As maintainer of the pickle's Low-End Mac FAQ, I get more than my fair share of old Mac-related e-mail. Most of it's useful or at least coherent. Robert Wheeler, on the other hand, elevates grammatical incompetence to an art of the highest form.

Date: Tue, 10 Jul 2001 15:09:41 -0700 (PDT)
From: Robert Wheeler <webcandy2000@yahoo.com>
Subject: about your 4 meg Limitation
To: thepickle@binhost.com

Pickel,

compact mac had a 4 meg limitation... to over ride this you need to an
Expander card for a mac gs50 (very rare and perhaps you can find one on
another mac..) It's a card (2 cards) that plug in to your ram slot and
can take up to 4 meg each giving you a posible 16 if you ahve four slots
8 if you have 2, i am also recomending the use of MODE 32 with anything
over 7megs..even thought they say 8.. you will see a great performace
improvement..also i am not shure on how much better it would be on your
machine but i do have a mac Classic II configued that way with...
tada...12 megs (8 on 2 boards and 4 onboard) good luck hope you can find
them:)


Robert Wheeler

From Who Eles?

Let's see. Where do I start? Well, how about the fact that he spelled "pickle" wrong? That not enough? He spelled "else" wrong in his sig file too. Still want more? OK, fine. He doesn't capitalise the first word in any but one sentence. He capitalises random words in the middle of sentences. He never capitalises the word "Mac" anywhere. That's just mechanics. The syntax is horrid. I can barely understand what he's saying, but I think it goes something like this:

The Compact Macs had a 4MB RAM limitation, which can be overridden by a certain expander card called a GS50. It's very rare. It plugs into the RAM slot (or slots) on your Mac and can take up to 4 1MB chips on each card. I also recommend the use of Mode32 on any Mac with more than 7MB RAM, even though Apple says it's needed for those Macs with 8MB or more. You will see an increase in performance. I'm not sure about how it would work on your machine, but I have a Classic II configured that way with 12MB RAM.

I suppose I probably ought to go ahead and do the fact correction while I'm tearing this guy apart. I mean, if I'm gonna be rude, I might as well be full-on.

First off, this guy isn't telling me anything I don't already know. Second, there was never any product OTHER than accelerator cards that would allow a 68000-based Compact to go above 4MB RAM. The ROM and 24-bit addressing prevent it. Third, Mode32 only works on three Macs: the SE/30, the IIcx, and the IIx. It does nothing for Macs other than these, and it does nothing on these three with less than 8MB RAM installed. Additionally, there is no possible way to put 7MB RAM into any of these Macs. Finally, the Classic II has a 10MB RAM limit imposed by its ROM. Without substantiation of this claim by Mr. Wheeler, I have to dismiss it as ignorance.

Here's the e-mail I sent back:

To: Robert Wheeler <webcandy2000@yahoo.com>
From: the pickle <thepickle@binhost.com>Subject: Re: about your 4 meg Limitation

At 15:09 -0700 on 10/07/01, Robert Wheeler wrote:

>compact mac had a 4 meg limitation... to over ride this you need to an
>Expander card for

The 68000-based ones do, yes, and it's in ROM, so putting special RAM
cards in isn't going to do anything.

>a mac gs50 (very rare and perhaps you can find one on another mac..)
>It's a card (2 cards) that plug in to your ram slot and can take up to
>4 meg each giving you a posible 16 if you

Unless it does some serious ROM patching, that still won't get around
the problem of the 68000-based Mac ROMs only seeing 4MB anyway. Got
more info on the card?

>ahve four slots 8 if you have 2, i am also recomending the use of MODE
>32 with anything over 7megs..even thought they say 8.. you will see a
>great performace improvement..also i

Mode32 won't do anything on systems with less than 8MB RAM and it won't
work at all on most of the Compact Macs. The only Macs it works on are
the SE/30, IIx, and IIcx.

>am not shure on how much better it would be on your machine but i do
>have a mac Classic II configued that way with... tada...12 megs (8 on 2
>boards and 4 onboard) good luck hope you can find them:)

The Classic II won't recognise more than 10MB RAM anyway, and you can
put 12MB in it as you mention simply by putting two 4MB SIMMs in it.

