Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!usc!bbn.com!nic!chaos.cs.brandeis.edu!chaos!zippy From: zippy@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu (Patrick Tufts) Newsgroups: comp.sys.next Subject: Re: NeXT vs. Mac Message-ID: Date: 24 Oct 90 01:26:36 GMT References: <87ocR1w163w@questor.wimsey.bc.ca> Sender: @chaos.cs.brandeis.edu Organization: Brandeis University Computer Science Dept Lines: 49 In-Reply-To: aberno@questor.wimsey.bc.ca's message of 20 Oct 90 17:31:30 GMT In article <87ocR1w163w@questor.wimsey.bc.ca> aberno@questor.wimsey.bc.ca (Anthony Berno) writes: 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. [NeXT does many useful things at once. Mac doesn't.] [Mac OS on NeXT would be fast. If you want speed w/o niceties, buy a Sun] I'm sure no one will disagree that Display Postscript is a better imaging model than Quickdraw, but I'd rather have my machine bog down on _interesting_ problems. The NeXT has daemons running in the background doing 'useful' things. But aren't these tasks useful only because the NeXT needs them? What do the background tasks do that a Mac user would find useful? --Pat -- |\/\/\/|--------------------------------------------------------------------| | | "I WILL NOT HACK IN LISP proj: writing empire in a lisp-based | | (o)(o) / I WILL NOT HACK IN LISP TECO front end for a SQL | C _) I WILL NOT HACK IN LISP server implemented in APL | | ,___| I WILL NOT HACK IN LISP" | |___/----------------------------------------------------------------------| / \ / \ | brand | | X | |_______| | | | | \___|___| | | | | | | | | |_| |_| (__| |__)