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From: lange@lanai.cs.ucla.edu (Trent Lange)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc
Subject: Re: The New Macs: Greedy Compromises?
Message-ID: <1990Dec4.092217.26859@cs.ucla.edu>
Date: 4 Dec 90 09:22:17 GMT
References: <1990Nov30.205419.14100@grape.ecs.clarkson.edu> <109755@convex.convex.com>
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Organization: UCLA Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
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In article <109755@convex.convex.com> ewright@convex.com (Edward V. Wright) writes:
>In article <1990Nov30.205419.14100@grape.ecs.clarkson.edu> anthonjw@clutx.clarkson.edu (Jason W. Anthony) writes:
>
>>My NeXT computer isn't going to be a Mac...
>
>So you will get to choose between optical disks and hard disks, floppies
>(in a nonstandard 2.8M format) or no floppies, two types of color 
>hardware or monochrome... I'm not sure I see the "simplistic elegance" here.

This is the second time in as many days that this little bit of misinformation
has been spread, so it's time to correct it.

- *All* NeXT machines come with floppies.
- If you don't like the "non-standard" 2.8 megabytes available on the
  floppies (since having only half as much disk space is *so* attractive),
  then you can use the standard 1.44MB format (admittedly it's the IBM
  standard - you can't win them all - but at least it's as standard you
  can get).
- *All* NeXT machines come with hard disks.

Well, at least you didn't say that buyers had to choose between a 68030
and the 68040, as somebody did yesterday.

As for all those other "nasty choices" (color and whether to get an
optical), the average user doesn't have to worry about them.  The
NeXTDimension color is a production-quality 32-bit board, coprocessor,
and monitor system that is priced accordingly.  No average user will
have to bother with it.  So for them, the choice is color (get a
NeXTStation color), or no color (get a basic NeXTStation).

Pretty simple.

The fact of the matter is that NeXT has stuck pretty well to its
guns on the issue of keeping the lowest common denominator at
a high level.  All pieces of software written for the NeXT can
count on having a floating-point processor, at least 8 megs of
RAM, a DSP chip, unix, protected virtual memory, display postscript,
ethernet, and a screen with at least 1120x832 resolution.
So can NeXT users.  Software that can count on using more advanced
features can take more liberties and therefore do more things.

Apple used to be that way too.  Even the old 128K Macs came loaded
with more features than most of its competing IBM systems could shake
a stick at.  And they have *slowly* raised the common denominator since.

But they've gone away from that philosophy since, and each machine now
has strange combinations of present and missing pieces of hardware and
hence abilities.  Yes, of course they've done it to save money, and
sometimes for the all-important "line positioning" factor.  However,
a few dollars more here and there could have made a big difference in
consistency and lessening consumer confusion (e.g. raising the price of
the LC by $25 to pay for the added VRAM needed to support the 13" color
monitor fully).

So now Apple has lost much of that "simplistic elegance".  They're still
much better in that regard than IBM and it's compatibles (thank God),
but they don't approach that of NeXT or the old Apple.

- Trent Lange

-- 
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