Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!uxe.cso.uiuc.edu!mcdonald
From: mcdonald@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: Will the Next sell?
Message-ID: <245300021@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu>
Date: 24 Nov 89 01:38:34 GMT
References: <4283@helios.ee.lbl.gov>
Lines: 38
Nf-ID: #R:helios.ee.lbl.gov:4283:uxe.cso.uiuc.edu:245300021:000:1816
Nf-From: uxe.cso.uiuc.edu!mcdonald    Nov 23 11:11:00 1989


>>
>>Second, why Joe average will never buy one:
>>    It's too damn expensive, and a $1000 AT clone run's all the
>>software he needs.

>Today.  Not tomorrow.  In the early 80's, people were saying "Why
>by an IBM PC, when my C/PM system runs all the software I need?"

This is not a fair comparison. A CPM system ran on the Z-80 (I
believe).  It never migrated to more powerful chips (well, it did,
but people seemed to buy MS-DOS instead - the CPM86 wouldn't run
CPM binaries). MS-DOS has migrated to 386 and 486 CPU's. A
cheap 386 clone has MORE power than a NeXt. Substantially more, for
less money. NeXt has to make their mark on spiffiness, by
out MACing Apple with a real multitasking OS.

And, please don't use the argument "I can use a diskless workstation".
Nobody - nobody - is going to make lots of sales of diskless
workstations. In ten years nobody - nobody - is going to make sales
of diskless electric mixers (and that is a serious prediction!).
"Lots of sales" implies selling single machines for stand-alone use.

I looked at the NeXt and was highly impressed, except for the
lack of color and the woeful lack of horsepower.

I was impressed by the MAC too, when it first came out, and the Lisa
before that. But I never have bought one. They are too frustrating.
Everything is canned. Too menu-driven. Too many things you "can't do".
Just yesterday I was looking at scanner software on one. The scanner
was attached, the program loaded, but the "scan" item on the menu
was grayed. NEither I nor the gurus had any idea why. The manual
was useless. Hopefully vendors of add-ons for the NeXt will
provide enough data on their products that an owner can write
ordinary Unix programs to access them. HAving a real OS and
being able to write ordinary command line programs is a big help.

Doug MCDonald