I apologize if I have offended you, but in 1986, I was involved in a large purchase from IBM and other vendors. We purchased *new* IBM Model 40's; 60's and 80's along with a separate purchase for IRMA Boards(approved by our IBM rep) for our Mini-mainframe as well as (at that time) the New HP Laser Printer Series II and there were no printer drivers available for those printers and there was a total conflict with the IRMA boards. When I installed the IRMA boards into one of the Model 60's (I believe) I received my 'famous" error 163 on a blue screen. When I called the 'dedicated tech support I was repeatedly told there is no such error as 163. I removed the board and reset the CMOS and when I did a cold boot the error message continued to appear. Ultimately IBM tech did acknowledge the error 163. However, we were encouraged to purchase IBM equipment instead. It took a number of months to get the compatibility issues addressed. So I am speaking from my personal experience with those products. In the end we purchased AST's and Compaqs all of which (sorry if I am offending others as well) ultimately went the same way as the IBM personal computer market.
I did not curse the product nor did I in any way attack you personally, I simply stated what I experienced first hand as did others in our building who purchased new IBM equipment.
Thank you for your time.
