Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uflorida!beach.cis.ufl.edu!rlp
From: rlp@beach.cis.ufl.edu (Bob Powell)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: Will the Next sell?
Summary: Neat machine, but not everything I *demand*.
Keywords: color RAM disk backup software exchange
Message-ID: <21301@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU>
Date: 28 Nov 89 07:03:10 GMT
References: <4283@helios.ee.lbl.gov>
Sender: news@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU
Reply-To: rlp@beach.cis.ufl.edu (Bob Powell)
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Organization: UF CIS Department, Oddities Division
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In article <4283@helios.ee.lbl.gov> tierney@lbl-csam.arpa (Brian Tierney [SFSU Computer Science Dept]) writes:
>
>I have a Next in the same office where I work, and I've used it some,
>and think it's a really great machine. But the question occurs to me,
>who will actually spend money on this machine? Who are they marketing
>this thing for?  They can't possibly expect to make much money on the
>University market alone.
>
>First, why I would never buy one:
>    I need (and have on my Sun SPARCstation) AT LEAST 30M of ram and
> a 12 MIP machine. I also need to be able to run X windows.  For about
>the same price as a Next, I get this with a SparcStation (true, it's a
>diskless node, and disks are expensive, but you get the point).
>And to any scientists out there who say 'I don't need 30M of RAM or
>X windows', just a 1-2 years, you will.
>
>
>Is there another major group I'm forgetting (remember, Universities
>don't really count, they get such a big discount).
>
>So in general, the Next seems to be not powerful enough for the scientific
>community, and too expensive for everbody else.

You asked for comments, so here goes.

I don't know if I'd call it a "major" group, but there's those of us
who want *FAST* machines, loads of RAM, and lots of disk space.
16 meg of RAM just won't cut it (load the other three slots in the cube
with RAM, and you might have something).  330 meg of disk is nice,
but I don't want to have to backup to the floptical drive.  And I want
more than 330M of disk, too.

I want color, but not to have every window come up in an eye-popping
rainbow.  I want to have the screen in grayscale, with error messages
in red.  The "mail has arrived" flag should come up in blue.  Only the
"unusual" events need to be in color (on my machine, anyway).  With a
system that is mono-only (at this time), I don't even have the option.

Next, how the heck do I get software into the machine?  Don't tell me
to download, then uncompress it, then print the manual (or wait a few
days for it to arrive FedEx).  No, a floptical cartridge is gonna be
wasted for a program or dataset of less than a few hundred K (esp.
at $25 to $50 a cartridge).  I want to be able to walk into my friendly
NeXT store, pick up a box, and take home a real software package.
That includes a real manual.  Same with mailorder; I don't want to have
to dial a 1-800 number to spend hours downloading something.

How do you attach peripherals to the cube?  Sure it's got those neat
ports on the back, but attach one extra gadget, and *blam* that
sleek black space-age minimalist design goes down the tubes (sort of
like comparing the original plain Mac to the things we've got now).
And I want a keyboard I can put in my lap; the daisy-chain is neat,
but not user-friendly to me.

I've been diddling with computers since my first TRS-80 Model I
back in Oct. 1979.  Remember 4K of RAM, tape (audio cassette) storage,
and a BASIC with two string variables (good ol' A$ and B$)?
I've played with lots of good stuff since then, and some of it
actually would be useful.  Right now a Sun would be my best bet
(maybe an SGI or Apollo, but you get the idea).  I'm not going to
pay many thousands for a machine that doesn't do what I want.
Right now, the NeXT doesn't do what I want.

Yeah, so maybe I'm stubborn, and NeXT is a new company, and the next
generation of the NeXT will be better (of course, when that next generation
comes along, Sun, HP/Apollo, et al will already have machines on
the market as competition).

Thanks for reading.
Bob