144 lines
6.4 KiB
Plaintext
144 lines
6.4 KiB
Plaintext
CONFESSIONS OF AN UNPAID CONSULTANT
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Intense Competition in the microcomputer business has given consumers a
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confusing range of products to choose from. Guess who's just been drafted to
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sort them out.
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By Stephen Manes PC Week July 2986
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You pick up the phone. The frazzled, deferential voice on the other
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end claims to be a friend, or a friend of a friend. Within the next 15
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seconds, you hear the words "They say you know alot about computers."
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Your cornea clouds. Your cochlea crackles. You enter a trance-like
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state. You are participating in a transmorgrafication more mysterious
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and frustrating than lycanthropy, and you are powerless to resist. You
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are about to become the rarest, most necessary of beings -- the unpaid
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consultant.
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Flushed with confusion, the disembodied voice has received a bushel
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of contradictory advice from rapacious salesmen, evangelistic cohorts
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and enthusiastic relatives. You, LUCKY YOU, have been selected to sort
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out fact from fiction, truth from hype.
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<FREE CONSUTLATIONS>
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There is no rational way out. You consider "accidently"
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disconnecting the phone and hooking up your modem for autoanswer, but
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your afraid one blast of carrier tone in the ear might permanently
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impair the hearing of your litigation-prone attorney. You resign
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yourself to the knowledge that the next hour of your life will be
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irretrievably lost in a sea of deja entendu: "Wait, I'm writing this
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down. Now what was it you said about this Monotone Spray Cod?"
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In theory, it's wonderful that intense competition in the
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microcomputer business has given consumers a truly gargantuan range of
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hardware and software options. In practice, not even dBase II can sort
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them all out, and the people who need help most desperatly are the least
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likely to get any.
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A corporation that's buying 100 PC's to link up with its mainframes
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can afford to keep somebody around who knows how to do it or contract
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the project out. The poor guy who wants a system to his garage
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golf-ball-retreading business or produce the Great American Video can't
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spring for expensive hours of a consultant's time. That's where you come
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in.
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Alas, things you take for granted are utterly befuddling to the
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abject novice. He's wondering if he should buy IBM or the Clamdip-98,
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the hotshot new Szechuanese wonder his boss Morty swears by. Or maybe he
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should cheap out and go the Commodore-64 route. His Aunt Louise insists
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here Commodore-64 can do anything any IBM can "AND" peel potatos.
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"Did Aunt Louise mention that her Commodore won't run the
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"TakeAGander" integrated database, which is the program you say you're
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interested in?"
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"No kidding! You're sure? All right, forget the C-64. What about
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the others?"
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"Well, no matter what you buy, if you've got your heart set on
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"TakeAGander", you'll need a memory upgrade."
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"Wait, I'm writing this down. Memory upgrade."
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You point out that the Clamdip-98 has room for the memory right on
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the motherboard, but he IBM will need and add-on memory card. But then
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he may as well get a multifunction card for the clock and the serial
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port that are built into the Clamdip. Unless he buys an AT.
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"Wait, I'm writing this down, and there are a couple of things I'm
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not clear about. I've got lots of clocks around here. What do I need
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with another one? And could you explain mutterboard, multifunctional
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card, and stereo port? Oh, and AT?"
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<THE MOMENT OF TRUTH>
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So you do explain, you do, half wishing your palms would turn hairy
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and your only possible response would be a muffled growl. Sometime in
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the next few minutes, you runinto the inevitable Moment of Truth. Your
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caller suddenly says: "Let me get this straight. If I buy the IBM, I
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also have to buy a multifunction card, a display card, a monitor, a
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clock, and extra memory? And that's all going to set me back maybe a
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thousand dollars above the base price of the machine itself?"
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"Thereabouts."
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"But on the Clamdip-98, I get all that stuff free?"
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"Except for the extra memory, which should set you back a hundred
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bucks installed."
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"So why in the world would I possibly want to buy the IBM?"
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Sighing, you agree that the Clamdip looks like a very good deal,
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and you recount the growing list of friends who swear by it. But you
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explain the problems the Clamdip folks have had keeping up with demand.
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You note that many Clamdips have been delivered without the benefit of
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manual, DOS software, or microprocessor. You observe that should
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something fail in a Clammdip-98, replacement parts may be transported
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out on the slow boat from china. You point out that Clamdip Computers
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has been in business for 10 long weeks. And you recount the cautionary
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tale of your friend who bought a business computer from one of the very
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biggest firms in the industry and can't get it fixed now that the
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company's making nothing but refrigerator-magnet novelities.
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"Okay, you've convinced me. I'll go IBM. True Blue all the way."
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You could leave it at that, but your conscience won't let you. You
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explain that he can't quite go True Blue all the way because IBM doesn't
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make a multifunction card. Then you remember that "TakeAGander" runs
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slower than a horse cart on anything less than an 8Mhz AT. You start
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asking questions and discover that your interrogator really doesn't need
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much more than a simple database manager and a decent word processor.
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You somehow convince him to go with a couple of good programs you know
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of.
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<JUST A FEW MORE QUESTIONS>
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"Just a couple more questions. I see here a PC, an XT, or -- oh,
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yeah, here it is! -- an AT. And a bunch of models. I have no idea what
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the difference is. Tell me which one to buy. Remember, go slow. I'm
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writing this down."
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Deep sigh. You cooperate. You whittle down the selction. You come
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up with a couple of choices. You even suggest a printer and a dealer.
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"Now, one last question. My kid's got a lot of friends with
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Commodores. There's no reason why their programs won't run on this
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machine, right?"
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The transformation is complete. Your palms are sprouting luxurious
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tufts of silicon. You run outside and howl a 1,200-baud carrier tone at
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the telephone wires.
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"Don't stare," you hear a nieghbor tell her little daughter. "It's
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just the guy who knows all about computers. Come to think of it, there
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are a couple of questions I want to ask him about your TI 99/4."
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THE END
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