Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!spool.mu.edu!agate!ziploc!eps
From: eps@toaster.SFSU.EDU (Eric P. Scott)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: CD-ROM Drives
Message-ID: <1777@toaster.SFSU.EDU>
Date: 22 Jun 91 03:56:11 GMT
References: <1991Jun21.002247.15086@leland.Stanford.EDU> <1769@toaster.SFSU.EDU> <1991Jun21.133715.29072@umbc3.umbc.edu>
Reply-To: eps@cs.SFSU.EDU (Eric P. Scott)
Organization: San Francisco State University
Lines: 76

In article <1991Jun21.133715.29072@umbc3.umbc.edu>
	brian@umbc4.umbc.edu (Brian Cuthie) writes:
>Well, I totally disagree.

You're entitled to your opinion.  I'm just reporting what other
people have told me.  I'm glad to hear you had a positive
experience with Apple.

>It's not true that everyone *has* to get a CD drive.  For one thing, if
>only one in ten owners and the support centers (I assume that such things exist
>although their existence is mearly unsubstantiated rumor) had them, then it
>would be *much* easier for almost everyone to get updates.

That's the same argument by which "you don't have to get 2.1,
just copy it from someone who has it" fails in practice.

>CD's cost a wopping $1.50 to manufacture and the mastering cost is< $2000.

Tell me offline where you can master a CD-ROM for that little;
if true, it's come down A LOT.

>>+ not user-writable
>
>BFD.

I'm just reporting the news...  Don't kill the messenger.

>>+ relatively expensive hardware
>
>If you think $400 is expensive for 600 mbyte removable media (albeit 
>write protected) then you haven't priced tape backup systems lately :-)

Ah, but tape backup systems are useful every day, not just when a
distribution disk falls in your lap every couple of months.  It's
worth it to me to have a good backup unit--even if it is expensive.
It's not worth it to have a CD-ROM drive that will rarely get
used.  I don't get to write it off as a "business expense" and
use it for audio CDs 360 days a year.  I already have an audio
CD player, and it works quite well, thank you.

>>+ large disparity between CD manufacturing cost and "fair market
>>  price" compared with just about any other storage media
>
>This argument doesn't even belong here.  We buy things everyday that have
>large differences between manufacturing cost and "fair market value" as
>you put it.  Software is a good example.  Telephones are another. Shall I go
>on ?

My point is that this is a UNIQUE characteristic of CD-ROM.
If I'm interested in databases, odds are I can get the IDENTICAL
data on "industry standard" 9-track tape for less!  I'm still
going to want to copy the contents of the CD-ROM to hard disk
because (1) CD-ROM is SLOW (2) I can't share the data over a
network.  The NeXT isn't a PeeCee, dammit!

>>Now if NeXT wants to offer software on Exabyte 8200 cartridges,
>>I'm listening.  :-)
>
>YUCK!  Geez, if anything, make it DAT.  8mm drives are going to go the way of
>78RPM records within a few years.  DAT is *so* much nicer.  For one thing,
>it's intrinsically digital.  For another, it can be searched at >200 times
>normal record/play speeds and supports start stop operation.

And for another thing, 8mm transports will outlast DAT transports
built using _current technology_ by several years, with fewer
problems and lower maintenance costs.  "Intrinsically digital"
is bullshit.  The tape is basically the same, the electronics
are basically the same, the problem is with the R-DAT transport
itself.  I don't think it's deliberate "planned obsolescence"
so much as the materials science isn't at the point where the
things aren't going to self-destruct in a few hundred (or
thousand) hours of normal use.  (Or it could just be that
manufacturers don't believe they could price competitively by
building these things out of more durable materials.)

					-=EPS=-