Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!timbuk!cs.umn.edu!msi-s0.msi.umn.edu!srcsip!mandrake!engstrom From: engstrom@SRC.Honeywell.COM (Eric Engstrom) Newsgroups: comp.sys.next Subject: Re: SOME ADVICE FOR NEXT Message-ID: <93645@srcsip.UUCP> Date: 27 Sep 90 22:52:31 GMT References: Sender: news@src.honeywell.COM Distribution: comp Lines: 61 In-reply-to: melling@cs.psu.edu's message of 26 Sep 90 23:47:57 GMT In article melling@cs.psu.edu (Michael D Mellinger) writes: > Forgive me if I seem to be jumping the gun, but now is the time for > NeXT to consider this. I believe that NeXT's biggest advantage over > Apple is that its OS isn't written in 68000 assembler. This means > that they can develop a new machine around a new high performance RISC > chip. NeXT has a large number of advantages over Macintoshes, some of which I, PERSONALLY, believe are more deserving of attention that what the OS is written in. Granted, the fact that the OS is Mach, written in C, and probably most of the rest of the system is also written in C or Objective-C, does give NeXT the opportunity to port it to other CPU types, which Apple may not have with the Macintosh, but that might not be the way to go. (read on...) > The new generation of RISC's are going to be in the 40 mip > range. I doubt if the 68050 will be ready before 1992. The new > generation RISC's should appear by early next year. Ok, so they have to wait a few months before they get prototype 050s. Motorola's not going to make NeXT wait until their release date to play with the 050s... In addition, diverging the NeXT architecture into two very distinct types might plague them with more problems. For example, Sun had in the Sun3 a fairly nice machine. Along comes the Sun4 (Sparcstaion) using RISC technology. Sure its faster, but trying to integrate the two types of machine into one network is no minor task. "But," you say, "Why would I ever want a Sun3 when the Sun4 is so much better?" (point debatable). What if you already own Sun3s (or NeXT 030s) and you want to buy say Sun4s (or NeXT-RiSCs). Not only are you going to have to purchase the machines, but you will also have to double (or more) your file system space to hold all of the doubled binaries (as they are not compatible between the two architectures). In addition, you will probably have to hire at least one more person to help with the load of maintaining the expanded file-system. Now, I must say that I think Suns and NeXTs of any denomination are nice machines (much better that those that I will leave unnamed). Also, I'm not claiming to be any marketing wizard, so perhaps this kind of move is actually very appropriate. > By next September > NeXT could have a 40 mip machine on the market. Apple will surely > have an 040 Mac by January, but they have to stop there until they > rewrite their OS. I hope NeXT is hard at work building a RISC based > machine, so that they can maintain the performance edge they now have > over Apple. Sure NeXT has a performance edge over Apple, but what kind of Macintosh are you thinking of which could compete with a NeXT in terms of MIPS? Even so, Why are you stuck in the "Magic Number Syndrome," as someone (I don't remember) on this newsgroup stated earlier. If you were to look a real applications usage, a NeXT would always out-perform a Mac. Then, if you take into account the relative prices and amount of NeXT bundled software (yes there still is some ;-) I think the NeXT is a much better buy... Eric +--------- Eric Engststrom, Honeywell SRC | ARPA: engstrom@src.honeywell.com | [DISCLAIMER: UUCP: {umn-cs,ems,bthpyd}!srcsip!engstrom | My own opinions - 3.1415 = MAIL: 3660 Technology Drive, Mpls, MN | orgainically grown] Phone: (612) 782-7318 |