Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!julius.cs.uiuc.edu!apple!agate!garnet.berkeley.edu!knrgroup From: knrgroup@garnet.berkeley.edu (Raymond group) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc Subject: Re: Not another NeXT defector???!!! Message-ID: <1990Nov9.004821.19794@agate.berkeley.edu> Date: 9 Nov 90 00:48:21 GMT References: <1990Nov8.175911.16932@agate.berkeley.edu> <90312.182529CXT105@psuvm.psu.edu> Sender: usenet@agate.berkeley.edu (USENET Administrator) Organization: University of California, Berkeley Lines: 25 CST105@psuvm.psu.edu (Christopher Tate) writes: >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. Not quite true. The new NeXTs will be able to take care of any device it can recognize. The manufacturer of the device does not have to design his product specifically for the NeXT. At any rate, devices written for Unix platforms should be relatively easy to connect to a NeXT. And the chances are that the original manufacturer has already written the device driver for you or that some Unix hacker has done it some time ago elsewhere. For instance, if the device happens to be a hard disk, you will almost certainly be able to get the disktab entry from the manufacturer or from elsewhere and wouldn't have to write it on your own. >You can't expect to customers to be able to deal with the "power of >Unix" Home computer users already deal with the "impotence of MS-DOS" and other command-line interfaces. At any rate, the home computer user doesn't have to deal with Unix on the NeXT if he/she doesn't want to. However, just a small investment in learning Unix will go a long way on the NeXT.