Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!brunix!rca
From: rca@cs.brown.edu (Ronald C.F. Antony)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: Read the fine print!
Message-ID: <50944@brunix.UUCP>
Date: 24 Sep 90 21:28:11 GMT
References: <15640002@hpdmd48.boi.hp.com>
Sender: news@brunix.UUCP
Reply-To: rca@cs.brown.edu (Ronald C.F. Antony)
Organization: Brown University Department of Computer Science
Lines: 41

In article <15640002@hpdmd48.boi.hp.com> sritacco@hpdmd48.boi.hp.com (Steve Ritacco) writes:
>Hate to burst your bubble folks, but there are some serious missunderstandings
>being pushed around.
>
>#1  The NeXTdimension color board can only be added to a cube.
>#2  The NeXTstation and NeXTstation color have no expansion capabilities.
>
>The new price for the cube is $7995 without the MO drive and the MO drive
>is $2995.  In other words folks, No effective price reduction!

Why should there be any? The original cube was cheap for what it
offered, and now it is a lot faster and still cheap. You can have
either a lower price for old technology or the same price fornew
technology. Wanting both reminds me of German Trade Unions that want
shorter work hours AND higher pay...

>Why does the cube cost $3000 more than the slab?!?!?!?!?
>That is outrageous!
>The CPU board in the slab is different from the one in the cube.
>There is no hope of going from a slab to a cube.
>Why would NeXT design 2 CPU boards that are essentially identical?

They are not. There is no bus chip, no bus logic, no support of OD,
etc.

>Actually the slab cpu is not as high performance as the cube, it has
>lower throughput and can only hold half as much RAM.
>The slab should have been a 2 slot cube!  Now that would have been hot!
>I really don't see why the slabs had to be "closed" boxes.

I guess you could answer your questions yourself: the NeXTStation is
cheaper, i.e. the cube is more expensive exactly because there are all
these differences that you don't like but cut costs. NeXT didn't
introduce the pizza-box just because some people like this design
better...

Ronald
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"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@browncog.bitnet