Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!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: 8 Feb 91 02:30:30 GMT References: <1991Feb5.013654.4045@NCoast.ORG> <1991Feb8.003934.5763@csn.org> Sender: news@cs.psu.edu (Usenet) Distribution: comp Organization: Penn State Computer Science Lines: 47 In-Reply-To: fozzard@alumni.colorado.edu's message of Fri, 8 Feb 1991 00:39:34 GMT Nntp-Posting-Host: client6.cs.psu.edu In article <1991Feb8.003934.5763@csn.org> fozzard@alumni.colorado.edu (Richard Fozzard) writes: So what happened to Jobs' famous LCD? Even he seems to have gotten the idea all muddled up. Used to be, every NeXT had an erasable optical and no floppy drive. Now neither can be depended on. You can't even be sure there's a hard disk (on a machine costing thousands!). What are you talking about? All new machines ship with at least a 105MB hard drive and a floppy. I imagine most old cube owners will buy floppy drives. Distribution of software on flopticals is too expensive. It's unfortunate that the optical drives didn't take off. Hopefully, they will within two years(on all machines). It's a great technology, but it needs to be refined. Not that I'm saying this is bad - it's just inevitable when a company responds, as NeXT is doing now, to the needs of different users. The LCD principle just can't be used as a defense for why NeXT shouldn't produce a low-end machine. That wouldn't stop developers from producing good software any more than it has stopped the production of good high-end software on the Mac (eg: FrameMaker, Adobe PhotoShop or Illustrator, etc., none of which is even tolerable on a Plus). Why does NeXT need a low-end machine? Is NeXT even allowed to compete in the low-end market? They signed an agreement with Apple, didn't they? Something about only selling a machine that contained more than a 1 million pixel display, etc. People who buy SE's want a typewriter. Many people who use Illustrator, FrameMaker, etc. can afford to buy a NeXT. I hope that they're not using these programs on a Classic. In fact, NeXT will probably never make it big (as a "personal computer", though it may yet as a workstation) unless it makes a really low priced model. The principle of Lowest Common Denominator can only really work if the cost, too, is Low! So what. How much of the market does NeXT have to get to be a success? Apple managed to get 9% of the market before they come up with the great idea of selling low-end machines. They might have 10% by now. -Mike