Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!julius.cs.uiuc.edu!psuvax1!psuvm!cxt105 From: CXT105@psuvm.psu.edu (Christopher Tate) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc Subject: Re: Not another NeXT defector???!!! Message-ID: <90312.182529CXT105@psuvm.psu.edu> Date: 8 Nov 90 23:25:29 GMT References: <46372@apple.Apple.COM> <1990Nov7.212944.11043@agate.berkeley.edu> <1990Nov8.175911.16932@agate.berkeley.edu> Organization: Penn State University Lines: 52 In article <1990Nov8.175911.16932@agate.berkeley.edu>, knrgroup@garnet.berkeley.edu (Raymond group) says: >Precisely. Someone has written a driver for virtually everything under the >sun for 4.3BSD Unix. Did you know that there is even a driver for drum >memory on the NeXT! (Not that it's particularly useful nowadays.) A Mac >also needs drivers for different devices. Thus, a Mac user cannot take >a peripheral only originally intended for large Unix machines and connect >it to a Mac without going through the pain of writing a driver. Have you >ever heard of a Mac user writing a device driver? I don't think so. This is true. Essentially, the only things you can connect to a Mac are things which are *designed* to be connected to it. However, you can hook up most anything to a Unix machine. HOWEVER, this is beside the point. If you want to hook up anything to a NeXT that isn't one of the "plug-and-play" devices (the way all Mac peripherals are), you've got to do some (possibly very heavy-duty) messing around with the guts of Unix. Something most Mac users, at least, are simply incapable of doing. In essence, both the Mac and the NeXT limit you to devices specifically designed for their respective platforms, UNLESS you happen to be a Unix guru of sufficient skill to monkey around with the guts of your NeXT's operating system. If NeXT is trying to hit the same market as Apple, the belief that some large percentage of their customers are going to be able to do this is ludicrous. This is a null argument. You can't expect customers to be able to deal with the "power of Unix," so why is it so important that it's there? If NeXT is targeting the same audience as Apple, competing with them for the same customers, then they're going to have to face the fact that they've got an over-developed machine. Most of these people don't NEED Unix, they don't WANT Unix, and they aren't qualified to DEAL with Unix. So why give it to them? If you're competing with the workstation market, like Sun, DEC, HP, et al., then having these sorts of capabilities (like Unix, built-in EtherNet, etc.) is great. But once again, that's not the point of this thread -- once upon a time, this discussion was over whether or not a gentleman should buy a NeXTstation over a Mac IIci + AUX. Having AUX makes the Mac a Unix machine too, with the same set of advantages as the NeXT's Unix. But a Mac with AUX can run both Unix software and Mac software. The NeXT can only run Unix software. Sure, you sacrifice some speed for the flexibility, but the only one who can REALLY decide whether or not that's bad is the person who asked the question in the first place. ------- Christopher Tate | "In a fit of perverse brilliance, Carl the | repairman mistook a room humidifier for a cxt105@psuvm.psu.edu | mid-size computer, but managed to get it cxt105@psuvm.bitnet | to connect to the network anyway."