Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!wuarchive!usc!isi.edu!venera.isi.edu!jas
From: jas@ISI.EDU (Jeff Sullivan)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc
Subject: Re: Not another NeXT defector???!!!
Message-ID: <15549@venera.isi.edu>
Date: 6 Nov 90 18:05:06 GMT
References: <2909@unccvax.uncc.edu> <1990Nov4.084938.22146@cs.ucla.edu>
Sender: news@isi.edu
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In-reply-to: lange@lanai.cs.ucla.edu's message of 4 Nov 90 08:49:38 GMT

In article <1990Nov4.084938.22146@cs.ucla.edu> lange@lanai.cs.ucla.edu (Trent Lange) writes:

   In article <2909@unccvax.uncc.edu> cs00jec@unccvax.uncc.edu (Jim Cain v2.0.1) writes:
   >
   >Oh no! Say it ain't so!!!
   >
   >You Macsters need to talk me out of this one! I'm actually seriously
   >considering defecting to the NeXT camp and buying one of their 040
   >machines. Why should I get a IIci with A/UX instead of a NeXTstation?
   >
   >Please help me.
   >
   >I've fallen, and I can't get up!!

	[ ... ]

   Note that you could replace "Mac" with "IBM" in the above three and get
   the only reasons for buying a PC or PC compatible rather than a NeXT.
   (There are, of course, many reasons for buying Macs rather than PCs).

   I suspect you already know the reasons in favor of buying a NeXT
   rather than a Mac (absolutely incredible price/performance ratio,
   Unix with the machine, display postscript for truely WYSIWG, etc.)

This is something I don't understand.  Why would people *want* a UNIX
operating system for their HOME or OFFICE COMPUTER?  In a
programming/technical field, sure, but UNIX is just too goddmaned much
work for someone who wants to use his or her computer rather than
maintain it.

Maybe most of the NeXTers out there are just programmers who don't
actually DO anything with their computers but program them, but most
people who use computers as a tool, rather than an end (and this
SHOULD be most of them; what sense is there in a technology which is
used more to perfect the technology than to use it to produce
something outside of its confines?)

The other problem with NeXT seems to be that lack of a VARIETY fo
software.  Not that there isn't A piece of software to do anything
standard, like word processing or spreadsheet, but that there's only
ONE program to do it.  What other WP packages are there for neXT
besides WriteNow?  What are the database options?  Graphics?
Animation?

jas



--
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Jeffrey A. Sullivan		| Senior Systems Programmer
jas@venera.isi.edu		| Information Sciences Institute
jas@isi.edu   DELPHI: JSULLIVAN	| University of Southern California