Path: utzoo!censor!geac!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!world!boris
From: boris@world.std.com (Boris Levitin)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc
Subject: Re: Where does UNIX fit in a graphically-based computer world?
Message-ID: <1990Sep10.063504.27780@world.std.com>
Date: 10 Sep 90 06:35:04 GMT
References: <1990Sep5.202652.700@sun.soe.clarkson.edu> <1990Sep5.224940.19185@world.std.com> <1990Sep6.161554.28923@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
Organization: The World @ Software Tool & Die
Lines: 68

dorner@pequod.cso.uiuc.edu (Steve Dorner) writes:

>In article <1990Sep5.224940.19185@world.std.com> boris@world.std.com (Boris Levitin) writes:
>>Then everything will depend on HP's and Sun's marketing (that might be quite
>>a snag).

>I personally find both Sun and HP workstations quite distasteful.  Prejuidice
>aside, I think it's a mistake to not to mention NeXT, IBM, and DEC.  DEC
>makes better machines with better UNIX than Sun or Appollo.  IBM is, of course,
>IBM, and as UNIX moves into the mainstream more and more knee-jerk IBM'ers
>will buy IBM stuff.  NeXT hasn't made big inroads yet; but Jobs has done it
>twice before, and it wouldn't surprise me if he did it again.

I named HP/Apollo and Sun because they are currently dominant in the UNIX+GUI
market and will probably still dominate when such systems make a claim for
the business/personal computing world.  As far as the others go:

* DEC: I've nothing against it; it keeps claiming a price/performance advantage
       over HP and Sun RISC machines, but for some reason its penetration 
       currently seems to be low. As far as I understand, the VAXstations use a
       proprietary RISC chip that requires recompilation of software running on
       other UNIX boxes, and right now there are still few GUI-based programs
       running on the former compared to the latter.

* NeXT: I've just come back from MacWorld Expo/Boston, where they had a NeXT
        running Wingz (and trying to do a 3D graph in all of its two bits per
        pixel of video).  NeXT will be an attractive competitor to both Macs
        on one end and HP/Apollo/Sun/DEC on the other (in fact, it would be the
        ideal UNIX Trojan horse to take over personal computing) when there is
        a serious speed improvement, color, and, most importantly, a really
        major price cut (the new, faster model should not exceed $4-5,000 WITH
        a hard drive, although the floptical might have to be dropped).  Right
        now, the only user to whom the existing NeXT would make sense is the
        one who routinely does object-oriented development for scientific
        research, etc, and that's just not a big enough market.  For DTP, the
        purpose NeXT has been pursuing, the machine is a joke (it's slow, has
        2-bit video and costs the Earth).  Just like the first Mac, it's a
        lacking implementation of a good idea.

* IBM: To quote P. W. Botha, it must adapt or die.  I trust it will adapt,
       but whether with very interesting products, I don't know.

>It is also relevant to mention that the GUI vs. UNIX thing cuts both ways;
>not only is UNIX getting a GUI, but GUI-heavy machines are finding they
>need operating systems.  Witness OS/2, Macintosh System 7, and the new
>Windows.  It is at least as valid to ask whether these operating systems
>will be any good as it is to ask if the GUI's on top of UNIX are any good.

>My own feeling is that it is much easier to put a good GUI on UNIX than it
>is to slip a REASONABLE operating system under an existing application base
>(the game currently being played in the IBM PC and Mac worlds).

Amen.  I'm running into the toy aspect of the current version of the Mac OS
right now.  I hope Apple gets serious about giving the Mac a real operating
system, based on UNIX, free, soon (a good first step would be to drop the
outrageous $800-1,000 charge for A/UX).  A real operating system, though, 
would really be useful only with higher speed levels (RISC, probably),
because if background processes were able to be given more resources on the
current Mac models, they would soon make the foreground programs somewhat
less than interactive.

Boris Levitin
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WGBH Public Broadcasting, Boston                         boris@world.std.com
Audience & Marketing Research              wgbx!boris_levitin@athena.mit.edu
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(The opinions expressed herein are my own and do not necessarily coincide 
with those of my employer or anyone else.  The WGBH tag is for ID only.)