Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!caen!uflorida!bikini!bb From: bb@reef.cis.ufl.edu (Brian Bartholomew) Newsgroups: comp.sys.next Subject: Re: State-of-the-art Multimedia Platform Message-ID: Date: 7 Feb 91 00:55:37 GMT References: <91036.120726UH2@psuvm.psu.edu> Sender: news@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU Organization: /cis/lightning0/bb/.organization Lines: 58 In-reply-to: UH2@psuvm.psu.edu's message of 5 Feb 91 17:07:26 GMT In article <91036.120726UH2@psuvm.psu.edu> UH2@psuvm.psu.edu (Lee Sailer) writes: > o Records, inventory, and patient history management > o Word processing, telecomm, spreadsheet > o Hypermedia access to numerous medical manuals > o Full-motion video display of medical procedures and expert > system diagnostic support. > o Voice recognition and text/screen to voice conversion Sweet. Obviously, price is not a concern, and you can purchase equipment that isn't "on the contract" (i.e. Unisys 386 boxes). > MSDOS 4.01, 486, 200MB SCSI, CD-ROM, Laser Disc player, 1GB read-write > optical, mouse, and VGA. Yecccch. > However (you've probably guessed), we are having a very hard time > squeezing it all into one, integrated system. Even using a memory > manager such as QEMM386 v5.1 there are just too many device drivers > and workspace buffers. In fact, some of the products we are trying to > squeeze in pretty much require their own 640K machine to run, period. Justification for my yeeechhh. > So, what other platforms should we consider? What software and > hardware is available for OS/2, SparcStation, NeXT and so on that > could be used to assemble such a system. OS/2: Worse choice than DOS. All the complexity of UNIX, none of the tools, experienced programmers, network ability (NFS, TCP/IP, email), or grace. Not even multi-user. Not even virtual memory. Buy a Sun UNIX box, and you will have to purchase full-motion video, WP, Spreadsheet, Database, and R/W optical seperatly. You will also have to kill yourselves programming X Windows to get decent interfaces. Buy a decked-out NeXT cube with the MO drive and the NextStation video board, and you get full-motion video on the screen, WP, Telecomm, Spreadsheet, perhaps Lisp, and Database bundled with it. You can buy hypermedia access tools right now. Take it from me, you want at least 16 (24?) Meg of memory and 1 Gig of (SCSI) disk. You also get a window-system Interface Builder tool (IB) that leads everything else on the market by an order of magnitude. Pick up a copy of thier literature and stop by for a demo of a machine this week. Get the *salesman* to demonstrate building a user interface for you. Warning: Avoid Business Land at all costs. Only deal with NeXT employees. -- "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Brian Bartholomew UUCP: ...gatech!uflorida!mathlab.math.ufl.edu!bb University of Florida Internet: bb@math.ufl.edu