[TenTec] E-Ham Bad Orion Review - Some Perspective

[Bill Tippett]

W4BQF wrote:
 >And with each firmware update, I am hoping this will be the Win XP version.

         I find it odd to be writing this when there are so many IT experts
on this reflector.  XP is Microsoft's greatest OS ever...right?  Guess
what...since I gave my wife her XP laptop in December 2002, there have
been no less than 119 updates according to its Installation History.
I'm NOT an IT person, but for some reason I don't find this objectionable,
and it puts the 46 updates on Orion since March 2003 into perspective.
It could be that some of us accept this as a way of life but others
find it objectionable, which may account for the differences in
perception some of us have.  Yes, I've experienced a few crashes using
Orion...same for CT-DOS which is supposedly stable.  Have I lost contests
or a new country on 160 because I had to do a 10 second reboot?  No way.
My computer or amplifier takes far longer (minutes) to reboot than Orion.
I'm quite willing to put up with occasional glitches in return for Orion's 
obvious performance advantages.

         Meanwhile the IC-7800 is already experiencing its first product
recall...yet it supposedly has the same update capabilities as Orion.  I
wonder why the recall is necessary?  It will be very interesting to see
how our perceptions evolve as we see more products with firmware update
capability and compare them to Orion.

                                                         73,  Bill  W4ZV