Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!mailrus!cornell!batcomputer!feigin From: feigin@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu (Adam Feigin) Newsgroups: comp.sys.next Subject: Re: My ramblings on the NeXT machine Summary: I've seen & played with it..... Keywords: clunk, ka-chunk, ka-chunk Message-ID: <6824@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu> Date: 15 Nov 88 13:02:44 GMT References: <26812@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> Reply-To: feigin@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu (Adam Feigin) Followup-To: comp.sys.next Organization: Cornell Theory Center, Cornell University, Ithaca NY Lines: 42 I was in Philadelphia this past weekend, where the NeXT machine was on display at the Philly College of the Arts. I went into the exhibit at a time when there was little activity, so I was able to break the box out of its silly little demo and play with it for awhile...... Impressions: A) Hardware It's a nice machine. The display is very crisp and sharp, even if it is only B & W. The keyboard could use a little work. It's a little too small for my taste, and wasn't very comfortable to use. I couldn't find any way to elevate it for a comfortable feel; I'm also not too keen on the cord(s) plugging into the middle of the keyboard; like someone else mentioned, even the slightest overextension of the cord will pry the connector loose from the keyboard. The beastie has the noisiest disk drive that I have ever heard. On every access, you can hear ka-chunk, ka-chunk, ka-chunk as information is read off the disk. If you get one, I hope you have a loud air-condo system to drown out the noise...and people complain about Mac fan noise ! (they aint seen nothin yet) B)Software I like Mach; we have it here running onan IBM RT, but NeXTStep is a really nice interface. I'm disappointed that there's no X-Window System support, but some kindly soul is bound to port it to NeXT, just as soon as s/he gets his/her hands on the machine. General: I think it was a dumb move to go with a proprietary printer, but I'm just a grunt down here in the trenches, so my opinion may not mean much. I wont even bother contributing to the parity wars, except that I've designed a few computers myself...... Thats it. My opinions are, of course, my own, but I'll let you have them for a price.... Adam ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Internet: feigin@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu Adam Feigin Bitnet: feigin@crnlthry Workstation Consultant UUCP: {backbonz}!cornell!batcomputer!feigin Cornell National Supercomputer MaBell: (607) 255-3985 Facility, Visualization Group "Discipline is never an end in itself, only a means to an end" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------