Xref: utzoo comp.sys.misc:1796 comp.os.misc:591 comp.misc:3794 comp.arch:6627 Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!njin!princeton!phoenix!pupthy!wrs From: wrs@pupthy.PRINCETON.EDU (William R. Somsky) Newsgroups: comp.sys.misc,comp.os.misc,comp.misc,comp.arch Subject: Re: The NeXT machine has been announced! (long) Message-ID: <4005@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> Date: 16 Oct 88 20:53:10 GMT References: <360@elan.UUCP> <449@oracle.UUCP> Sender: news@phoenix.Princeton.EDU Reply-To: wrs@pupthy.PRINCETON.EDU (William R. Somsky) Organization: Physics Dept, Princeton Univ Lines: 58 In article <449@oracle.UUCP> csimmons@oracle.UUCP (Charles Simmons) writes: > 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. > ... > 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. ... Well, I had had the feeling that the NeXT machine was supposed to be designed so that the STUDENTS could own them. (I got this impression from Jobs himself when he made a stop here in Princeton some time ago (~1 year?). They arranged a lunch for him with about 20 students so he could meet with us and get our input. I was one of two grad students there.) If the students are going to own these, they'll have them in their dorm rooms, and they almost definitely WILL be run as standalone PC's. I know of one campus (Iowa State University) that has wired their dorm rooms with a second phone line for future data communications use, and there are probably more, but I doubt that ANYONE in the near future will be wiring their dorms with full ethernet capability, file servers and extra tape/disk drives for loading data. In a DEPARTMENTAL context, I can see the use of these machines in a fully networked environment, but then it'll be the professors who have the individual machines, possibly a FEW grad students (but not likely), and a couple machines for general undergrad use. But that's not terribly different from the way things are now with undergrad access to campus machines, and quite different from what I thought Jobs had been wanting to push: EACH student having their OWN machine. That also brings up another point, the $6500 price tag, *academic*. I don't know many undergrad students (or grad, for that matter, but I'm not sure Jobs was thinking about us at all) that could afford pay that much for a machine. When Jobs was here, he was probing us on the issue of cost as well as other things. The gist of the question was: "If we made this really neat machine that does all these thing, but it's kind of expensive, (I think he was vaguely suggesting the $3000 range, but don't remember) would you get one?" Of course one of our Princeton undergrads piped up with, "Oh sure; I'd just ask my parents to buy one for me", but most of the rest of us were more of the "Gee, well, I dunno..." persuasion. And now he's come out with a price of $6500? How many students are going to be able to afford that? That's a fair chunk of a year's cost at a private school and should be more than enough to pay for a full year (tuition, room&board, books, etc) at any state school. Maybe the economics of the thing has forced him to give up on the idea of letting the students themselves own them, but if it really was his intention to release a machine that's AFFORDABLE and USEFUL to the average, individual student, I think he's failed. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ William R. Somsky Physics Dept ; Princeton Univ wrs@pupthy.Princeton.EDU PO Box 708 ; Princeton NJ 08544