Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!umich!sharkey!aucis!gillham
From: gillham@andrews.edu (Andrew Gillham)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: CD-ROM Drives
Message-ID: <677535546wkn12056@edmund.cs.andrews.edu>
Date: 21 Jun 91 20:19:06 GMT
References: <1991Jun20.200216.5173@hfs.questor.wimsey.bc.ca> <1991Jun20.231036.24324@macc.wisc.edu> <1991Jun21.002247.15086@leland.Stanford.EDU> <1769@toaster.SFSU.EDU>
Reply-To: gillham@edmund.cs.andrews.edu.UUCP (Andrew Gillham)
Organization: Andrews University, Berrien Springs, Michigan
Lines: 42

In article <1769@toaster.SFSU.EDU> eps@cs.SFSU.EDU (Eric P. Scott) writes:
>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.

If they were to use a Standard BSD fast-filesystem on the CD-ROM along
with ISO formatting, wouldn't it be mountable on just about any
Unix box with a CD-ROM drive? (i.e. Sun-CD)

>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
>+ slow
>+ not user-writable
>+ relatively expensive hardware
>+ large disparity between CD manufacturing cost and "fair market
>  price" compared with just about any other storage media
>+ most "interesting" CD-ROMs "out there" are tied to software
>  that only runs on MSDOS or Mac OS
>+ unattractive licensing terms have become the norm with CD-ROM
>  products

How much do 2 OD cartridges cost?  I don't know, but say they are
around $100, that would be $200 for the equivalent storage as
a CD-ROM (650MB)  Then when you upgrade to NeXTStep 3.0, you get
1 or 2 more OD's for maybe another $200.  Now you've got $400 invested
and that's just the media cost.  If you could buy a CD-ROM drive
for $500, and get the CD's for the media cost ($3?) you would be
*near* the same cost.  But you would be able to use other CD's and
developers would be able to use cheaper media for their apps.
Then when NeXTStep x.x comes out you pay for the Software upgrade, not
the media.

User writeable is a different problem, but for $500 you can't really 
complain to loudly

-Andrew

--
=====================================================================
Andrew Gillham ****** Andrews University ****** (gillham@andrews.edu)
I would've added a cool .signature, but I already mailed this letter.