Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!julius.cs.uiuc.edu!psuvax1!news From: melling@cs.psu.edu (Michael D Mellinger) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc Subject: Re: System 7.0 vs. NeXT Step Message-ID: Date: 31 Jan 91 00:36:51 GMT References: <16549@venera.isi.edu> <16568@venera.isi.edu> Sender: news@cs.psu.edu (Usenet) Distribution: comp Organization: Penn State Computer Science Lines: 28 In-Reply-To: jas@ISI.EDU's message of 30 Jan 91 21:41:31 GMT Nntp-Posting-Host: client5.cs.psu.edu In article <16568@venera.isi.edu> jas@ISI.EDU (Jeff Sullivan) writes: How many PEOPLE need a IIci or IIfx? That's one thing the NeXt isn't -- a PERSONAL computer. You show me a person who needs a 68040 UNIX box with ??? MIPS, and I'll show you a person with too much time on his or her hands. Oh, I see your point. Not too many people need a IIci or IIfx for word processing. Maybe if you think about it long enough, you can come up with some applications where a IIfx won't do. In fact, it shouldn't be too hard to come up with applications where a 68040 won't do either. Were you one of people that said that most people would never need 386 machines(they're for power users!)? Now your probably saying a 486 is overkill. You aren't going to sit down at a NeXT and say "wow this thing is fast." Unless, of course, you have used the 030 machine :-). NeXT has built machine on which it is relatively easy to write software. You pay a price for this in that the performance of your computer is not as fast as it could be. But what we really want out of computers is increased functionality, not increased speed. I think little things like not needing a preview mode in Adobe Illustrator, or a faster/cheaper machine on which to run Mathematica(and Adobe Illustrator, Quark XPress,etc) should convince enough people to buy a NeXT for the moment. However, software on the NeXT is in its early MacWrite stages. Companies are presently rushing to get their software out. Give it a year or two, until Lotus refines the spreadsheet that they re-invented. -Mike