When in doubt, read...



Author: Fred Cranston

Date: May, 1989

Keywords: Fred's follies lisa sun remarketing

Text:
Perhaps one of the greatest follies we all commit is to not follow
instructions.  By not following instructions, I caused myself a lot of
trouble in early April.
My son has been using my Mac+ as his personal word processor.  He
finally saved some money and wished to buy his own set-up and wanted my
suggestion as to brand.  
After due consideration, taking into account that he had just enough
money to buy a Mac Lisa with internal 10-MB hard disk, 400k floppy
drive, I suggested we order one with an Imagewriter I from Sun
Remarketing in Logan, Utah.  
Sun was out of the Imagewriter I and recommended an Olympia printer,
which we ordered.  The Olympia came, but no Lisa.  After a week's
delay, we discovered that UPS was holding it in Eureka, but had
forgotten to notify us that it was there.  My sonpicked it up, brought
it home.  
I helped him set it up, turned it on, inserted a floppy and OH, OH. 
The internal hard disk began a most awful grinding and crunching noise.
 I called Sun Remarketing in Utah and received a series of
instructions, which I followed exactly, in an attempt to revive the
hard disk.  No such luck.
Now comes my folly!  My next instruction was to remove the hard drive,
return it to Sun and it would send me a new one.  
In attempting to remove the hard drive, I discovered that it was
fastened to the floppy drive by a bracket which I couldn't see how to
remove, so I sent Sun the whole assembly -- hard disk, bracket and
floppy drive-- enclosing a note asking that it send me back the
complete assembly.    
At the same time, Sun Remarketing, thinking to speed things up, sent us
back only a hard drive.  When it came, I called, explained what
happened and the firm immediately sent a floppy drive but no mounting
bracket.  
Fortunately, the connections to the drives were long enough that by
setting the two drives up outside the case, we could boot up the Lisa. 
The drives worked beautifully, although it was a little difficult to
insert and eject floppies from a drive which was not fastened to
anything.
Unfortunately, although the drives now worked fine, there must have
been a problem with the video power supply because the picture on the
screen jiggled about so badly that it was difficult to catch the icons
with the mouse arrow and click before the icon had jiggled away.
I had had enough.  I called Sun Remarketing and asked the firm to send
us a new unit that had been thoroughly checked and told them when it
arrived I would send back the parts scattered on the table top.  
I expected to get a hard time about this, but I didn't.  Sun
immediately sent us a different unit; it arrived and worked
beautifully.  I sent  back the first unit and the parts.
My son is really happy with his Lisa, and I am somewhat envious.  For
$1,395 (less than half the cost of my Mac+) he has a computer that will
do almost everything my Plus will do, and in addition he has a screen
which is wide enough to show a complete sheet of writing paper without
having to use Stepping Out or scroll bars.
I recommend Sun Remarketing.  Although we had some difficulty, the
company did its best to satisfy us.

My monthly hint for new Mac owners:  Would you like to take a MacPaint
picture of the keyboard when both Option and Shift are pressed?  Use
the Desk Accessory called Camera; it can be set to make a picture at
any time after it is activated.
Have a good summer.  See you in the fall. 

Copyright © may, 1989 by Fred Cranston