Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!samsung!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!psuvax1!news From: melling@cs.psu.edu (Michael D Mellinger) Newsgroups: comp.sys.next Subject: Re: What NeXT *should* do next. Message-ID: Date: 26 Mar 90 02:57:37 GMT References: <1378@shelby.Stanford.EDU> <9967@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu> <424@toaster.SFSU.EDU> <35@isl.stanford.edu> <260d50a2.19ff@petunia.CalPoly.EDU> Sender: news@cs.psu.edu (Usenet) Organization: Penn State University Computer Science Lines: 44 In-Reply-To: mdeale@mira.acs.calpoly.edu's message of 25 Mar 90 23:13:38 GMT In article <260d50a2.19ff@petunia.CalPoly.EDU> mdeale@mira.acs.calpoly.edu (Myron Deale) writes: Yes, software is important. Thus I'm swayed to think NeXT should stick it out with the 68000 series, i.e. upgrade to the 68040, etc. That "RISC stuff" goes like the blazes, very desirable for my computing style, but what DTP type person needs a 50 Mips word processor? -Myron [You can throw in a 96000 DSP or i860 too :] // "Heavy iron, with a CPU pasted on." -- J. Mashey. // disclaimer: I barely speak for me, let alone a corporation. With a little bit a of an imagination, I'm sure you could find something that 50(pick a number, any number) mips would not be enough. DTP was the rage of the 80's. Computers are going to to be used for multimedia in the 90's(Next, the computer of the 90's). Animation and simulations require a lot of horsepower. But just thinking about the immediate future (1 year), like most good American companies, my main reason for putting a faster chip in the machine was so software developers could spend more time writing software rather than optimizing and debugging it. Software designers can then spend more time adding greater functionality to their products instead. If that doesn't convince you then how about this reason: Because everyone is going to have a >30mip machine! If IBM can do it then Sun, HP, Apollo, MIPS,...etc can do it also. NeXT is back at the bottom in the performance game. Not I think NeXT should strive to be no. 1 in mips, but I do think they should be competitive in mips/$. After all, people aren't buying Nexts because they're speed demons. No matter how much horsepower NeXT puts in their machine, some crazed software developer is going to come out with something that pushes the machine to its limits!! Your last comment about about DTP type people raises another point. Does one computer fit all? NeXT markets only one machine(ok, one w/o floptical) at the high end of the market. Wouldn't they sell more computers if they fit the market better? How much bigger is the under $5000 market than the $5000-$10,000 market? And the under $2000 market? John Sculley you marketing genius, where are you? -Mike