Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!apple!bionet!agate!pasteur!ames!oliveb!sun!cramer@clem
From: cramer@clem (Sam Cramer)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: NeXT press release (very long but interesting)
Message-ID: <72980@sun.uucp>
Date: 13 Oct 88 23:44:57 GMT
References: <5423@juniper.uucp> <72886@sun.uucp> <363@elan.UUCP>
Sender: news@sun.uucp
Reply-To: cramer@clem (Sam Cramer)
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Lines: 12
In-reply-to: jlo@elan.UUCP (Jeff Lo)

The NeXT optical disk drive boasts an average seek time of 96ms - an enormous
number compared to the sub-20ms times typical on decent Winchesters.  Unless
they have done something very clever with the controller and/or file system, you
are going to have plenty of time for coffee breaks if your application touches
the disk.

The lack of a floppy presents some problems for software vendors - optical disk
cartridges evidently cost around $50.  Not what you'd call a cheap distribution
medium.
-- 

Sam Cramer	sun!cramer  cramer@sun.com