Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!orion.oac.uci.edu!hardy From: hardy@golem.ps.uci.edu (Meinhard E. Mayer (Hardy)) Newsgroups: comp.sys.next Subject: Re: New HP machines Bad News for NeXT?? Message-ID: Date: 21 May 91 00:46:07 GMT References: <1991May20.143857.1071@hulaw1.harvard.edu> Organization: University of California, Irvine, USA. Lines: 28 Nntp-Posting-Host: golem.ps.uci.edu In-reply-to: melling@cs.psu.edu's message of 20 May 91 21:36:20 GMT As a user of both HP and NeXT I must come to the defense of HP. First they do run unix -- HP-UX (which is much better documented and supported than Mach/NextStep; a call to the HP-Support line gets you a fix within an hour, rahter than being shrugged off to your Campus-Rep). The Motif user interface is quite nice, and even the 50 MHz 68030 boxes have a performance comparable to the 25 MHz NeXT -- on the few programs I tested on both the differences were within 20% only). Until recently, the NeXT was certainly the leader in price/performance, at the lower end of the price scale. If the new HP-s (or are they the 9000/400 series at a lower price?) are indeed available at a price comparable to the NeXTStation, this will force NeXT to become a little better attuned to its users. There is, of course, room for both machines: the NeXT lends itself better to be used as a "Home Workstation" than the HP-boxes do; the extended version comes "fully equipped" with TeX, gnu-emacs, and some of the other FSF software, which require nontrivial work to compile under HP-UX. Whether NeXTStep or Motif is a better-looking interface is a matter of taste; I like them both. And let's not forget that the predecessor of NextStep was developed under HP-UX at HPLabs (under the name RMG), and then given/sold to Stepstone. Greetings, Hardy -------****------- Meinhard E. Mayer (Hardy); Department of Physics, University of California Irvine CA 92717; (714) 856 5543; hardy@golem.ps.uci.edu or MMAYER@UCI.BITNET