Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!sdd.hp.com!wuarchive!psuvax1!news From: melling@cs.psu.edu (Michael D Mellinger) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc Subject: Re: 68040 for the Mac? Message-ID: Date: 24 Jan 91 23:04:44 GMT References: <0bb_V1O00Uh_E3=Bow@andrew.cmu.edu> <42973@ut-emx.uucp> <5$7Glmf4@cs.psu.edu> <1991Jan24.005516.8300@NCoast.ORG> Sender: news@cs.psu.edu (Usenet) Followup-To: comp.sys.mac.misc Organization: Penn State Computer Science Lines: 51 In-Reply-To: allbery@NCoast.ORG's message of Thu, 24 Jan 1991 00:55:16 GMT Nntp-Posting-Host: client5.cs.psu.edu In article <1991Jan24.005516.8300@NCoast.ORG> allbery@NCoast.ORG (Brandon S. Allbery KB8JRR) writes: You then believe that being able to access one's current data --- not to mention doing so without having to learn a new program --- is a worthless ability? Gee, thanks. I wonder how many NeXTs would be sold if Steve Jobs had that attitude? Do you have a high density 3 1/2" drive, or access to one? NeXT's ,out of the box, do read/write IBM disks. Just insert the disk into the drive. There is third-party software that allows them to read/write the Mac format. It is pricey, though. +--------------- | important is color to your work? The grey-scale Mac is a far cry from | a 9", 72 dpi SE screen. Can anyone give me the cost of an SE/30 18 +--------------- How inportant is color to me? NOT AT ALL. (Need I make that clearer?) I'm not even sure that I need grayscale. Sorry, but there are those of us who have SEs and are scraping to find the money to upgrade to SE/30s. If you can't show us a NeXT that does at least as much as the SE/30 for under $1500, you're wasting your time. And yes, this is a "rigid" requirement, and shouting at us about our "rigid" requirements won't make an expensive new machine cheaper than an upgrade. The NeXT does have a problem in that they don't have a "low-end" machine. Can you really buy an SE/30 for under $1500? That's not too bad. Is that educational price? The NeXT is a bargain if you consider that for twice as much you are getting a lot more than twice the machine. The NeXT Station(040, DSP, 8Megs of RAM, 2.88MB floppy, 105MB hard-drive) only costs around $2500(educational). The $700 monitor is the costly part of the machine. Can one buy a 13" high resolution 94 dpi, megapixel display? You could spend twice as much now and skip the upgrade to Apple's 040 SE/30 in two years and enjoy the power now :-). Mac prices have always been a sore point with me. But *this* kind of callous attitude about "rigid" requirements because we have to do stupid things like being able to access our existing data, or be able to *afford* things, is guaranteed to make me blow a gasket. I didn't realize that you had this problem. I live in a University environment where it's easy to get data from one machine to another. The NeXT floppy should do the trick for most people. Do you see the lack of direct Mac compatibality as a major problem? Perhaps NeXT's should license the third-party solution and ship it with their machines. -Mike