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From: mdeale@vega.acs.calpoly.edu (Myron (the one in Calif.) Deale)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: NeXT: Please Consider 2MB -> 20 MB floppies
Message-ID: <26f5b325.119f@petunia.CalPoly.EDU>
Date: 18 Sep 90 05:39:49 GMT
References: <344@kaos.MATH.UCLA.EDU> <57380@microsoft.UUCP>
Reply-To: mdeale@vega.acs.calpoly.edu.UUCP (Myron Deale)
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Organization: ACS, Cal Poly, San Luis
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In article <57380@microsoft.UUCP> edwardj@microsoft.UUCP (Edward JUNG) writes:
>In article <344@kaos.MATH.UCLA.EDU> barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes:
>>and shape as a standard 3.5" drive, but the floppies hold
>>a whopping 20MB. If NeXT has to switch to floppies, this is
>[further descriptions deleted]
>
>The companies that actually make this kind of hardware are Brier
>and Insite.  NeXT would deal with them rather than an OEM.
>
>It is unfortunate that the industry failed to pick up and leverage
>the large ODs, but it is clearly difficult to produce that kind
>of magnitude of useful data for your average application, esp.
>when the data is accessed with the rates, reliability, cost, and
>noise of the NeXT optical drive.  Some day, not too far in the

	A day much like today. If I might humbly add my 2 cents too;
it's a real kick in the pants to record stuff off a CD (via a Digital
Ears-like device, kudos to rmayfiel@data) and fill up an opti. Around
here we have PS/2's and NeXT's in the same lab, and firing up the
Beatles or R.Plant or Beethoven or Oingo Boingo (?) has netted a few
priceless stares, I hesitate to admit. :-)

> ...
>From a purely marketing point of view, things would be different
>if the media cost $10, even at 1/2 the capacity.  But failing that,
>I wouldn't mind a CD ROM drive; I tend to produce far less information
>than I consume, and publish even less of it (and when I do, it isn't
>very often), so a $2 read-only medium is a reasonable compromise.

	You have better experience with the market. And of course
students can usually only afford to consume what's on the net. However,
I don't think I'm alone in starting more ambitious projects. Programs
that work with large libraries of images or sound signals.
	The Insite Floptical Drive (registered, I believe) is an
excellent product and I have been hoping for their success over the
past 3 years. I wanted to port their drive to the Mac II.
	For the NeXT, I wonder if going out on the limb with the opti
is too much for now; i.e. should NeXT take another gamble?
	Fortunately, I don't make that decision. I'm not (yet) in the
position of market forecasting and thus don't have an adequte plan to
replace the opti. Partially because I'm satisfied, despite the noise
and frequent problems. If you want to hit me over the head with FDDI
(or FDDI+, or SONET) and color displays, and awesome processors ...
great!  then FrameMaker will run quicker.

>NeXT was just too far ahead of the technology.

	I draw a different conclusion.

>Edward Jung
>Microsoft Corp.

-Myron
// My opinions are 1) my own and not my employers, and 2) free.