Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uunet!brunix!rca
From: rca@brunix (Ronald C.F. Antony)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: A kind word...
Message-ID: <21597@brunix.UUCP>
Date: 27 Nov 89 02:00:34 GMT
References: <4275@helios.ee.lbl.gov>
Sender: news@brunix.UUCP
Reply-To: rca@cslab5g.UUCP (Ronald C.F. Antony)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Brown University Department of Computer Science
Lines: 64

there are a few things to say:
a) "It's too slow"
it is not that much slower than a sparcstation with X, although
many say NeXT's window system is slow. It may have less MIPS, 
but when a lot of programs run, a RISC machine comes down in
speed pretty soon (context-switching). Read just what (was it
UNIXWORLD ?) wrote about the DECstation 3200 which is faster
than a SPARCstation: if it comes down to 'real'-applications
and not just benchmarks, it is about the speed of a good 386.
But if we are talking about speed, then look at the future:
not only 68040 and the new DSP are coming, MACH has support
for multiprocessing, which other UNIX-worksations can't offer
in such a way. Drop in a few CPU's and then talk about speed
again.
b) "It's too expensive"
just BUY (not steal) a good wordprocessor, LISP, SQL-database 
server, Mathematica etc. for the SPARCstation and compare
then the price. Look what a reasonable amount of disk-storage
costs for the other machines. The optical drive is the ultimate
thing if you can't afford a 2Gigabyte tape streamer plus huge 
disk storage. You can use it for backup as well as for data/
programs you only need occasionaly. And 50$/256MB....
The next NeXT will anyway have 512Mb and a shorter access time
(fingers crossed).
c) "It doesn't have any software"
Seldom a brand new machine has had more software than the NeXT
(of course I do not talk about the 86,286,386,486 PC-clones, 
but they never are really new machines)
A lot of the big software houses are developing for the NeXT.
What is here is impressive, and what is said to come is even
more. (Seen beta versions of WingZ e.g.?)
Most of the standard UNIX-stuff can be ported, if you need not
the graphical userinterface.
d) "It doesn't run X"
Well who want's X? Even on 12MB SPARCstations WITH graphics-
accelerator this thing just creeps! Besides X is in the works, 
if you really need it. That it is not already here is due to
the fact, that MIT want's first X11R4 to be done and then port
the newest release to the NeXT, instead of porting it twice.
So it even might be one of the first machines with the NEW X on
it...
e) "does not have color"
well early next year we'll see 32-bit color:
24 color + 8bit transparency, probably we will also see the
renderman language on the NeXT pretty soon.

If you want to see where NeXT is going, then look at what NeXT
does with release 1.0 and compare it to SUN-OS 1.0 or MS-DOS 1.0
Then you will see that it is only a starting point, with plenty
room for growth.

Ron

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists
in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the
unreasonable man." - Bernhard Shaw
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> rca@cs.brown.edu / antony@cogsci.cog.brown.edu / st502509@brownvm.bitnet <<
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists
in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the
unreasonable man." - Bernhard Shaw