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From: cca@pur-phy (Charles C. Allen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Need advice on Coral Lisp and Smalltalk
Message-ID: <912@pur-phy>
Date: Tue, 20-Oct-87 11:51:09 EDT
Article-I.D.: pur-phy.912
Posted: Tue Oct 20 11:51:09 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 22-Oct-87 06:39:14 EDT
References: <31805@gt-cmmsr.GATECH.EDU>
Organization: Purdue Univ. Phys Dept, W.Lafayette, IN
Lines: 35
Keywords: Coral Lisp, Smalltalk80, Mac II

(I'm posting this as a followup as well as a mail message since I
think others might be interested).  I have in front of me a packet of
info from ParcPlace describing their Smalltalk-80 system.  I have also
talked to their support personnel a couple of times.

For any of the Mac systems, you need 2M of memory and 4M of free disk.
The prices range from $700 to $1300 for the actual virtual machine and
virtual image, depending on whether you want the "vanilla" ST-80
environment or an environment with local goodies supported, and
whether you want the version optimized for the 68020 and 68881.

Gasp.  Well, that certainly opened my eyes.  Still, ST-80 is more than
just a programming language.  By the time you get set up with MacApp
and some appropriate libraries, you could well be into the $700 range.

Also, don't forget that you're basically giving up the Mac user
interface, which may or may not be a factor for you.  Since the
mythical 4th book in the ST-80 series has yet to appear, there is very
little documentation on the MVC model and whatnot.  I was unable to
get a good answer for what sort of "Toolbox" equivalent classes
existed for things like Controls and Dialogs.  I, personally, don't
want to write a user interface.  I want to write applications that USE
an existing one.

The real kicker is that the above prices are for NO SUPPORT.  Support
costs $1000/year for a site with 1-20 workstations.  If you want to
get upgrades (that includes bug fixes) you either have to buy the new
version, or buy the support package.  Ack!  I have a little trouble
visualizing the kind of market they're going after.  It certainly
isn't people like me.

This is really too bad, especially with rumors of the next virtual
image being incompatible with the VI the Apple version is based on.

Charlie Allen		cca@newton.physics.purdue.edu