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Subject: Re: More doubts with gandalf

Author: Chessfun

Date: 17:53:21 02/26/01

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On February 26, 2001 at 15:58:15, Fernando Villegas wrote:

>Hi Ed:
>Now let me put all this discussion under the light of just a customer, not a
>programmer or beta tester or computer geek. What I said to Mogens and what I
>insist to be the truth in practical terms is this: when you purchase a program
>you expect to get get a good perfomance in the current hardware available, with
>the current version available -and sold, do not forget that- and with normal
>time settings. If you do not get that reasonable minimun, you feel offset. I not
>doubt that actual gandalf version running in a very fast processor is good
>enough to get an excellent position in the tournament, that is a matter of fact,
>but at the same time  I cannot be happy with the commercial version for which I
>paid around 30 bucks because is not only somewhat inferior, but a lot inferior
>to the actual one in Paderborn. Hey, Ed: when you receive a Cd without an easy
>way to install, without a good booklet, without a decent gui and without the
>normal things you expect from something that is sold and, besides, as a crowning
>achievement, you does not get a game of the quality and strenght you expect, you
>can imagine you cannot feel great. It is not an answer to say that it is an
>"experimental" thing made by amateurs as if because of that you must take it all
>as a Godsend. I will never complain of Comet because it is given for free, even
>if I believe -I do not- it is full of shortcomings, but the day Ulrich would
>sell it, I would ask him the minimal standard of quality of these days. In this,
>I believe, the Gandalf people failed. I was short of feeling cheated, to say it
>straight. I do not say they tried to cheat nobody, but they were in a hurry to
>put his thing in the market, but when you are commercial you cannot be in a
>hurry; you must take care that you are not going to deliver a less than adequate
>product. I hope they will fix this mistake - because it is a mistake- sooner or
>later. In fact, the general and sad thing about all this is this: there are too
>many people that are in a hurry and deliver his stuff too soon as if the world
>was going to end tomorrow and they think if they does not get his share of
>reputation by now, then they will never get it. So they lack patience and care
>and clearly, as an add-on, they give a shit for people like me that is not
>available to become a hacker. If you take money from the public, you must think
>in the public and not only in your geek friends. But they forget that and when
>complains comes, they look at you as if you was a despicable computer ignorant,
>a guy that is not capable to give a full and detailed list of your problems, but
>only "complain". Is like if you go to the car seller to say him your new brand
>car does not run and they would tell you "hey, have you performed a full
>examination of how the car is made? No? Then Come again with an enginering
>evaluation and do not bother us before that..."
>Cheers
>Fernando


I think a lot of this is unfair to Gandalf.
Prior to it's release there were a number of games available from a variety of
sources. The SSDF have tested Gandalf on not fast computers and it's performance
is rated at 2530 in 7th place. Also I believe it's been written already that the
paderborn version h will be sent for free to registered owners.

You also purchased I'm sure with the prior knowledge that the interface was
winboard?. It just seems a lot of your complaints are rather weak.

As for the installation again there are many other programs that come without
install info. There are text files for that purpose and in this case a lot of
install info at Frank's site. Also the actual install is so easy that I'm not
sure a booklet or documentation for it is required.

Sarah.




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