From: kolstad@cae.wisc.edu (Joel Kolstad)
Subject: Re: Atari solves the blinking pixel problem [Lynx]
Organization: U of Wisconsin-Madison College of Engineering
Date: 16 Aug 92 00:15:35 CDT

In article <l865rcINNcu1@girtab.usc.edu> rjung@girtab.usc.edu (Robert A. Jung) writes:
>
>(2) Odds are good that, when John Q. Public buys a Lynx, the store that he's
>in may not/cannot let him "try before you buy".

Try to find some place that does... and grab a manager, the Sales Droids don't
always have the authority to let you try before buying.

As long as I'm typing this, it sort of reminds me of the Toys-R-Them policy
with cartridge returns...  "Once it's opened, you can't return it.  Period.
Amen."

I _loudly_ made the point to a Toys-R-Them manager today that if they weren't
going to let me return opened games, I'd be taking my business to Software
Etc.  And I promptly did.  :-)  I'm willing to put up with a no returns
policy with mail order places because you get a price discount -- if you
cut your prices, I don't expect as much service.  But I sure as hell am NOT
going to pay full retail price for cartridges that I can't take back if the
games SUCK!  I really don't know where Toys-R-Them gets off...  business must
be good enough that they don't have to compete in the customer service arena.

(And please don't give me the arguments about copying, beating a game and
returning it, etc. -- I don't buy 'em.  If Software Etc. can stay in business
with what I consider to be "normal" business practices, so can everyone else.
Not that I'm trying to plug Softwar Etc. today :-), but the manager there
happily offered to let me try out a Lynx before buying one, and gladly
acknowledged that I could return games that I didn't like.)

Man, I'm starting to sound like John DeArmond.  Sheesh.  Sorry for all the
ranting... Toys-R-Them really ticked me off, though.

Back to the blinking pixel:  I certainly would recommend to people I know that
they check before they buy.  There are so many people out there that don't
have net access or any other sort of "Lynx goodies" info that Atari is NOT
going to losing at _all_ if a couple hundred people demand non-blinking
pixel Lynxes.  Anybody here have an HP-48SX?  After many complaints from
people with early ROM revisions, HP offered free ROM upgrades to the bug-free
ROM.  I'd be willing to bet that FAR less than 1% of the people who bought
early 48's knew of and took advantage of the offer.  Moral of the story: If
you know of a problem, by all means avoid it!  There are so many people out
there than don't know/don't care, it won't hurt anyone's business.

>  Not bloody likely. From Atari's point of view, I'd guess that they would say
>that the blinking pixel did not afect your ability to play games, ergo it's
>not a defect. 

I wouldn't expect Atari to swap Lynes for this very minor problem, either.

>Sorta like how Sega is not exchanging Genesis units that won't
>play older Electronic Arts cartridges because of a change in the internal
>hardware.

Not wait a minute.  This DOES affect my ability to play games, and I'd be
raising holy hell if a Sega dealer wouldn't exchange it.  Heck, at that point
I wouldn't feel at all bad about buying a new Genesis, swaping the units
myself, and returning the old one.

						---Joel Kolstad

Newsgroups: rec.games.video