Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!cs.utexas.edu!ut-emx!ccwf.cc.utexas.edu From: greg@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Greg Harp) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy Subject: Re: An interesting idea... Message-ID: <48647@ut-emx.uucp> Date: 8 May 91 08:48:43 GMT References: <1991May5.115329.24187@sugar.hackercorp.com> <_g5Gy0x*1@cs.psu.edu> <1991May6.110530.7978@sugar.hackercorp.com> <=0bGppm&1@cs.psu.edu> <48624@ut-emx.uucp> Sender: news@ut-emx.uucp Reply-To: greg@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Greg Harp) Organization: The University of Texas at Austin Lines: 62 In article melling@cs.psu.edu (Michael D Mellinger) writes: > >In article <48624@ut-emx.uucp> greg@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Greg Harp) writes: > > Hmmm... Actually, I though I remembered that most of the Amiga software > costed $50 back then. > >It was probably more like $99. I don't think the EA stuff was that >cheap. The games were $50 bucks, and except for Marble Madness, they >were mostly C64 ports. Remember Deluxe Paint, Deluxe Video, >Deluxe...? And the software was buggy as hell. Well, the point is that it wasn't $500. Besides, two years down the road the software was quite improved and the prices were lower. Two years down the road with NeXT the apps are still expensive. They will probably remain expensive. That's what the whole deal with the word "Workstation" is. It implies extra worth, and therefore higher prices. > Catch-22 there. You have to have software in order to establish yourself > as a big business. > >Making it easy for developers to write software for your machine helps >too. Granted. It's not like NeXT is an especially easy platform to develop for, though. Its IB is nice, but apps are by no means made of UIs alone, and I still maintain that IB is basically there to make up for the relative difficulty of writing and and debugging PostScript UI code by hand. > BTW, I can get a pretty decent 386 box for $2000. If I ran a business I > don't think I'd concern myself with some weird, non-standard machine like > the NeXT even if all I was going to do was spreadsheet work (by that I mean > even if I could use Improv). I'm asking for more trouble by getting into a > Unix box in the first place, and from what I hear about administering a > NeXT that's a serious consideration. > >With a cache? The 040 is 3-4 times faster than the 386, which doesn't >even have a floating-point coprocessor built in. Who told you that >the NeXT is difficult to administer? Your local Apple or IBM rep.? I didn't say that the 386 was faster or better. I hate Intel CPUs. I'm justing presenting the facts. A general business would be better off with the 386 than the NeXT. A DTP business would be better off with a Mac. A video business would be better off the an Amiga. BTW, what I've heard about administering NeXTs has been in different newsgroups around the net. Of course, administering SPARCs is no picknick either, or so some of the same posts go. Also, I place about as much weight on what an Apple or IBM rep says as what a NeXT rep says, which, as you may have guessed, is very little. Marketroids can't be trusted, as you yourself have shown with NeXT press releases and such. At first I was surprised when even you paid attention to them, but now I know better... >-Mike Greg -- Greg Harp |"I was there to match my intellect on national TV, | against a plumber and an architect, both with a PhD." greg@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu| -- "I Lost on Jeopardy," Weird Al Yankovic