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From: louie@sayshell.umd.edu (Louis A. Mamakos)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: CD-ROM Drives
Message-ID: <1991Jun22.184134.23102@ni.umd.edu>
Date: 22 Jun 91 18:41:34 GMT
References: <1779@toaster.SFSU.EDU> <7=al3ha@rpi.edu> <1789@toaster.SFSU.EDU>
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In article <1789@toaster.SFSU.EDU> eps@cs.SFSU.EDU (Eric P. Scott) writes:
>Didn't this discussion start from the supposition that CD-ROM
>might become NeXT's sole distribution medium for future Software
>Releases?

I don't think that anyone wants to use CD-ROM distribution
exclusively, but as an option.  Many vendors such as Apple, Sun and
DEC have discovered the economy of distributing software on this
media.  I'd certainly prefer having a CD-ROM distribution of Ultrix to
the equivelent distribution on TK50's.  I'd prefer to have my NeXT
software on a CD-ROM rather than a dozen floppies.

NeXT has been quite resonable on their software upgrade costs; hell a
2.0 on OD is cheaper than a blank OD!  Given the added economy of the
media, they may be more likely to make more frequent distributions.

As I said earlier, I know that they already produce CD-ROM media for
internal support use; presumably they know how to do this already.
It's just a matter of scaling up to a wider distribution.

I can imagine that sites that do not have network connectivity might
want to subscribe to NeXTanswers on CD-ROM.  Just imagine receiving
the latest set of Q&A, the documentation that they've released (like
the Concepts manual), all of the various Example programs, and other
good stuff updated every few months.  This could be quite a benifit to
folks that can't just FTP it.  Heck, I'd even pay $75 a year for such
a service to avoid having to FTP over a 9.6K SLIP line!

louie