Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!decwrl!shelby!labrea!siegman@sierra.Stanford.EDU From: siegman@sierra.Stanford.EDU (Anthony E. Siegman) Newsgroups: comp.edu Subject: Educational Computing and NeXT Message-ID: <233@sierra.stanford.edu> Date: 23 Jul 89 18:31:16 GMT References: <12211@s.ms.uky.edu> <224@sierra.stanford.edu> Sender: siegman@sierra.STANFORD.EDU (Anthony E. Siegman) Reply-To: siegman@sierra.UUCP (Anthony E. Siegman) Organization: Stanford University Lines: 112 Several people have sent me queries about a statement I made in an earlier posting concerning educational computing, saying "Don't have anything to do with NeXT". This statement was too strong, or too brief, and I should perhaps explain it in more detail. When the NeXT machines first came out I (a) turned down an invitation to the big glitzy introduction in San Francisco's Davies Symphony Hall; (b) posted on number of messages to comp.sys.next (or whatever the original Next newsgroup was) with the title "Why the NeXT Machine Won't Be My Next Machine"; and (c) traded lots of memos with my own university's administration on the same general subject. A brief reprise of all this verbiage is as follows: 1. The NeXT machine was billed as "the machine" for university _educational_ computing. Well, I've thought about this quite a bit, and done a few minor things myself, and so far as educational uses of computers is concerned, I am an absolute believer in "one student, one machine" -- an environment in which the majority of educational computing services are delivered not by mainframes and terminals, and not by clusters of a few expensive high-power workstations, to which every student has to go like an acolyte, but through individual machines, preferably all compatible with each other, available in nearly every dorm room, on every faculty desk, etc., so faculty can hand out floppies in class, and students can turn on a machine whenever they want to, and students can write programs also, and so on. This means a compatible family, with low-end models for everyone, and higher-end models for those who need them -- e.g., in fact, e.VERY g., the Macintosh. 2. I'd say the maximum price for a machine that more or less every other student can afford to buy is, say, $1K to $2K, in today's dollars -- e.g., a Plus or SE at typical consortium prices. The NeXT machine, even at educational prices, is nominally $6K, and really $10K -- FAR out of the "every student" range. And, I don't see any real promise that this price will drop way down, to the degree required, anytime in the near future. And even if it does, there's no reason to believe that Macs won't go down in price, or up in capability, even faster. 3. And, I was offended by the hype. Sure, NeXT has some neat DSP and program development capabilities. But you can buy DSP boards for the Mac II that are essentially as good; and there are lots of neat programming tools for the Mac either out or coming out. And really the 1.0 version of the NeXT OS is STILL not out today -- and there's essentially zero outside software for NeXT, and somewhat dubious prospects for future development, compared to the riches available for the Mac. (And, no easy way to even distribute cheap software -- no floppy at all on the NeXT.) Summary: If you're setting up a university educational computing environment more or less from scratch, I think you should "go Mac", NOT "go NeXT" -- and if anyone involved in the selection process argues the reverse and says the word "multitasking", throw 'em off the selection committee that instant. 4. Meanwhile back home on the Farm, as a result of having been one of the earliest beneficiaries of Apple's consortium program, Stanford University has a magnificent Mac environment: Mac machines on innumerable faculty desks, probably in every other dormitory room, Mac clusters in the Student Union and the Library, and so on. And it happened, not because of central planning, but because people voted with their feet, and their personal buying dollars, in buying most of the Macs. (The central administration did of course set up the consortium plan, but several brands were available, and it was the Mac that took off. Some very valuable and much appreciated Apple donations helped also.) Yet despite the wide availability of Macs, we STILL do not have any regular classrooms equipped with Macs and either TV displays or LCD overhead projector displays so we can show Mac programs in class, as part of a lecture. And, our central computer group (AIR: Academic Information Resources) focuses much more on developing elaborate new "programming tools", rather than distributing most of the programming support money out to the working level, to write small programs for immediate use in classes, using the excellent Mac programming tools already commercially available. They're high-power computer jocks, with the usual NIH syndrome -- they want the latest jazziest tools, and they want to write their own, not use any grungy commercial stuff. (They're also pretty good on the empire-building index.) As a result, when NeXT was announced Stanford's AIR bought 34 -- count 'em, 34! -- NeXT machines: about a third of million dollars worth!, "just for evaluation" (that's what they said!). Had to be prepared for the future, they said. Had to support this major new development for the future. Not just I but others characterized this as grotesque. Four would have been "for evaluation"; and the rest of the money -- that's tuition money -- could have been spent putting LCD overhead-project display units for all the Macs we already have into classrooms, and hiring student programmers to develop course materials for animated-blackboard displays in classes, and other useful things like that, building on the superb Mac environment we already have. I believe the techie types in this organization mainly had to have the really latest hot machine for themselves -- who cares if nobody else on campus would be able to afford one anytime soon. To get out of this already overly long tirade, if anyone wants a good small hot Unix machine, and has the funding for it, why I suppose NeXT is obviously a strong contender -- along with Sun, and HP, and DEC, and etc., of course. But if you're talking widespread _educational_ uses of computers -- computers and software that will be used by, affordable by, operable by, and available to ordinary students and faculty members -- I think NeXT is not only irrelevant, but potentially damaging to your education health.