At 01:52 PM 6/7/01 +0100, you wrote:

>..if you're building 20K/mth surely you can afford a few phone
>calls....? The net is not the only information source!

The calls would be local in his case, he is in Singapore- the
centre of world-wide HDD manufacturing. This is a serious issue
with some parts, the manufacturers simply don't promote them
outside Asia, they know that few people in, say, Canada or the
US are going to be manufacturing consumer electronics.
OTOH, some of us *design* things to be made over there- but
the manufacturer's sales offices will disavow any knowledge
of the components, and won't go to any great lengths to help
because their internal system rewards them based on the
geographical area of the sales. When I do a design for a
client in Hong Kong, which is slapped together in Shenzhnen,
the local sales droids don't get a pat on the back (or
their palms crossed with silver).

Best regards,




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Spehro Pefhany --"it's the network..."            "The Journey is the reward"
speff@interlog.com             Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog  Info for designers:  http://www.speff.com
Contributions invited->The AVR-gcc FAQ is at: http://www.bluecollarlinux.com
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