08/1997
Path: news.uh.edu!barrett From: schulz@informatik.uni-kl.de (Stefan Schulz [Inf.]) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews Subject: REVIEW: Nerv version 1.0 Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.misc Date: 26 Jul 1994 21:10:29 GMT Organization: The Amiga Online Review Column - ed. Daniel Barrett Lines: 151 Sender: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu (comp.sys.amiga.reviews moderator) Distribution: world Message-ID: <313u45$l9m@masala.cc.uh.edu> Reply-To: schulz@informatik.uni-kl.de (Stefan Schulz [Inf.]) NNTP-Posting-Host: karazm.math.uh.edu Keywords: annoyance, shareware Originator: barrett@karazm.math.uh.edu PRODUCT NAME Nerv, version 1.0 BRIEF DESCRIPTION Nerv simulates working with an unregistered shareware program. AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION Name: KLOAKE Soft Address:E-mail: mluehr@htwm.de LIST PRICE Shareware: 30.- DEM (German currency only). Available on Aminet (pub/aminet/util/misc/Nerv.lha on wuarchive.wustl.edu and possibly other mirror sites). SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS HARDWARE Kickstart 37.175 or higher (AmigaDOS 2.04 or higher). SOFTWARE exec.library dos.library intuition.library COPY PROTECTION None. MACHINE USED FOR TESTING Amiga 500/7, 2 MB Fast RAM, 1 MB Chip RAM, 5 MB Missing RAM. 1 internal 880K floppy 1 external 880K floppy Quantum 240 MB external hard drive. Sucking Monitor AmigaDOS 2.0. 2 Bottles of Coke INSTALLATION One line must be added manually to the startup-sequence, and one program must be copied to the C: directory. REVIEW The product is submitted in three different languages: German, English and Swabian. After running one of the versions, an annoying requester appears every few seconds. It has four buttons that all do the same thing: close the requester. After you have acknowledged the requester several times, you really get annoyed. It's really not possible to work while running Nerv, as the Workbench screen pops up every time with the requester on it. It seems to multitask nicely -- when you don't respond to one of its requesters for a while, a second requester pops up. If you run the program from the CLI, it may be terminated easily by pressing the usual control-C key sequence. If you run it as mentioned in the manual -- installing it in the startup-sequence -- you can send a break signal to Nerv to terminate the program. I was a little disappointed that I could stop the program from annoying me without being registered. It also had no problems with any other program running in the background, which is a misfeature. DOCUMENTATION German documentation only. The program is to be used intuitively and does not need any documentation, though. LIKES It really does what the term "Suckware" promises. After you have answered the requester for at least the 7th time, it really gets annoying. I really like the Swabian version. DISLIKES AND SUGGESTIONS You can break the program by sending a control-C signal to it. This feature should be removed or changed to a less usual key-combination. There should be more buttons and fewer different texts in them. It is too easy to deinstall the program. Deinstallation should be possible only with registered versions. COMPARISON TO OTHER SIMILAR PRODUCTS There are NO other similar products on market. BUGS It works. VENDOR SUPPORT User pays extra for ordering the packet. WARRANTY The program comes with a promise to annoy you as long as you run it. CONCLUSIONS It's one of the most useless products ever, but it is worth using. COPYRIGHT NOTICE This review is Shareware. If you want to read it more than once, you have to register it. The price for it is (standardized) 30.- DEM (German currency only). For getting the account number, send me a mail. ;o) - Stefan Schulz schulz@informatik.uni-kl.de --- Daniel Barrett, Moderator, comp.sys.amiga.reviews Send reviews to: amiga-reviews-submissions@math.uh.edu Request information: amiga-reviews-requests@math.uh.edu Moderator mail: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu Anonymous ftp site: math.uh.edu, in /pub/Amiga/comp.sys.amiga.reviews