Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!uwvax!oddjob!tank!uxc!uxc.cso.uiuc.edu!a.cs.uiuc.edu!p.cs.uiuc.edu!gillies
From: gillies@p.cs.uiuc.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: NeXT press release (very long but i
Message-ID: <76000296@p.cs.uiuc.edu>
Date: 16 Oct 88 00:58:00 GMT
References: <5423@juniper.uucp>
Lines: 23
Nf-ID: #R:juniper.uucp:5423:p.cs.uiuc.edu:76000296:000:1092
Nf-From: p.cs.uiuc.edu!gillies    Oct 15 19:58:00 1988


One thing people tend to overlook in PC's and even workstations is a
powerful I/O system.  This was a central concept in the first personal
computer, the Alto.  Every descendant of the Alto strived to improve
the I/O throughput.

I think it's safe to say that NO pc in the marketplace has a very high
bandwidth I/O system (the kind that can look at back-to-back packets
on the ethernet while simultaneously doing BITBLT's on the screen and
making progress on some tasks).  In fact, most vendors take the
opposite attitude -- "We want the system to be extremely cheap, so all
I/O will be done in software, and bottlenecked by the main CPU".
Apple is notorious for this -- it allows them to fix their design
mistakes with new ROMs.

If the NeXT really delivers such a muscular I/O system without kluges,
then I'm completely sold on their architecture.  This may be the
biggest hidden innovation in their machine.


Don Gillies, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Illinois
1304 W. Springfield, Urbana, Ill 61801      
ARPA: gillies@cs.uiuc.edu   UUCP: {uunet,ihnp4,harvard}!uiucdcs!gillies