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From: azure@portia.Stanford.EDU (Lai Heng Chua)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: Free software distribution for the NeXT?
Message-ID: <1990Oct1.235847.3950@portia.Stanford.EDU>
Date: 1 Oct 90 23:58:47 GMT
References: <4b1vCe_00Voh466EVm@andrew.cmu.edu>
Organization: AIR, Stanford University
Lines: 38

True, not much commercial software yet.  A lot of what
is available costs big bucks.  Fortunately, some software
is reasonably priced and there are cool programs that might be 
had from universities which have been actively developing on
their machines.  These university guys do things you won't see
on the market yet.

Someone was looking for a program to plot
data.  Well there is one called Reason from Stanford Linear
Accelerator Center devised precisely for visualizing
data from nuclear physics experiments.  Contact Paul Kunz,
Physicist pfkeb@ebnextk.slac.stanford.edu.  Pretty neat.
There is also GraphView from Gregory Shannon of Indiana
University.

Many many more programs (speech syn., SPASM - Stanford
speech understanding - Sphinx at cmu, Underwater sound
analysis - U. of Washington, Animation Production Environment
- Ohio State University).  Unpolished software, but state-or-art
function.  Sometimes source code is also available, and you
can hack the code to do whatever you like.

To talk to PC or Mac, you can use Kermit and run a cable over
from the serial ports (haven't tried because I use the ethernet)
or connect via ethernet (ethernet card on PC or Mac needed).
To connect to Appletalk you need additional hardware such as
Gatorbox and corresponding software (a similar one for PC).  To
connect to IBM mainframes, there is Connextions software.

But why do you want to make students suffer with command line
and a tiny screen, seeing new NeXT machines are $3000 
a piece now?  Unless they are only reading mail or something.

Get a copy of NeXT on Campus.

Lai Chua
Stanford U.
chua@cive.stanford.edu