Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!brunix!rca
From: rca@brunix (Ronald C.F. Antony)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: Will the Next sell?
Keywords: color RAM disk backup software exchange
Message-ID: <21736@brunix.UUCP>
Date: 28 Nov 89 22:24:56 GMT
References: <4283@helios.ee.lbl.gov> <21301@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU>
Sender: news@brunix.UUCP
Reply-To: rca@cslab9g.UUCP (Ronald C.F. Antony)
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Organization: Brown University Department of Computer Science
Lines: 60


>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 wonder how much you know about the machine, that you write this!
You can have 64MB of Ram without using up any of the 3 free slots, 
you can have an internal 660MB drive (try do have this in a pizza-box
 i.e. SPARCstation) and if this is not enough then you can have a
server or external drives, so where is the problem with storage?
If you want a tape backup, so buy an exabyte. Or do you want to buy 
everything from the same company? Well, then NeXT does not make
digitizers, keyboard-coverst, kitchen-sinks (well, nor does any other
reasonable company: they should do what they are good in...)

When it comes to color or speed, then it is a question of price.
Compare the NeXT with the SUN 3/80 not with the SPARC. 
Color is coming pretty soon, 32-bit color (24-bit color, 8-bit
transparency) and no braindamaged 8-bit stuff. Then get photorealism
on the desktop. Color enough?

By the way, these ppl who need that much memory must be VERY few or
bad programmers. Here at Brown, most of the advanced research is done
on SPARCstations with only 12MB of RAM!

>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).

Well, if SCSI, Ethernet and NUBUS-slots are not enough, what please
would you like to see? What does a SUN have in addition to that?

>And I want a keyboard I can put in my lap; the daisy-chain is neat,
>but not user-friendly to me.
Althogh I understand you very well in this point, most ppl still work
on the desk, but it is probably not too difficult to make some longer 
connection to the mouse.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
You were talking about storage, here you got it! Maybe you want to
store certain applications with the data that belongs to it, maybe
there are other reasons you want to have the space for. But at least
you get some REAL value along with the Software. Usually you have all
these nice color boxes and cases, tons of leaflets and stuff like
that. Have you ever installed UNIXsoftware form diskettes? I did, and
I never want to do this again. And if you think of tapes, how much
cheaper are they? 
Finally there is still the possibility to lend the optical disk, and
send it back after installations, this is less hassle than
diskettes...
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"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 or antony@cogsci.bitnet