068
Path: sserve!manuel.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!uunet!spool.mu.edu!agate!curtis
From: curtis@cs.berkeley.edu (Curtis Yarvin)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware,comp.unix.bsd
Subject: Re: Question on Diamond Clock Synthesizer
Date: 25 Oct 1992 06:38:30 GMT
Organization: CS Dept. Snakepit - Do Not Feed.
Lines: 57
Message-ID: <1cdfd6INNkou@agate.berkeley.edu>
References: <1992Oct19.082420.16353@Informatik.TU-Muenchen.DE> <1992Oct19.151409.24581@osf.org> <1992Oct24.181837.19994@Informatik.TU-Muenchen.DE>
NNTP-Posting-Host: mamba.cs.berkeley.edu

In article <1992Oct24.181837.19994@Informatik.TU-Muenchen.DE> roell@informatik.tu-muenchen.de (Thomas Roell) writes:
>
>2) I am opposed to the talk going on about Diamond beeing the
>   bad guys, and everybody else beeing good. I truely believe that STB
>   is giving away the info about the PLL only cause Diamond isn't.
>   Kind of little childs behaviour.

This is a peculiar way of putting it.

Diamond refuses to provide a certain service to their customers;
therefore STB competes by providing that service to theirs.

Around here, at least, this is the way business works.

>I also cannot understand the talk about not buying diamond products.

Well, if a product won't work with your software, I think that's
a very good reason not to buy it.

And if a product may not work with future software because the 
manufacturer may unilaterally decide not to support that software,
I think that's also a very good reason not to buy it.

This is, of course, my personal opinion.

>That's ridiculous. Just because they didn't give you ALL the details? Some
>examples here:
>
>        - ATI doesn't give you infos about the NON 8514/A registers on
>          their boards, without letting you sign an agreenment.
>
>  So what ? Not buying an ATI Ultra cause they didn't pass you every
>  detail?

In fact, I would strongly recommend against buying an ATI Ultra now,
for exactly that reason.  

While the Graphics Ultra does not have many features beyond the
8514/A standard, the new Ultra+ and Ultra Pro do - and command a
higher price because of it.  Those features will only be useful under
systems that ATI chooses to support.

It appears, for example, that OS/2 is not one of those systems.

>        - The i486 has some chiptesting opcodes which you only get
>          under a strict NDA.

As this is not a feature that would be useful under any operating
conditions I can imagine, I fail to see its relevance.

I am not suggesting that Diamond is 'evil' for not releasing
programming specs; I don't think anyone is suggesting that.  
Merely that they are following business practices that are out
of date and counterproductive, and if they lose customers because
of it I will not be the one crying.

c