Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!rice!uupsi!grebyn!ckp From: ckp@grebyn.com (Checkpoint Technologies) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: Commodore at FCC Message-ID: <22153@grebyn.com> Date: 21 Sep 90 22:02:01 GMT References: <22107@grebyn.com> <14568@cbmvax.commodore.com> Reply-To: ckp@grebyn.UUCP (Checkpoint Technologies) Organization: Grebyn Timesharing, Vienna, VA, USA Lines: 84 In article <14568@cbmvax.commodore.com> daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) writes: >In article <22107@grebyn.com> ckp@grebyn.UUCP (Checkpoint Technologies) writes: >>I don't mean to be a doom-sayer, but I don't see much reason to buy an >>A3000 to run Unix when the NeXTstation looks the way it does. > >You might also ask why would someone buy a NeXT when the A3000 looks the >way it does. If you think a NeXT will offer that much more, you're confused. I was a little confused, that's true. I do see some things differently now... I did specifically say "A3000 to run Unix". The A3000 with AmigaOS, NTSC compatibility, and Amiga applications is hard to reasonably compare to a NeXT. They do different things; if you need to do what an Amiga does, a NeXT won't do. I realize that NeXT's unix is somewhat unique; it's really Mach plus BSD Unix compatibility. Calling it "unix" is stretching the truth. Calling AT&T System V Release 4 "Unix" is right on the money (hell, AT&T defines the term "Unix" anyway). Right now, the Federal Government requires SVID / Posix compliance in all their new system purchases. NeXT doesn't meet this. Amiga Unix will. Oh, and speaking of Unix, a rumor: I spoke to a representative of Interactive Systems at FCC. They make a popular version of Unix for PCs, and they have announced a SVR4 product. This rep said he thought it would be another year before they could ship, because of detail work on SVR4 still in progress at AT&T. MicroPort has already begun shipping SVR4 for Intel 386 based PCs; the ISC rep said he thought Microport would probably have to offer a significant and incompatible upgrade to their version since it was effectively a beta product. I certainly hope this does not stall Commodore's SVR4 Unix the same way. >The NeXT sound capabilities aren't anything special. The DSP is a nice >built-in, but it's a rather weak DSP. The NeXTstation has a microphone and the DSP has a digitizer; this is specifically to support their voice mail. And the NeXT "CD-quality" sound, via twin 16-bit sound channels on the DSP. You don't need a DSP to do this; DMA would work just fine, but the NeXT doesn't use DMA for it, it uses the DSP. Rather a waste of a DSP just to make some sounds... > my feeling is that most >of the NeXT customers have no immediate use for sound processing. I recall something I read once, that the DSP was there in an attempt to satisfy a request from universities for some kind of vector processing. >>and it runs Lotus - the brochure talks almost as much about Lotus Improv(tm) >>as it does about the rest of the machine. > >While it can do something with Lotus 1-2-3 file, they're claiming that Lotus >Improv is NOT really Lotus 1-2-3 compatible. The product itself may be different or even worthless; it's more that Lotus, the company, has implemented a NeXT product. This is a market move to show that the NeXT is designed to be on buisiness desktops. If only Commodore could do this. I don't care if Lotus only writes a replacement for the "copy" command, or if it doesn't work as well as the original; it's a Lotus product on an Amiga. >But there's not all that much NeXTStep software. The largest market for >UNIX + GUI software today is SunOS (reference: Personal Workstation), which >is merging with AT&T UNIX, X, OpenLook, etc. Which is exactly what the >A3000 UNIX runs. Which means, thanks to ABI, that UNIX SV.4 based SunOS >will be binary compatible with A3000s and quite a few other 680x0 family >machines out there. Sun adopting 68K ABI? This I've gotta see. They don't seem to be interested in improving their 68K line at all. They won't make a 68040 machine (unless they make a faster Sparc too :-). Some claim they'll be all Sparc within a year; I don't think that's rational, but time will tell. -- First comes the logo: C H E C K P O I N T T E C H N O L O G I E S / / \\ / / Then, the disclaimer: All expressed opinions are, indeed, opinions. \ / o Now for the witty part: I'm pink, therefore, I'm spam! \/