Turn off HTML in your mailer while you're at it - it's really annoying.

p

So I waited. And good 'ol Mr. Wheeler didn't let me down; these came in together the next day...

Date: Tue, 10 Jul 2001 17:31:48 -0700 (PDT)
From: Robert Wheeler <webcandy2000@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: about your 4 meg Limitation
To: the pickle <thepickle@binhost.com>
True fact of the matter, however With my Mac Classic II i had done it
without messing with roms at all.. but mabie perhaps you can change your
roms in your mac? still you might need the exenders..
Date: Tue, 10 Jul 2001 17:32:43 -0700 (PDT)
From: Robert Wheeler <webcandy2000@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: about your 4 meg Limitation
To: the pickle <thepickle@binhost.com>
no matter what though your system will never see past 8 megs..never not
with a 68000 chip

Wait! What's this? Is Mr. Wheeler actually RIGHT about something? Yes, I believe he is. Finally. Things are looking up. But he's still missing the point about the Classic II and why it works, so I sent him this:

To: Robert Wheeler <webcandy2000@yahoo.com>
From: the pickle <thepickle@binhost.com>Subject: Re: about your 4 meg Limitation

At 17:31 -0700 on 10/07/01, Robert Wheeler wrote:

>True fact of the matter, however With my Mac Classic II i had done it
>without messing with roms at all.. but mabie perhaps you can change your
>roms in your mac? still you might

That's because the Classic II is an 030, and has two RAM slots.

However, you can't see more than 10MB on your machine EVER, because the
ROMs don't recognise more than that. They're hard-coded to only address
10MB RAM, and they ignore everything over 10MB. The only way to get
past that is to use some kind of virtual memory.

I'm not quite sure what your point is, because you're not telling me
anything I don't already know (and indeed, isn't common knowledge).

And you still haven't turned off HTML.

p

Gee, this is fun. Let's see if he plays along. Guess what? He did. Big time. This is where he made the cut for this directory...

Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2001 04:10:21 -0700 (PDT)
From: Robert Wheeler <webcandy2000@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: about your 4 meg Limitation
To: the pickle <thepickle@binhost.com>
You seem a little tanted by the matter by friend.. Didnt say
anything about using the same Classic II hardware.. Infact if
you must know the Honestly in it i use Performa 275 motherboard
modified. Still the same matter goes. and i am not really happy
with your tone. if your even slightly hinting to me that i don't
know what i am talking about.. then whos looking for help! to
add to that statement you are talking to a guy with a masters
degree in System Enginering, Plus i am also i have my Cert in
MSE, So iam sorry to tell you but This is what i do.. Make
things work that normaly, you wouldnt think so! Also, My mac was
just something to mess with, To some mabie even junk, But to me
it's Something i just do.. now getting back to you four meg
limitation theres things you can do to all the way around it
here go here and check it out
http://www.micromac.com/products/multispeed.html Good luck to
you!

Robert Wheeler
KoGee Computing

P.S. it wont take my degrees to make it work!

I'm utterly speechless. Or at least for a second or two while the amazing lack of intelligence brings itself to the forefront. Lesson #1: don't buy anything or do business with KoGee Computing. To paraphrase an old saying, this guy couldn't type a coherent sentence if you moved his fingers yourself. Quite frankly, I have no desire to do business with a company that hires these kind of people. Second, I'm not quite sure how a certification in Microsoft Systems Engineering is supposed to qualify someone to work on the Macintosh, particularly Macs that are 15 years old. And third, well, just take a look at this (for lack of a better term) sentence: "Infact if you must know the Honestly in it i use Performa 275 motherboard modified." I've talked about this with several folks, and they all pretty much agree that it would take a significant amount of effort to sound this stupid. I had a thought a few minutes after reading it, though, that might explain it. Perhaps Mr. Wheeler is a bad Babelfish translation. Try translating the following from English to French to English with Babelfish:

In fact, if you must know the truth, I use a modified Performa 275 motherboard in it.

