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From: emt@leland.Stanford.EDU (Taleff)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: CD-ROM Drives
Summary: NeXT survey of student users/suggestions for CD ROM
Keywords: cd-rom
Message-ID: <1991Jun21.002247.15086@leland.Stanford.EDU>
Date: 21 Jun 91 00:22:47 GMT
References: <1991Jun20.140223.23302@umbc3.umbc.edu> <1991Jun20.200216.5173@hfs.questor.wimsey.bc.ca> <1991Jun20.231036.24324@macc.wisc.edu>
Sender: emt@leland.stanford.edu
Organization: AIR, Stanford University
Lines: 57


CD ROM for system software

In response to some recent postings, at least one person at
NeXT seems to think that CD ROM would be a practical means
of system software distribution.

I had the recent pleasure of being interviewed by a quite
conscientious lady employed by NeXT in some sort of marketing
position (unfortunately, having forgotten her name). She was
working on a project concerning what NeXT could do to encourage
students to use, and buy, their products. I must say that I 
was very impressed by what appeared to be the genuine concern
that she expressed in having NeXT please their current users as 
well as draw new users. She asked various questions concerning
why I use a NeXT (which I am sure all of you are familiar with
in this newsgroup) as well as what improvements and products
that I, as a user, would like to see. Of my responses to the later,
topmost was to see NeXT distribute the extended software release
on *CD ROM*, as well as subsequent upgrades at the *cost* of the
medium, which should be very low for CD ROM. This of course would also
necessitate having a compatible CD ROM drive, for under $500, which
seems like a reasonable figure. The interviewer seemed very 
encouraged by this idea, as it would solve several of the problems
which NeXT is currently having:

* software distribution
* cost and availability of distribution media

as well as solving several user problems:

* backing up that huge hard drive (would only have to backup
  personal files if everything else was on CD ROM, and that could
  be done on floppies for many users)
* cost of future upgrades is cheap if only paying for the CD ROM
* eating up hard disk space for references (how about CD ROM
  tech docs, Shakespeare, Websters, etc...) for those that can't
  afford a huge hard disk (like me!!!)
* minor upgrades might be much more readily available for those
  who need their bug fixes

Somebody is already saying, "But CD ROM is too slow to boot from."
It is, but with one 3MB floppy the NeXT can be booted, then the
rest is just a matter of somebody at NeXT writting a convenient
program like Installer to upgrade the system on the HD from CD ROM.

If the people at NeXT are smart enough to listen to this bright
interviewer, then maybe we can expect an end to our woes of waiting
months for software upgrades and worries of not being able to 
backup our hard drives if there is no network available. I certainly
hope that her voice is heard.


Eric Taleff
Mechanical Engineer / Materials Engineer
Stanford University
emt@leland.stanford.edu