Newsgroups: comp.sys.next Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usenet From: gad@eclipse.its.rpi.edu (Garance A. Drosehn) Subject: Re: CD-ROM Drives Message-ID: <_k=lqkq@rpi.edu> Nntp-Posting-Host: eclipse.its.rpi.edu References: <1769@toaster.SFSU.EDU> Date: 21 Jun 91 16:47:20 GMT Lines: 111 In article <1769@toaster.SFSU.EDU> eps@toaster.SFSU.EDU (Eric P. Scott) writes: > I think the recent postings in the thread really miss the mark. > First of all, there's tremendous resentment among early adopters > of NeXT's "future software will only be available on floppy" > policy, and being forced to purchase floppy drives for their > ODful systems in order to continue using them--drives that often > don't work well and are fairly expensive--and not even being > given the option to use the FD controller on the '040 upgrades > they were all but "forced" to buy. The *last* thing in the > world they want to see is NeXT commit to yet-another-incompatible > storage medium. The mistake was the "future software will only be available on floppy" decision. I've had problems with the floppy drives too, and I can't imagine how you can possibly list that as a reason to *stay* with floppy drives. I don't think NeXT should completely abandon floppy distributions, but I personally would much rather get distributions on CD-ROM. > Very few people in the Bay Area seem terribly interested in > CD-ROM for a variety of reasons (in no particular order): > + bad experiences with Apple and Sun CD products Must be the bay area. I've had great success with Apple CD products. Certainly better success than I've had with NeXT floppy distributions. I don't do anything with Suns, but I know that the guys here who do are very keen on getting CD-ROM drives for those machines. > + slow It isn't faster than a hard drive, but if you're comparing it to *floppies* then it isn't too bad. > + not user-writable That's actually one of the reasons that I *want* distributions on CD-ROM! It'd be great to know that I have absolutely pristine versions of the distribution files available. I can concentrate my backups on just those files that won't be on a CD-ROM, which means I could probably have complete backups by using nothing but the CD-ROM distribution and a handful of floppies. > + relatively expensive hardware Mac's manage to get CD-ROM players for $500. That isn't all that bad. (in my situation it would be particularly nice if NeXT's and Macs could use the same CD-ROM drive, of course :-). > + large disparity between CD manufacturing cost and "fair market > price" compared with just about any other storage media That is purely a decision of the person selling the CD. If NeXT wanted to distribute CD-ROM's for $20 they could do it and make a profit at it. Compare that to the cost of 20 of these damn 2.88 meg floppies. 20 floppies holds less than 60 meg. The ETO I received in the mail today has 484 Meg used up (and 150 meg "free", as if you could use it...). I'd *hate* to get that much info on floppies. I don't care about the disparity between the manufacturing costs and the market price, what I care about is the market price. > + most "interesting" CD-ROMs "out there" are tied to software > that only runs on MSDOS or Mac OS Gee, I wonder if that just *might* be because MSDOS and Macs *use* CD-ROM's, while NeXT doesn't officially recognize that the medium exists. You're not going to solve this problem by avoiding CD-ROM's! Why are more CD-ROM's showing up on Macs? Because Apple is pushing CD-ROMs for their major distributions (such as A/UX, ETO and "d e v e l o p"). That causes people to buy the CD-ROM players, and that creates a viable market for those who want to press "interesting" CD-ROMs. And Apple has certainly done a good enough job with ETO that it justified the purchase of a CD-ROM drive. Surely NeXT could do the same. > + unattractive licensing terms have become the norm with CD-ROM > products Again, that's a problem with the person writing the license, it isn't a problem with the medium. Nobody is going to force NeXT to write up horrible licensing terms if NeXT decides to distribute things on CD-ROM drives. Note that the topic under debate is the distribution of large amounts of data. I see no advantage of distributing things via piles of floppies instead of one (or two? :-) CD-ROM's. I think NeXT had the right idea with the original optical drives except that the method was a bit too expensive. Ideally the distribution would be on something that both an optical drive and a CD-ROM drive could read, because CD-ROM's aren't the ultimate answer to everything either. But barring that option, I'd much rather have a CD-ROM distribution than stacking up floppies all around my office. Of course, I do believe that NeXT would have to continue to make distributions available on floppy too, because people should not be forced to buy a CD-ROM drive (not yet, at least). I like CD-ROM distributions for a number of reasons, but it wouldn't be right for NeXT to first force everyone to get floppy drives and immediately turn around and force everyone to get CD-ROM drives. > Now if NeXT wants to offer software on Exabyte 8200 cartridges, > I'm listening. :-) How much to Exabyte drives cost? How fast are they? How reliable are they? Can you mount an Exabyte and navigate thru it using all the same tools as you use for a hard disk? (I'm not being sarcasic in the above paragraph, I don't know the answers to any of those questions and they might be interesting to know). - - - - - - - - Garance Alistair Drosehn = gad@rpi.edu or gad@eclipse.its.rpi.edu ITS Systems Programmer (handles NeXT-type mail) Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; Troy NY USA