Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!njin!princeton!phoenix!caromero
From: caromero@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (C. Antonio Romero)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: NeXT announcement (was Re: Atari Workstation)
Message-ID: <3992@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>
Date: 15 Oct 88 19:00:04 GMT
References: <1449@wayback.UUCP> <6528@pyr.gatech.EDU> <10019@cup.portal.com> <9087@watdragon.waterloo.edu>
Reply-To: caromero@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (C. Antonio Romero)
Organization: Princeton University, NJ
Lines: 37

In article <9087@watdragon.waterloo.edu> jafischer@spurge.waterloo.edu (Jonathan A. Fischer) writes:
>In article <10019@cup.portal.com> BobR@cup.portal.com writes:
>>The "Under $5000" workstation will now cost $8500 (U.S.) with one transputer.
>>  The operating system on the "AWS" will be Helios...
>	Speaking of the AWS, what are peoples' feelings about how it will 
>stand up to the competition of the new NeXT machine (see comp.misc for all
>the hullaballoo)?  At $6500 US, it represents a serious threat...
> Granted, the AWS offers multiprocessing AND an OS written for
>multiprocessing; 

Well, Mach is a Unix descendant designed to handle multiprocessing, and
to be compatible with (I think) BSD 4.3.  I also have this impression--
and I could be wrong on this-- that it's designed to allow handling
heterogeneous processors-- i.e. a 68030 and, say, a transputer simultaneously,
not just a bunch of 68030's running together.

Helios would be restricted to Transputer farms, and wouldn't really be
Unix compatible, although I don't think the transition would be too tough.
Anyone know more about either operating system and care to comment?

> it also offers better graphics capabilities.  

I keep hearing this rumor that Pixar is putting together some sort of
add-on for the NeXT... But then again this may be just a bad dream on my
part.  Also, even if they do, it won't be cheap...

I figure that the AWS will probably wind up as sort of a vertical-market
machine for people who for some reason need Transputers, not just
high-speed, parallel processing, etc.  I think it will have a definite
niche in the marketplace, but would never make it as a general-purpose
workstation-- not because it's not as "good" a machine, but because it's
running an exotic OS on a pretty exotic chip.  The machine I'm more 
worried about is Atari's 68030 box and how it would stand up to NeXT...
Maybe they can throw in some of the same frills, like the optical drive,
and make it competitive... but only time will tell.

-Antonio Romero     romero@confidence.princeton.edu