Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!purdue!decwrl!labrea!glacier!jbn
From: jbn@glacier.STANFORD.EDU (John B. Nagle)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Announcement vs reality
Keywords: Next
Message-ID: <17846@glacier.STANFORD.EDU>
Date: 16 Nov 88 07:21:54 GMT
Organization: Stanford University
Lines: 23


     Well, now we have a good handle on what the reality of the product is.

1.  The minimum configuration costs $9500 after deep educational discounts 
    including a contractual guarantee that the buying institution will provide 
    support.

2.  Not all the promised software is included.  Mathematica and Lisp are
    absent.

      Yes, I know it will be better next year.  But you have to compare real
products with real products, not vapor ones.  So you line up the reality of
the Next machine against the Mac IIx, the various current Sun models, and the
new Amiga annouced at Comdex, and see how it looks.   Undoubtedly all the
other vendors will have new iron out by the time Next is shipping something
that works and costs like what they announced.

      The exciting thing about the Next machine, other than the really nice
case by Frogdesign, is the software suite.  It will be interesting to see
how that looks on the RT line, and even more interesting if IBM chooses to
offer it on the 386 type machines.

					John Nagle