Thomas wrote:
>One friend nearby has a Compaq computer with Win98, and the modem no longer
>works. Now I wonder if the modem went bad or did Windows screw up royally.
>Windows control panel finds external USB modem, but they seemed to think
>the modem was internal. I didn't see any external modem. This friend and
>his wife know practically nothing about computers, daughter knows a little
>more. I don't know whether the modem was real or Winmodem, and they don't
>either. That Windows control panel left me stumped. I see clearly Windows
>is not for me!
A schoolteacher has been lending me her new HP OmniBook and now
I know I hate Win9x. There's plenty wrong with all Goat-shit and,
over the years, his employees have knocked my confidence in the
quality of American technical authors, based on the Help in Word6 etc.
Following M$-Canada's offer of a toboggan with their product, entries
to a competition for a more appropriate alternative included a 3-pronged
fork (trident?) designed to poke the Ctrl+Alt+Del keys.
The teacher's OmniBook regularly needs poking with a paperclip to reset
it, and frequently locks solid when online with the internal ESS modem
(it's fine with a real modem).
This is what HP support had to say about it:
"We are experiencing a problem with a date stamp in the programming
code of the driver for the modem. The driver is causing a delay in
the calls and preventing them from making connections. Our engineers
are currently working on a fix to resolve this issue. When the update
becomes available you will be able to find the update at www.hp.com.
In the meantime, you should change the system date. To change the system
date blah-blah-blah."
This doesn't sound like the same problem, but maybe I'll have access
to the computer this weekend to try it. A new user would most probably
be too timid over this matter, but quite within their rights under UK
law to reject the computer as "unfit for its purpose" and demand a full
refund. I would like to try the latter with a "legacy free" computer built
without parallel and serial ports, just to make a point!
Regards,
Jake
