Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!ficc!peter
From: peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: NeXT not revolutionary enough?
Message-ID: <2147@ficc.uu.net>
Date: 5 Nov 88 01:39:38 GMT
References: <471@wucs1.wustl.edu> <4391@ubc-cs.UUCP> <485@wucs1.wustl.edu> <4090@encore.UUCP>
Organization: SCADA
Lines: 31

In article <4090@encore.UUCP>, bzs@encore.com (Barry Shein) writes:
> What do other people think would be revolutionary in a personal
> computer?

How about fast TV-quality graphics, hi-fi sound, a real-time multitasking
operating system that's actually easy to use, NTSC-compatible output, a decent
CPU (non-segmented with a large address space), for around $1000?

This would make it a great game machine, of course, but it'd be more than that.

With the graphics and a CPU capable of directly addressing a lot of large
bitmaps it'd make a great animation/video machine. With the hi-fi sound you
could accompany them with music.

With multitasking Usenet support would be relatively easy. You couldn't easily
make it totally UNIX-compatible since fork() requires an MMU to run at a
decent speed, but decent stdio support and the ability to build real pipelines
would make a decent sh-clone work well enough.

People's recent fascination with integrated applications would fade in the
face of an integrated environment.

It'd be... a baby NeXT.

Nah... that can't be revolutionary. After all, it's already been done. And it's
not taken over the market. I guess technical excellence just isn't that
important after all.
-- 
Peter da Silva  `-_-'  Ferranti International Controls Corporation
"Have you hugged  U  your wolf today?"     uunet.uu.net!ficc!peter
Disclaimer: My typos are my own damn business.   peter@ficc.uu.net