Ignoring the fact that a Color Classic II logic board will not work in a Classic II case no matter what you do to the board, I'm still trying to figure out the English syntax that this guy learned in school. Even more frightening is the fact that he's claiming to have a master's degree in systems engineering, and he can't spell "engineer" properly. At any rate, this is what I sent him...

To: Robert Wheeler <webcandy2000@yahoo.com>
From: the pickle <thepickle@binhost.com>
Subject: Re: about your 4 meg Limitation

At 04:10 -0700 on 11/07/01, Robert Wheeler wrote:

>anything about using the same Classic II hardware.. Infact if
>you must know the Honestly in it i use Performa 275 motherboard

Same difference. Also has a 10MB ROM limitation, so I'm not sure what
your point is.

>modified. Still the same matter goes. and i am not really happy
>with your tone. if your even slightly hinting to me that i don't
>know what i am talking about.. then whos looking for help! to

You don't know what you're talking about. There, I quit hinting. You
happy?

>add to that statement you are talking to a guy with a masters
>degree in System Enginering, Plus i am also i have my Cert in
>MSE, So iam sorry to tell you but This is what i do.. Make

Gee, thanks, Mr. Smarty Pants. You're a friggin genius. MSCE
certification, huh? Wow. This is a MACINTOSH, YOU MORON!  Microsoft
certs don't mean **** about what you can do on a Mac. Neither does a MS
in Systems Engineering, which you obviously didn't work too hard for or
you'd be able to spell better.

If you want me to take you seriously, show me you know about
Macintoshes, and try to do it without tripping all over your own
sentences. Don't tell me how much education you have or where you went
to school. Right now, if you told me where you got your MS, I'd be
really tempted not to go there, because if that institution grants
graduate degrees to people of your grammatical ineptitude, it's not
worth checking out. Didn't you have to write a master's thesis, or was
that optional?

>it's Something i just do.. now getting back to you four meg
>limitation theres things you can do to all the way around it

Adding accelerator boards doesn't count, especially when they cost $200.
 You wanna spend $200 to put 32 MB RAM in a Classic? I didn't think so. 
Oh, wait, you have a master's degree. That means maybe you can afford
to spend $200 on a $1 computer.

I stand by my assertion that there is no way you or anyone else will
EVER get more than 10MB RAM to work in a Classic II, LC, LC II, Colour
Classic, or their Performa variants without patching the ROMs. I
likewise stand by my assertion that you will never get more than 4MB
recognised in a 68000-based Mac (WHICH IS WHAT YOU ORIGINALLY E-MAILED
ME ABOUT IN THE FIRST PLACE) without replacing the CPU and/or patching
the ROMs for the simple reason that the 68000 has a 24-bit address space
in which to work.

If you know otherwise and can conclusively prove it, I welcome the
correction. If you're merely going to throw accelerator card URLs at
me, stop wasting my time.

p

I will have the good grace to admit at this point that the Performa 275 is actually identical to the LC550 and Color Classic II, which means it has one 72-pin RAM slot and supports up to 36MB RAM (4MB onboard). (64 MB chips might or might not work, but the point is that it doesn't have a 10MB ROM limitation. The point is also that there's no need to put special hardware in it to make it work with more than 10MB RAM, so I'm still not sure what the hell this guy is talking about.) Anyway, I eagerly awaited his reply, as this was turning into a rather nasty flamewar.

Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2001 16:46:24 -0700 (PDT)
From: Robert Wheeler <webcandy2000@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: about your 4 meg Limitation
To: the pickle <thepickle@binhost.com>

You know.. .Your really starting to piss me off here..Useless
You the one looking for help and i am providing you with the hel
you need.. If you want o be any more Insulting you might as well
go find someone eles. And don't you talk about the Hard Earned
Education that ive got.. Wanna talk about a moron.. I would
speek to loudly. .SO FUCK OFF!
P.s. Microsoft SUCKS

