Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!know!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!gate.oxy.edu!oxy!wirehead
From: wirehead@oxy.edu (David J. Harr)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: NeXT Religion
Message-ID: <111471@tiger.oxy.edu>
Date: 26 Sep 90 15:30:58 GMT
References: <20467@orstcs.CS.ORST.EDU> <448@news.nd.edu> <2444@lectroid.sw.stratus.com>
Organization: Occidental College, Los Angeles, CA  90041
Lines: 20

jmann@angmar.sw.stratus.com says
>I don't think the price of ODs can EVER drop enough to completely replace
>floppy disks...
This is probably true for the magneto optical drive types that the NeXT
machine uses. However, there is an optical medium that is cheap enough to
completely replace floppies for the distribution of software. Of course, I
am talking about CD-ROM. I realize that the current OD mechanisms cannot
read CD-ROM disks, but it might solve a lot of problems if they could. In
the last little while, Apple has begun giving people the option of buying
their software on CD-ROM instead of floppies, and the CD-ROM version is
usually signifigantly cheaper. I asked someone at Apple why they were
pushing CD-ROM so hard and they told me that if they had to send out a
package with two or more floppies, it was cheaper to just use CD-ROM,
because the media cost less. If we could just encourage the folks at NeXT to
work the ability to read CD-ROM into the OD, we could solve all the software
distribution problems permanently (and CD-ROMs never get bad sectors...).

Just another lunatic opinion from the warped brain of wirehead@oxy.edu.

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