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From: waltrip@capd.jhuapl.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: NeXT in June issue of BYTE
Message-ID: <1991May27.145003.1@capd.jhuapl.edu>
Date: 27 May 91 19:50:03 GMT
References: <1991May27.033207.28372@math.ucla.edu>
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In article <1991May27.033207.28372@math.ucla.edu>, barry@pico.math.ucla.edu 
(Barry Merriman) writes:
	[...interesting material about BYTE reviews of NeXTstation, NeXTstep
		deleted (yea, BYTE!)...]
> 
> PS: The lead story in the News column is on the ACE Consortium,
> which consists of Microsoft, a bunch of PC cloners, and DEC,
> and whose stated goal is to define an Industry Standard Workstation,
> in order to ease future networking and software engineeering.
> Since MicroSoft is one of the leaders, its no surprise that 
> the standard CPUs have been chosen as Intel 386/486/...(hey, quit 
> laughing :-) and MIPS 64 bit RISC chips (a thankful DEC influence).
> Their standard OS's include SCO UNIX, and, I think, Sys V (?).
	I've posted some stuff about ACE consortium previously.  Their
	standard OS's include OS/2 with Windows 3.0 (for the Intel
	architectures) and SCO UNIX for the MIPS architecture.  Note, however,
	that the SCO UNIX is based on DEC's implementation of OSF/1 (which is
	based on Mach [version 2.5, I believe]).  I believe there are very
	strong reasons why this would be a good choice for NeXT as it will be
	a very easy platform to produce at low cost; will be possible to 
	leverage off of all of the work that will be done to produce the
	standard OS while permitting NeXT software engineers to concentrate on
	the things that make NeXT unique (DSP and NeXTstep, for instance).
> But, on to the punchline: one of the key networking 
> issues they want to address is easy networking of their workstations
> with machines running DOS, Windows and OS/2! (ha, ha, ha, .... :-)
> 
> I think I once had a nightmare about such a network :-)
	Well, UNIX networks ARE nicer, but LAN Manager has to be taken
	seriously as well.  So does OS/2 in its latest (and planned)
	incarnations (not all the smart people are working for Steve Jobs, you
	know; for instance, you're not and I'm not ;^)  In fact, so long as
	you're not the poor soul who has to develop applications for it,
	there's really nothing terribly wrong with Window on OS/2 on a 486
	platform (and even the development environment's improving with third
	party tools continually being offered).  So while the NeXT's better in
	our opinion, the other people ain't standin' still either.  Given
	NeXT's limited resources, I hope they find a way to concentrate on the
	things that them better.  Joining the ACE consortium and adopting the
	MIPS architecture and the OSF/1 implementation might be a way to
	accomplish this.  If the ACE consortium is committed to Mach 3.0 (no
	AT&T kernel code) and to real-time and multi-processor implementations,
	it looks like it would be irresistible.  These things aren't NeXTstep
	so why should NeXT waste resources working on them?


c.f.waltrip

Internet:	<waltrip@capsrv.jhuapl.edu>

Opinions expressed are my own.