At this point I've given up on critiquing his grammar. It's so atrocious that I've run out of space to do so. Now, someone wanna point out to me where I asked this guy for help, please? I can't seem to find that, especially considering HE e-mailed ME first. Ah well. Two other things to notice: he has a "Hard Earned Education [sic]" that was so great he can't even put together a coherent sentence, and he's an MCSE who hates Microsoft. Gee, I wanna hire this guy to fix my system, since he hates MS so much but is certified to work on their crap anyway...and I told him as much:

To: Robert Wheeler <webcandy2000@yahoo.com>
From: the pickle <thepickle@binhost.com>
Subject: Re: about your 4 meg Limitation

At 16:46 -0700 on 11/07/01, Robert Wheeler wrote:

>You know.. .Your really starting to piss me off here..Useless

Good. It's working.

>You the one looking for help and i am providing you with the hel

Since when did I ask you to e-mail me and tell me a bunch of so-called
information about Compact Macs that I already knew? Hmmm? And since
when was any of it helpful? You e-mailed me, unsolicited I might add,
and spewed forth a large volume of *wrong* information to the point
where it is little more than worthless drivel. Somehow I fail to see
where in there you provided me with "the hel [sic]" I need. (If you
don't know what sic means, go look it up in a decent dictionary. As a
person who supposedly holds a master's degree, though, you probably­or
should­know exactly what it means.)

>you need.. If you want o be any more Insulting you might as well

Awwww, whassa matter, you chicken? Can't take it? Hmmm?

>go find someone eles. And don't you talk about the Hard Earned
>Education that ive got.. Wanna talk about a moron.. I would
>speek to loudly. .SO FUCK OFF!

A bit testy, aren't we? Disappointed that your education hasn't gained
you anything in the communication abilities department? Was that a lot
of money down the drain? Aw, that's really too bad. I feel for you. 
Really I do. But, just FYI, your sentences still aren't any easier to
read. Look, if it's just laziness on your part, well, you've elevated
laziness to an art form. If it's ignorance, God help the institution
that gave you a degree. Either way, you need to fix your grammatical
ineptitude before you e-mail me again, because you make little or no
sense.

>P.s. Microsoft SUCKS

Why are you a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer if you hate Microsoft
so much?

What exactly does a "system engineer" do, anyway?

p

As expected, he replied. Look out, more educated ranting ahead. Or not...

Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2001 17:03:17 -0700 (PDT)
From: Robert Wheeler <webcandy2000@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: about your 4 meg Limitation
To: the pickle <thepickle@binhost.com>

ignorance..thats you middle name isn't it? I do just fine... For
$86k a year i don't think you have much room to talk..nore will
you that the chance..because i don't have time for loser and
limitted Knowing of computers from an ignorance dick like you so
there for bye bye (and oh yes ive got you ip address and i block
you) 

I figured it would be pointless to e-mail him back but I did anyway because I wanted to satisfy myself :)

To: Robert Wheeler <webcandy2000@yahoo.com>
From: the pickle <thepickle@binhost.com>Subject: Re: about your 4 meg Limitation

At 17:03 -0700 on 11/07/01, Robert Wheeler wrote:

>ignorance..thats you middle name isn't it? I do just fine... For

Gee, ya know, if you do so well, how come you can't spell to save your
life? Are you lazy or ignorant? Is it really that hard of a question?

>$86k a year i don't think you have much room to talk..nore will

I have plenty of room to talk. I'm not beholden to some giant corporate
entity.

>you that the chance..because i don't have time for loser and
>limitted Knowing of computers from an ignorance dick like you so

Hmmm...like I said, when you can show that you know *anything* about
Macs, I'm listening. Until then, well, I frankly don't care what you
have to say.

>there for bye bye (and oh yes ive got you ip address and i block

Wow. I'm so impressed. However did you achieve a difficult task like
that?

>From Who Eles?

Can you explain to me just how you managed to spell "else" incorrectly?

Is English your first language? It sure doesn't seem like it.

p

So there you have it. Quite possibly the stupidest person on the Internet. Master's degree? Yeah, with a major in being a moron and a minor in complete lack of communication skills. There's a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon that this reminds me of, and it goes something like this:

Calvin (working on homework): I like to verb words.
Hobbes: Huh?
Calvin: You know, take nouns and adjectives and use them as verbs.
Hobbes: (looks puzzled)
Calvin: Verbing weirds language.
Hobbes: Maybe someday we can make language a complete impediment to understanding.

