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From: wtr@moss.ATT.COM
Newsgroups: comp.sys.misc,comp.os.misc,comp.misc,comp.arch
Subject: Re: The NeXT machine has been announced! (long)
Message-ID: <34946@clyde.ATT.COM>
Date: 17 Oct 88 23:17:58 GMT
References: <360@elan.UUCP> <2070@cloud9.UUCP> <528@fabscal.UUCP> <1152@mmm.UUCP> <5826@killer.DALLAS.TX.US> <3542@phri.UUCP>
Sender: lp@clyde.ATT.COM
Reply-To: wtr@moss.UUCP (Bill Rankin)
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Whippany NJ
Lines: 56

In article <3542@phri.UUCP> roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith) writes:
>
>	Various People have been complaining that a $50 "optical floppy" is
>far too expensive to use for software distribution.
[ interesting thoughts about 'deposit' on distribution disks ]

>Roy Smith, System Administrator
>Public Health Research Institute

well, the main problem i see with distributing software on 
them there disks is:

[ note: assuming bare-bones next-box here.  just purchased. nobody
[ yet to ether-up to.  just the optical drive.

assumption: mach is somewhat similar to unix in it's use of disk
swapping and paging.

i really don't think it's a good idea to un-mount (or the mach
equivolent) the one and only filesystem.  remember, this is not
mush-dos.  we just (probably) can't pop the OD out any old time we
want to and plug in the new one.  nor can we eat up all the memory
with a big fat juicey ram-disk without crashing the system.
(remember we need program *and* swap space)

i wellcome pointers on mach internals, etc... any mach gurus 
reading?

there are two solutions: (that are realistic)

a) ether-net.  but only if you don't need that disk
   for swap space.

b) use a hardrive as a root filesystem.  keep your swap 
   space here too, to increase speed.

c) tape drive.

(note b & c add bucks to the final tag :-(

i am interrested in seeing (hands-on) this new machine.  i don't
think it's going to be anywhere near bug free.  in fact, expect a 
nightmare for the first 12 months.  (users manage to stumble
across the most abstruse bugs with almost un-nerving frequency :-)


.. at last! fresh meat for the net! :-)

good-luck!

=====================================================================
Bill Rankin
Bell Labs, Whippany NJ
(201) 386-4154 (cornet 232)

email address:		...!att!moss!wtr