Bob's irony aside, Jackie (the product manager at ASA) is well aware that the
application needs a rip-up and re-do. I have been a computer designer and
programmer since each computer occupied a big room of its own and IPT is
probably the buggiest piece of production software I have ever seen. ... and I
have seen a lot of software.

I participated in the IPT Version 7.0 beta and exchanged several emails with
Jackie on the subject of the bugs. Instead of fixing bugs, the version upgrade
was more to add a few features. I don't know their economics but it may be that
they can't justify the cost of the rip-up and re-do or possibly they are working
on it but can't say so for fear of killing the sales of the current version.

That being said, the training concept of the IPT software is absolutely
outstanding and I finally decided that it was worth it to me to get the benefits
-- so I would put up with the considerable number warts. YMMV.

Now in the case of On Top, which I have not used, I wouldn't see any reason to
tolerate bugginess because there are many alternatives. Including Elite.

I have Elite and run both IPT and Elite on a PCATD setup. I have never bothered
to try On Top as the Elite is a a legal PCATD and it runs properly with the PFC
console, radio stack, etc. I am not a real demanding user, just flying
approaches, etc. and am very pleased with it. The documentation is weak, but
when have you ever seen good documentation? If you want to learn to use the
latest GPSs etc. IMHO there are plenty of stand-alone trainers for those. If
you want to practice basic instrument skills, ELITE does a good job.

Regarding MSFS, I am one who does not willingly do business with a vendor whose
objective is to screw its customers. Some products, because of the de jure
monopoly, you can't avoid. But this one you can.

HTH

On 6/18/2005 8:29 AM, Ron Natalie wrote the following:
Bob Gardner wrote:

Gotta wonder how the many thousands of purchasers of On Top have
swallowed their dismay and neglected to write letters to the editor,
to ASA, to the Better Business Bureau, to Aviation Consumer, et al,
complaining about being ripped off? Seems to me that a product so
deeply flawed would have been bad-mouthed so widely that ASA would
have pulled it off the market. You seem to be the only person unhappy
with the product.

Nope, others have complained as well. Many just take their lumps and
deal with the fact that the thing was designed for Windows 95 with
a specific card in mind and doesn't work well with modern machines.
I will continue to complain until ASA either delivers me an updated
product that works or returns the money they stole from me for this
disaster product. While ASA occasionally sends mem an email in
response to my repeated complaints, they have yet to do either
one of the above mentioned remedies.

So far I've managed to pay in excess of $300 for Trevor Thom's book
(the only useful part of the whole package, but not really worth
more than about $50).