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Subject:Instructions to "Be Patient" from a Machine From:Gwen Barnes <gwen -dot- barnes -at- MUSTANG -dot- COM> Date:Fri, 31 Mar 1995 16:55:35 GMT
-> This is a pet peeve of mine. I really dislike products that give me
-> instructions like this -- "Be patient." My response to instructions
-> "Be patient" from a computer is always negative and influences the wa
-> feel about the product.
One of our programs does a procedure during installation that hunts for
available local and network serial ports. On slow machines, and on PCs
with a lot of devices installed, this can take so long that it appears
the machine has locked up -- the one I wrote the manual on was a great
example of that -- scanner card, network card, two serial ports at odd
IRQs, and more.
It never took longer than 5 minutes for things to work themselves out,
so just to be safe I tell users that while it may appear that the PC is
locked up, it is still working -- however if it hasn't done anything
after 15 minutes, go ahead and hit the reset switch.
Cheers, @DISCLAIMER@
Gwen gwen -dot- barnes -at- mustang -dot- com
MSI * Connecting the world 805-873-2500
