Path: utzoo!censor!geac!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!usc!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: <1990Nov13.035815.17014@agate.berkeley.edu> Date: 13 Nov 90 03:58:15 GMT References: <1990Nov10.022306.6551@agate.berkeley.edu> <108620@convex.convex.com> <1990Nov13.031817.14464@agate.berkeley.edu> Sender: usenet@agate.berkeley.edu (USENET Administrator) Organization: University of California, Berkeley Lines: 80 ewright@convex.com (Edward V. Wright) writes: >So? Is there "more powerful, more capable software" for the NeXT? >If so, where is it? All I have seen or heard about is a few programs... Thank god that the NeXT community does not limit itself to the software YOU've heard about. Likewise, I don't think Amiga users would take it to kindly if I said that since I don't know about more than a couple of programs for the Amiga, therefore there isn't software available for the Amiga. The NeXT has access to software in virtually every major area, except CAD/CAM and accounting (but this too will change). Check out the Fall catalog of NeXT products. Many products are already shipping or planned to be shipped by the time the new machines are available in quantity (quantity shipments start in a week). >So what it is it what you want to do with the NeXT? If you want a >high-performance development system on which to write programs >for a potential market of a few hundred users, NeXT is it. As a NeXT software developer, I want to do with a NeXT what Informix, WordPerfect, Ashton-Tate, Lotus, DataViz, Software Ventures, et al, want from a NeXT. We all want to write killer software in record time with a potential market of millions, counting NeXTs as well as Macs and PCs, since it is often quicker to write an application on the NeXT and port it to another platform than to write it on the target platform's own programming environment. >...for only slightly more than a IIsi with color, you get a black&white >display, A NeXT compares more than favorably to a jazzed-up Mac IIfx. You think there is any comparison at all with a Mac IIsi? Without regard to the prices of the machines, the NeXT is better than a Mac IIfx is much much better than a Mac IIsi. Taking prices into account, the NeXT is a much much much better deal than either machine. That ole "black&gray" display that you talk about is 17", 4 graytones, and has a resolution of 1120x832. It has a mic and microphone jack like the Mac IIsi's. Apple took their cue from NeXT on this one. >nonstandard floppy drive 2.88MB compatible with both 700K and 1.4 MB MS-DOS formats? I guess next you'll be telling us that there are many more Macs out there than MS-DOS machines. >Stone-Age operating system 4.3BSD Unix with a Mach kernel? Mach with facilities for parallel processing. Unix, the direction everyone in the higher end market seems to be going. How about NeXTStep that runs on top of the Unix? You won't find a combo nearly as high-powered as the Mach, 4.3BSD, and NeXTStep combo on your Mac. >the chance to beta-test a new CPU that will be available on accelerator >boards for the Mac in less than a year Nice of you to put a positive twist on the fact that Apple is being awfully slow in announcing let alone releasing an 040 product. Who knows, NeXT could have a product running on the next generation IBM RISC chips before the rumored 040 Mac materializes. >If the best you can say about the NeXT is that maybe, someday, it will >be able to emulate the Mac, why not just buy a Mac Give us a break. As backward it is to run MS-DOS software on a machine as high-powered and easy to use as a Mac, it would be almost as backward to run Mac software in an environment that can do so much more like the NeXT. >Just as easy? From what I've seen, NeXTStep applications are a lot "easier" >to use. There are no manuals to read, no commands to learn, no file >formats to worry about.... Just go down to your local software store and >tell the sales clerk you want to see the Emporer's [sic] New Program. :-) An Emporer? Sounds kind of painful :-). Now, if you were trying to say "Emperor," I get your point. It's unfounded though. Just check out the latest catalog and look for products with current availability. There are a good number of them. I'll tell you what, send me e-mail and I'll try to arrange for us to send you demos of our own NeXT software.