Robert Wheeler, congratulations. You have succeeded in making language a complete impediment to understanding. But honestly, Bill Watterson didn't actually intend for people to try that...

I did a quick search on Google just for kicks. Within five minutes, I had the following information:

Robert Wheeler, "proprietor" of KoGee Computing Inc., is about 21 years old, about 6' 2", and about 150 lbs. He lives at 2669 Forest Hills Rd., Muskegon, MI, 49441-3441. His phone number is (231) 755-1079 if you'd like to call him and tell him how brilliant he is.

He has no master's degree in anything and I highly doubt he even has a Microsoft certification. I'd be interested to know what sort of recourse Microsoft's legal department can take against people who make such false claims.

Oh, and his WWW site is just as atrocious as his e-mail.

UPDATE, 03 November 2003

This just in...

From webcandy2000@yahoo.com Tue Oct 21 01:38:46 2003
Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2003 18:38:48 -0700 (PDT)
From: Robert Wheeler <webcandy2000@yahoo.com>
Subject: Rememeber me?
To: thepickle@binhost.com

Might, Now I may not be the best at grammer and true I may have
gotten some shit mixed up that was years ago, and i am not
asking if you will have this site removed
http://macfaq.org/people/masterofmoron.html it is not right to
slander anyone like that no matter what you think of me. I never
done anything to you personally and yes I do have A degree. i
was not selling anything. I was just point out some stuff. Dont
you know that email is private? Let's remove that site and go on
about our own stuff. You work with Mac's thats good. I, wel li
work with PC's. Sorry about the lines that got crossed just get
rid of the page. you've made your point

-Robert Wheeler

So does he want me to remove it, or doesn't he? Good ol' Mr. Wheeler doesn't even seem to know what he wants. Of course, I don't think this should really surprise anyone...

UPDATE, 27 December 2003

This just in...

From webcandy2000@yahoo.com Sat Dec 27 07:07:50 2003
Date: Fri, 26 Dec 2003 23:07:56 -0800 (PST)
From: Robert Wheeler <webcandy2000@yahoo.com>
Subject: Your The Master of Insults...
To: thepickle@binhost.com


Wow! I Asked you nicly to removed this garbage. Wouldnt ya know
it? Your total lack of being an ass dding shock me any, By far i
knew you where a jerk about things, if not down right cocky. Has
anyone ever knocked you on your ass before? Ever explained on
your website how you make in fun of people is a form of being
Ignorent. You do not have any right to post email on to a public
website. I am shure that there are laws about that too. To make
matters worse you poke and twist everything I said, you lie too.
When all I did in reality was try to be helpful. Is this how you
repay people for being helpful? So what if it didnt help you. I
would hate to see what you do for your friends, if you've got
any. Anyone that I let read this site has further more Wrote you
off to be an ingnorent asshole. I thought that Asking you in a
nice matter would get you to remove your Garbage... I asked you
to remove it...Gonna post this email too? look who cant
understand English....Remove it..What more is there to
understand? Pun this one you ingnorent bastard... Hope you dont
have kids, cause you would suck the life out of them too. Hey, I
was reasonable, it's time you learn who you are truly dealing
with... 

My reply:

To: Robert Wheeler <webcandy2000@yahoo.com>
From: the pickle <thepickle@binhost.com>
Subject: Re: Your The Master of Insults...

...and you still don't know English.

Or what you want, you indecisive piece of ignorant garbage.

I'm hereby starting a pool to bet on how long it will be before this guy does something even more illegal* than threaten my physical well-being over the Internet. Because "I am shure that there are laws about that too." So sure, in fact, that I know it's a crime.

* by which I mean "carrying a harsher penalty" or "more likely to get the attention of the FBI." There are no "degrees" of legality. An act is either legal or it isn't. Thus far, mine are, and his just ceased to be.