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From: jmunkki@santra.HUT.FI (Juri Munkki)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.misc,comp.misc
Subject: Re: The NeXT machine has been announced! (long)
Message-ID: <16400@santra.UUCP>
Date: 17 Oct 88 22:26:11 GMT
References: <360@elan.UUCP> <5806@killer.DALLAS.TX.US> <13870@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu>
Sender: jmunkki@santra.UUCP
Reply-To: jmunkki@santra.UUCP (Juri Munkki)
Organization: Helsinki University of Technology, Finland
Lines: 31

In article <13870@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu> bkliewer@iuvax.UUCP (Bradley Dyck Kliewer) writes:
>In article <5806@killer.DALLAS.TX.US> elg@killer.DALLAS.TX.US (Eric Green) writes:
>>One question: Why the hell have a floppy drive when you have a 256MB
>>removable erasable optical disk? 
>$50 is awfully expensive media for commercial software distribution when
>a few $1 diskettes are the norm (retail price comparisons, of course).
>The lack of a diskette drive also hampers data exchange with other micros.

Since NeXT machinces are currently targeted to educational institutions, where
the machines are all on Ethernet and software is usually bought on a site
license basis, I do not see the lack of a floppy drive as a major setback.

When NeXT systems will be delivered to businesses and ordinary people,
someone will most probably have created a SCSI floppy drive that reads
at least IBM 1.4MB format and probably some others. It would only be
a matter of software to adapt the Dayna drives for the NeXT system.

Since the SCSI bus can have 8 devices, if you have the optical drive,
a hard disk, a printer and the floppy drive, you still have room for
3 other devices on your SCSI bus.

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|     Juri Munkki jmunkki@hut.fi  jmunkki@fingate.bitnet        I Want   Ne   |
|     Helsinki University of Technology Computing Centre        My Own   XT   |
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P.S. I just won a trip to Las Vegas (COMDEX) and PARC and I'd like to see
     some NeXT machines too. By that time I might even have found a Finnish
     company that would be interested in representing NeXT in Finland. Is
     NeXT going to be at COMDEX? What is the address of NeXT? How can I reach
     them? (TeleFAX, Telex, E-mail, or phone)