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From: csimmons@hqpyr1.oracle.UUCP (Charles Simmons)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.misc,comp.os.misc,comp.misc,comp.arch
Subject: Re: The NeXT machine has been announced! (long)
Message-ID: <449@oracle.UUCP>
Date: 16 Oct 88 07:34:50 GMT
References: <360@elan.UUCP>
Sender: news@oracle.uucp
Reply-To: csimmons@oracle.UUCP (Charles Simmons)
Organization: Oracle Corporation, Belmont CA
Lines: 47

In article <360@elan.UUCP> jlo@elan.UUCP (Jeff Lo) writes:
>Well, I just got back from the NeXT introduction at Davies Symphony Hall
>in San Francisco and thought I would update the net on what Steve Jobs
>announced about the NeXT computer.
...
>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,
>etc. I imagine a typical SCSI tape drive could be used for archival
>storage.
>--
>Jeff Lo

So far I've heard three objections to the design of te NeXT machine,
and I'm wondering just how valid the objections are.  The first objection
is that the machine doesn't have a floppy drive for software distribution.
The second objection, somewhat related, is that there is only one drive,
so that when copying disks, the user will have to sit around and swap
disks in and out of the drive.

It seems to me that the people who raise these objections aren't considering
the type of environment that the NeXT machine was designed to run in.
Certainly, these would be valid criticims if the NeXT machine was
designed to be a standalone PC.  However, the NeXT machine comes
equipped with Ethernet capability, and most people will want to attach
their machine to a network.  In a networked environment, both software
distribution and archiving should be simple.  For archiving, I would
store my files on a file server, and allow the operations staff perform
daily backups of my files.  For software distribution, a software publisher
could distribute a tape to the administrators of the network and have
the administrators collect a fee from each user that wanted to use the
software.  When a user had paid her fee, she would be allowed to access
the file.  Alternatively, a user could buy the software, wander down
to the tape drive attached to a file server on the network, mount her
software, and copy it onto her machine.  Also, with the existence of
the SCSI port, user's can go out and buy additional attachments for
handling these tasks, as Jeff points out.

The third criticism is that the Optical disk is slow.  This seems like
a valid criticism.  But maybe now that the NeXT machine is helping
to make optical disks standard attachments to computers, optical
disk manufacturers will begin to have a large incentive to increase
the speed at which their disks access data.

Comments?

-- Chuck