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: still more...
Keywords: color RAM disk backup software exchange
Message-ID: <21324@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU>
Date: 30 Nov 89 05:39:42 GMT
References: <4283@helios.ee.lbl.gov> <21301@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU> <21736@brunix.UUCP>
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
Lines: 141

In article <21736@brunix.UUCP> rca@cslab9g.UUCP (Ronald C.F. Antony) writes:

>I wonder how much you know about the machine, that you write this!

I know what I've gotten from the Next-sized brochure they made available
via the UF computer demo room, and from a good corss-section of the
computer press (Byte, PC Computing, et al).

>You can have 64MB of Ram without using up any of the 3 free slots, 

I know that, but 64 M just ain't gonna be enough.  After the op system,
the windowing/GUI system, all the hardware management software (drivers,
scanner controllers, etc), 64 M will leave enough for some applications.
Forget the data those apps will require and/or generate.

>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?

And I know the cube can hold the 660MB drive (that's in the brochure :).
I'm not looking at a SPARCstation either; I'm talking about floor
models here, for handling 1.7GB drives, and the backup system.
The problem with going to a server or external drives is that,
considering the way the cube is so lovingly futuro-designed, any
attachments are going to look more than a bit kludgy.  Other than
that, external drives are cool by me.  Actually, if Next would make
external drives in a cube chassis, or something that looked like
a cube, or if they made the chassis (just the magnesium case, not
the power supply, drives, board, etc) available to outside drive
manufacturers, I'd be happy.  Then I could stack the cubes, or,
if I had eight cubes, build them into a *big* cube :).

>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...)

I'm willing to buy an exabyte, but see the above comments on the
aesthetics of the situation.  Hey, if I'm spending 10 to 15 thou
on hardware, I want it to look decent (even hyper hardware
manufacturers realize that; consider that Cray machines are
furnished in the customer's choice of fabric covering).  I have
no driving need or want to buy all my stuff from the same company.
In fact, 400 dpi from the Next printer isn't really up to snuff, but
I can't get a Next-compatible 600 dpi printer (that I know of anyway)
and be able to take advantage of Display PostScript.
I agree, companies should do what they are good at; so why does Next
figure it should be the only way to go for getting a printer?


>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?

Yeah, that's color enough.  Even though most of the time I only want
color for the error messages, annunciators, etc, there are times
when 32 bit color will be very nice, if not outright necessary.


>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!

Well, I guess I'm in the very few ("The few, the proud, the memory
guzzlers.  Be all you can be.  It's not just a program, it's an
adventure.").  I don't even do all that much programming; even
commerally-available software can take up gobs of RAM, and, once
again, the data going in and out of those programs (esp. for image
processing) is probably going to take more room than the program
itself.


>>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?

Nonono, you've misunderstood.  Though, the way I phrased it, I can see how.
By "how" I don't mean the interfaces available; SCSI, Ethernet, and NuBus
are fine there.  What I referred to (again; please don't think I have
a fetish for tidy system design) is the fact that peripherals hanging
off the back are going to break up "the Look" of the system.  Besides
that, if the cube is sitting 3 meters away, any attachments you might
want sitting next to the display are going to have to have 3 meter cables
(unless they get daisy-chained too), and the rat's nest of wire grows.


>>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).  

Hmmm...*real* hardware hacking.  I kinda like that, actually.  Too
bad Heathkit won't have Nexten in kit form :).


>>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? 

My handy-dandy Inmac catalog has DC2000 compatible tapes for $23.35
in quantities of 5 or less (and Inmac is hardly a price leader in
computer supplies).  I know tapes don't hold as much (around 40 MB),
but it's a closer fit to the size of programs (and some datasets).

>Finally there is still the possibility to lend the optical disk, and
>send it back after installations, this is less hassle than
>diskettes...

I thought about that, and it just might work.  Given sufficient hard
drive space, all you'd need would be one or two flopticals to use
when carrying stuff from one place to another (just leave all the
other stuff on the fixed drive system).

>"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


Damn good quote!  I like people to be unreasonable.  That's the only
way Apple "opened up" the Mac (though, hehe, at cost to the aesthetics
of the system), and it's going to be the way to get Next to give us
what we want.

Bob