Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!mfci!yale!spolsky-joel From: spolsky-joel@CS.YALE.EDU (Joel Spolsky) Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: Re: The NeXT Problem Summary: No problem Message-ID: <40443@yale-celray.yale.UUCP> Date: 15 Oct 88 06:28:34 GMT References: <26435@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> Sender: root@yale.UUCP Reply-To: spolsky-joel@CS.YALE.EDU (Joel Spolsky) Organization: Yale University Computer Science Dept, New Haven CT 06520-2158 Lines: 73 In article <26435@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> pchris@ucbarpa.Berkeley.EDU (Chris Perleberg) writes ( I deleted a lot ): >It seems that the NeXT machine may have a few problems: >3) Non-Standard Software: What software company would develop software for > the special features of just one computer (NeXT Step)? How many copies of > this software can they possibly sell? This is ridiculous. [Enter 1982 mode] Who would bother writing software for the IBM/PC? How many copies of this software can they possibly sell? [End 1982 mode] As it turns out there's lots of software written for not-so-standard machines. Funny isn't it. >4) Slow Optical Drive: In the past, optical drives have been significantly > slower (seek times) than magnetic drives. What is the advantage of the > optical drive? (a) first 256M = $1495 (b) next 256M = $50 Any questions? >6) Sun (I have heard) has sold 15,000 workstations to universitys. How many > can NeXT expect to sell with its slow processor, non-standard > bus/software slow drive, and late software? Loads. It seems as if this slow-non-standard-late machine costs about half what the competition has to offer. See the Wall Street Journal. >Solutions to the above problems: What NeXT should do. > >1)Develop a RISC based NeXT implementation as soon as possible. The advantage > of Unix (Mach) is its idea of source level portability, rather than binary > level compatibility. Easy. The fast NuBus is there to allow several processors to coexist. I'll bet that ultimately you'll be able to plug in a RISC-y board, a lisp-machine board, etc, like the Mac-II/TI explorer hybrid. THAT would be nice for academic enviroments. Also, they plan to enable future versions of the OS to manage multiprocessing by assigning threads to different processors. > >2) Make "stub" boards that convert standard NuBus boards to the NeXT version of > NuBus. These "stubs" would be placed between the NeXT slots and the > standard NuBus boards. Longer Term Goal: Make the NeXT NuBus an > international standard, much as Apple made its version of NuBus a standard. > Possible Solution: Change the bus NOW to a standard, provide board > converters for computers with the current bus. > Weeeel, it looks to me as if the NuBus is really designed for multiprocessors, not for plugging in game ports and clock-calendars. The (very standard) SCSI bus can be used for peripherals. I'm not too worried about the incompatible NuBus; I'd rather have the fast NuBus. >4) Give users the option of scrapping the optical drive and replacing it with > the 330 Mbyte winchester. Hmm. How much would a 330M winchester + tape cartridge system cost? more than $1495? Actually what I though would be neat is to install a cheapo 40 Meg hard disk for swapping, /tmp, and important bits of the kernal. That would speed the thing up greatly for only several hundred dollars, and you'd still have the removable optical cartridges. There's even a 5.25" full-height bay for such a drive. Also when you took out the optical disk you could still run obscure useless commands like "ls" and "cat". ;-) +----------------+---------------------------------------------------+ | Joel Spolsky | bitnet: spolsky@yalecs uucp: ...!yale!spolsky | | | arpa: spolsky@yale.edu voicenet: 203-436-1483 | +----------------+---------------------------------------------------+ #include