Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!rutgers!ucla-cs!acm
From: acm@valhalla.cs.ucla.edu (Association for Computing Machinery)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: NeXT announcement (was Re: Atari Workstation)
Message-ID: <16846@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU>
Date: 15 Oct 88 22:00:20 GMT
References: <1449@wayback.UUCP> <6528@pyr.gatech.EDU> <10019@cup.portal.com> <9087@watdragon.waterloo.edu>
Sender: news@CS.UCLA.EDU
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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,
>>with optional cards of four more transputers available.  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 

Basically, we are going to need more information.  How fast is the optical 
disk, how bug-free is the OS, how jittery the monitor, loud the fan, etc.
Then, what market will this product try to penetrate (besides the 
educational/research market).  

>the hullaballoo)?  At $6500 US, it represents a serious threat, especially

Especially since it comes with so much nice software and development tools.
However, remember $6500 is the *educational* price.  Just how big a discount 
this is remains to be seen.  

>given their advertising budget (and the media's love affair with Steve
>Jobs).
>Granted, the AWS offers multiprocessing AND an OS written for
>multiprocessing; it also offers better graphics capabilities.  However,
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
So does the NeXT machine.  There's a good description somewhere in alt.next
about Mach.  It also has slots so you can add additional processors, a
custom VLSI chip to handle the 16 channel bus, and a lot of other goodies.
It should be interesting to see just how much better a group of Transputers
performs over a group of 68030's.

>the NeXT machine offers some really nice things that the AWS doesn't, and
>I'm inclined to feel that, feature-for-feature, the NeXT machine comes
>out on top.

This is my gut feeling also, but we also need to find out exactly what will 
be included in the AWS's price and what their problems will be (there always
are).

>					-Jonathan Fischer

Plinio Barbeito

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