Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!allosaur.cis.ohio-state.edu!bob From: bob@allosaur.cis.ohio-state.edu (Bob Sutterfield) Newsgroups: comp.sys.next Subject: Re: My ramblings on the NeXT machine Message-ID: <27965@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> Date: 18 Nov 88 22:30:07 GMT References: <26812@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> Sender: news@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu Distribution: na Organization: The Ohio State University Dept of Computer & Information Science Lines: 101 In article <26812@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> munson@renoir.Berkeley.EDU (Ethan V. Munson) writes: >Good Things >=========== > >1) It's the first multimedia computer. The Mac brought window/mouse user > interfaces to retail computing. If NeXT can find a way to sell > outside of the university, it will do the same for multimedia. They can do multimedia stuff inside academia and it will still "count". >Bad Things >========== > >3) Thin Ethernet -- NeXT has a Thin Ethernet connector. Here at Berkeley, > neither the EECS department or the academic computing service has > anything but thick ethernet. As of last week, even NeXT didn't > know where to find converters. Each converter will cost about > $200-300. Since these machines are targeted at professors, rather > than students, it may be hard to build short Thin Ethernets which > share one converter. There are lots of other places where that's not a problem. I was surprised when I saw that even the public labs in Corey and Evans use thick Ethernet and transceiver drop cables. It's a matter of taste and cost and timing and local culture, I guess. >4) Network connections -- Does NeXT plan to help > customers bring up a TCP/IP connection to the Internet? Though that's a noble goal, I doubt NeXT has the resources to devote to it. I'd think that most institutions with the inclination to get connected would have someone on hand who can ask the right questions of the right people (NSF) and get the ball rolling. Perhaps the prospect of easy SLIP will help. >7) Limited Printer -- Unlike the Laserwriter, the NeXT printer can not be > used as a plug-compatible printer for non-NeXT systems. No, but if there's a NeXT system with a printer on the network, then all the other machines using the Berkeley remote line printer transport, and the Adobe TranScript application-level stuff to generate the PostScript, can use the NeXT box as a print queue server. > Also, how do multiple machines share one printer? See above. If you already have a PostScript printer down the hall on a machine that will let you do remote line printer stuff to it, you can manage without a local NeXT printer at all. > If one machine runs the printer and the other machines just > send it PostScript, then it may do a lot work supporting other > people's printing. The imaging apparently doesn't hurt the printer server's performance much, though you may want to add a couple of Mb to that machine. >Other Things >============ > >1) No support for X -- I think that Display Postscript is a much better > imaging model, but the lack of an X server will make it > very hard to justify buying many of these for research in our > department. Perhaps someone will implement an X protocol server in PostScript. Why should NeXT bother, when their (Stepstone's?) system has technical advantages? >2) Proprietariness -- NeXT does not plan to release sources of any of > their operating system. I'd see the sources to their protocol and toolkit libraries (and Objective C front-end) as more critical, because it will determine whether they can work in a heterogenous application-server environment. Others see their changes to Mach (that may or may not be fed back to CMU) as more critical to a support effort. How about it, Mr. Datri? Can I license it from Stepstone for my Sun? Or do we need to go clear back to HP? > They have no particular plan to adopt a "standard" UNIX. Why bother, when Mach has technical advantages? Besides, as your ""s imply, there's no such thing (yet) as a standard UNIX, much as some parties might like to define theirs as one. I think superiority, not compliancy, should be a design goal in systems that intend to push us forward. > It will not be an "open" system. It would be a lot more so if they would let source out of the bag. >In summary, if had a budget that could afford a $10-12,000 >workstation, I would be sorely tempted by the NeXT machine. If I could afford a NeXT machine, I'd get my instrument rating instead. Then commercial and multiengine. Then, if I had that much more again, I might consider a NeXT machine. Maybe. I need a seaplane rating, too.