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From: gft_robert@gsbacd.uchicago.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc
Subject: Re: Not another NeXT defector???!!!
Message-ID: <1990Nov6.222023.8572@midway.uchicago.edu>
Date: 6 Nov 90 21:08:16 GMT
Sender: news@midway.uchicago.edu (News Administrator)
Organization: University of Chicago Graduate School of Business
Lines: 54

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In article <1990Nov6.212848.10254@agate.berkeley.edu>, knrgroup@garnet.berkeley.edu (Raymond group) writes...
[...]
>Never used a NeXT, eh?  NeXT hides Unix under a GUI that, IMHO, is even
>easier to use than a Mac's.  A Unix expert would be hard pressed to 
>figure out that Unix was actually running under all the pretty windows
>on a NeXT. If you need to do something on a NeXT that you could do on a
>Mac, it is as easy or easier to do as on a Mac (with some minor exceptions:
>I still prefer the horizontal menu bars on the Mac over the vertical main
>menus on the NeXT).  


That's interesting.  How easy is it to add an extra hard disk to a Next?  Could
someone with absolutely no computer knowledge -- or inclination to learn -- do
it?  How about copying from one floptical to another (yes, Macs don't have
flopticals built in, but it was until recently the main "floppy" of the Next). 
Is it just a matter of inserting them and click-n-drag? 
[...]
>As I said, the NeXT is a delightfully easy machine to use.  You would swear
>that it was a Mac with a prettier interface.  Remember, creators of the Mac
>created the NeXT.  

Or you could say that it was a good attempt at improving the Mac interface that
just didn't succeed, that was far too baroque.  Also, if you're referring to
some of the main creators of the Mac software (which, as people have pointed
out, is much of what the Mac is all about), they included folks like Bill
Atkinson and Andy Hertzfeld.  They had -- as far as I know -- nothing to do
with Next. 

> 
>Already, much of the software on the NeXT outclass their Mac counterparts in
>both power and ease-of-use.  Check out the review of Lotus's revolutionary
>spreadsheet Improv in the October issue of Byte.  


Now THAT'S a non-sequitur if I've ever heard one.  I know of little on the Next
_with the exception of Improv_ that _"outclasses"_ their Mac counterparts.  I'm
sure that such exists, just as the inverse must also surely exist.

Now people can legitimately claim that the Next is a better workstation than
the Mac.  At present it probably is.  And they can argue that it's a better
business machine than the Mac; I don't agree, but at least it's not a specious
argument.  But to claim that the Next is a better HOME machine than the Mac for
the average user is ludicrous!!!  


Robert


============================================================================
= gft_robert@gsbacd.uchicago.edu * generic disclaimer: * "It's more fun to =
=            		         * all my opinions are *  compute"         =
=                                * mine                *  -Kraftwerk       =
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