Date   : Mon, 16 Jul-1984 18:02:05 PDT
From   : Lauren Weinstein <vortex!lauren@RAND-UNIX.ARPA>
Subject: your Coherent problems

Dave,

I'm somewhat at a loss to understand the situation you describe, since
it runs completely counter to my own experiences and to those of many
people I talk to frequently about Coherent and Mark Williams Co.
If there was a lag of 5 months I feel safe in assuming that something
got lost -- most people I know have commented that they got the
requested updates virtually immediately after requesting them.

From what you describe, it sounds like you had one of the very early
XT versions that had a particular problem due to an undocumented
change in the disk drives/controllers that IBM began installing
in the PC's.  However, this problem was fixed LONG ago -- there have
been numerous intermediate releases of Coherent sent out to
people on request on a continuous basis.  I personally have been
encouraging MWC to hold off the next *major* release of the system
so that a pile of useful new utilities can be included, such as
an EMACS-compatible editor (it uses termcap and the standard
Coherent H19/Z19 screen emulation, complete with meta key) ... it's
primarily a matter of testing the new version and getting the rather
voluminous documentation in order.  

In any case, intermediate versions of the system have been going out to
people who requested them all along, and yours is the first report
I've had of "support problems."  Since I talk to MWC frequently, I 
invite you to give me a call and explain your situation, and I'll
be happy to make sure that it's cleared up.

--Lauren--

P.S.  You mentioned MCI mail -- which triggered off one of my pet
      angers -- I've had reports of about 30% of MCI mail
      messages never being delivered.  I can't prove this directly
      since I don't use it, but I've had lots of people try to
      send *me* MCI mail and it almost never arrives!

      Talk to you later.       

--LW--