Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!aplcen!samsung!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!van-bc!questor!aberno
From: aberno@questor.wimsey.bc.ca (Anthony Berno)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: NeXT vs. Mac
Message-ID: <87ocR1w163w@questor.wimsey.bc.ca>
Date: 20 Oct 90 17:31:30 GMT
Organization: The Questor Project: FREE World-wide News & e-Mail
Lines: 27

There has been a lot of talk about the relative performance of the Mac
vs. the NeXT. I quite agree, having used both, it would seem on the 
surface that a high end MacII is faster. But consider this:

While the Mac is using a relatively simple imaging model, (QuickDraw),
the NeXT is using PostScript, which requires millions upon millions of
floating point operations. Have you ever seen a Mac text window scroll
WHILE you move the scrollbar? Even with QuickDraw, it would be much
jerkier than on a Next.

At any given time, the Mac is doing only one thing at a time, while the
NeXT has daemons and other applications busy in the background. They are
actually doing useful things. If a Mac tried to do so many things at once
(which it can't really do anyway, not being a multitasking computer)
it would be hopelessly bogged down.

The only thing I don't get is why applications take so long to launch on
the NeXT. Perhaps they are intrinsically bigger? As for everything else, 
give the poor cube a break! If a Mac ever tried to process all the things
that were going on in a Next, ranging from display PostScript to the
Window Server (notice how the WHOLE window moves when you drag it, not
just the frame) it would be hopelessly slow. I would guess that the
programmers at NeXT tried to make a compromise between nice features
and a bogged down system. If you could run the Mac OS on a machine with
the NeXT architecture, it would go so fast you would miss it if you bl
did so much as blink. So don't complain about speed - if you want speed
without the nicities, buy a Sun.