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From: trb@stag.UUCP ( Todd Burkey )
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: NeXT announcement (was Re: Atari Workstation)
Message-ID: <623@stag.UUCP>
Date: 16 Oct 88 01:00:04 GMT
References: <1449@wayback.UUCP> <6528@pyr.gatech.EDU> <10019@cup.portal.com> <9087@watdragon.waterloo.edu>
Reply-To: trb@stag.UUCP ( Todd Burkey )
Organization: Mindtools ST Access Group, Plymouth, MN
Lines: 35

In article <9087@watdragon.waterloo.edu> jafischer@spurge.waterloo.edu (Jonathan A. Fischer) writes:
>
>	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, especially

It will really be interesting to see what each of the final products
really costs. The NeXT machine sounds great, but the $10K price ($6.5K
if you are an accredited educational institution...does that mean only
the Universities can buy them for internal use?) is a little too
steep. If the 300MB optical disk is fast enough to really use as a
primary drive, and if they get the 9600 Baud modem hack to work, then
you really do get a full system for the $10K price. And one which should wipe
away any of the Sun or Apollo systems we use at work (excepting some
of the high end ones with the graphic processor options).
Unfortunately, it sounds like we are still about a year away on the
NeXT in mass quantities...course the same probably holds true for the
AWS.

Most of us, however, simply won't need the extra complexity that the 'high end'
graphics will provide.  I find that for hacking, the Atari ST graphics
are much easier to 'get at' and use than say X11 on the Suns or GPR
graphics on the Apollos. I've moved several small graphics programs
over from the ST to the Suns' and Apollos and find it incredibly
frustrating to see all the extra contortions you have to go through.
For example, a program I wrote on Friday over lunch hour to display
.neo and .tny pictures on the Apollo (DN4000, SR9.7) ended up being 5
times as big as on the Atari and much more complicated to write.

I was quite interested to hear that several people at work who had
been holding off on buying a computer until the NeXT came out are now
planning on buying an ST after hearing the prices...

  -Todd Burkey
   trb@stag.UUCP