Here is my latest on responses from IT service personnel!
As soon as the LG service personnel arrived today I asked the question most important to me.
SJ: Is this panel the same that my monitor has? Packing box says nothing about the model number or specs.
LG Engineer: This is the latest model, the best there is.
SJ: I am not interested to know whether this is the latest or not. My main concern is the kind of panel technology it uses.
LG Engineer: This is an LCD. (Wow!)
SJ: I know that. What kind of an LCD is this?
LG Engineer: This one uses TFT, that means Thin Film Transistor. That's the latest technology!
(By now I was beginning to lose patience. thunder.02dragon had already warned me about this kind of replies from vendors, but coming from an MNC service engineer, that was something. However, I kept my cool.)
SJ: Is it a TN, PVA or MVA panel?
It is only at this point that the Engineer admitted that he had no clue on what I was talking about!
LG Engineer: What is TN?
SJ: It stands for Twisted Nematic. It is an old LCD panel technology.
LG Engineer: Sorry, I don't know anything about that.
The old conversation that I mentioned earlier was in course of my visit to one of the IT exhibitions back mid 1990's. Therefore, it is kinda dated.
At that time Creative 2X CD-ROM drives were a rage, at least in Kolkata, although 4X drives were already in the market elsewhere. I was bent on getting one of those new 4X drives. I visited the stall of Systematix, supposedly the Eastern Zone's sole distributors for Creative, Inc. Here's the gist of the conversation that I had:
SJ: I am looking for a Creative quad speed CD-ROM drive.
Systematix Representative: Hey ... (calling his fellow rep) ...! This gentleman is looking for a quarter speed (sic) CD-ROM drive. Do we have Creative quarter speed CD-ROM drives?
SJ: I said quad speed, meaning quadruple speed, not quarter speed!
Systematix Representative: Then you should talk to our "Technical Expert".
The said "Technical Expert" was answering somebody else's queries. I waited till he was free. Then I repeated my query to him.
Technical Expert: We do not have that in stock now, but if you make an advance we can get it for you.
SJ: Alright, I can do that, but can you please tell me what is the access time of this drive that you are offering me?
Technical Expert: Um ... ... Uh ... ... I think it is about 200 milliseconds.
SJ: (Shocked) How can a 4X Drive have an access time of 200 milliseconds when the access time of a 2X drive is less than 100 ms?! It should actually go down with increasing speed!
Technical Expert: Oh, yes! You are right! The millisecond goes down with increasing speed, it is the nanosecond that goes up!
After that I thought I had enough and just left!