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Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!killer!elg
From: elg@killer.DALLAS.TX.US (Eric Green)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.misc,comp.os.misc,comp.misc,comp.arch
Subject: Re: The NeXT machine has been announced! (long)
Message-ID: <5806@killer.DALLAS.TX.US>
Date: 14 Oct 88 03:57:40 GMT
References: <360@elan.UUCP>
Organization: The Unix(R) Connection, Dallas, Texas
Lines: 41

in article <360@elan.UUCP>, jlo@elan.UUCP (Jeff Lo) says:

Nit #1: First you say:
> haven't tried this yet). Mass storage is on a 256 MB removable erasable
> optical disk! Jobs said that the removable media goes for ~$50. The display

Then you say:
> All in all, the machine looked good and fast, although I wonder about
> the fact that several desirable things were not mentioned, i.e., color
> monitors, X-Windows, some kind of floppy drive for software distribution,
                                    ^^^^^^^^^^^^

One question: Why the hell have a floppy drive when you have a 256MB
removable erasable optical disk? AND, why the hell have a typical SCSI
tape drive for archival purposes, when you have a 256MB removable
optical disk? I suspect that the optical drive is there as a
replacement for the traditional floppy drive or streaming-tape
cartridge; it's too slow to use as primary data store. I suspect the
typical NeXT installation will look much like the typical Sun
installation (file servers, and "nearly-diskless" nodes), except for
user files on the optical drive (heck, it's no speed demon, but it's
faster than a floppy.)

Nit #2: Bemoaning "No X windows!" is silly. From what I hear,
X-windows is slow, clumsy, huge, and, generally, Typical University
Software ("Free software that's too expensive to use"). The NeXT
windowing system looks a lot more user-friendly, and probably is
faster, more compact, and more efficient.

About the color monitor: I've seen rumours that they're "working on
it." In any event, color is mostly useful for CAD/CAE applications,
while from looking at the software packages included, the NeXT
workstation seems targetted at academia. I see no real problem (I'm
typing this right now from a window on a monochrome system, although
it's an Amiga, not a NeXT).

--
Eric Lee Green    ..!{ames,decwrl,mit-eddie,osu-cis}!killer!elg
          Snail Mail P.O. Box 92191 Lafayette, LA 70509              
It's understandable that Mike Dukakis thinks he can walk on water.
He's used to walking on Boston harbor.