Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ubvax!ames!mike
From: mike@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Mike Smithwick)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: Next and the competition
Keywords: it's here!
Message-ID: <19728@ames.arc.nasa.gov>
Date: 20 Dec 88 01:41:39 GMT
References: <2405@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu>
Reply-To: mike@ames.arc.nasa.gov.UUCP (Mike Smithwick)
Organization: NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.
Lines: 57

In article <2405@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu> hgm@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu (Hal G. Meeks) writes:
> 
>>5) The NeXT (finally...) 
>>Reading the Byte article about the NeXT machine gave me the same butterflies 
>>that the first Amiga notation couple of years ago did. Me want one| 
                                                         ^^^^^^^^^^^^
Me got one! Well, ahem, WE, got one. Our nExt, magically appeared
in our lab this morning. I haven't had much of a chance to play with it yet,
but here are a few first-hand observations: It is really slick!!

"Slick" is a technical term meaning, boffo, neato, keen, etc. A combination
of elegance, fun and grace.

NeXTSTeP is beautiful. I couldn't get my eyes off of the thing. It'll be 
hard to go back home to my Amiga now, if it wasn't for the advantage of color.
NeXTStep makes the Mac interface look like stone clubs, and flint spears,
(read : primitive). The "browser" is as neat as I expected it to be. I'd
like to do one for the Amy, but I'm afraid Steve might call me up. . .

Haven't played with the Interface Builder, but it looked good. 

One small detail I don't remember anyone mentioning before about the 
window motions. When you move a window, you MOVE a window. Not just an
outline of the thing, but the entire window. 

There is a flight simulator that comes with the box. It's called "Stealth",
and makes very nice use of NextStep. The performance can't match
Interceptor, or the other high-speed Amiga programs.

Display PS is much faster than I'd expected. Still, on this release, screen
writing speed seemed rather pokey on a line demo they have. The Amiga
still shines on this account.

Another couple of little things I liked that give the box character is
the error feedback when you log on and make a mistake. The screen is dark,
and a login box appears in the center. Make a mistake on the password
and the box jitters back and forth for a fraction of a second like someone 
hit it with a hammer. Then there
is the Digital Webster error requestor if it can't find a word. I only
got a quick glipse over someone's shoulder, but it appeared to have
a silhouette of a little man giving you a raspberry. Cute. The 
"Are you Sure?" requestor has the little man shrugging his shoulders and
speading his hands.

The Digital Librarian is impressive. We searched for the word "celestial"
throughout the works of Shakespeare. It found all 3 entries in what appeared
to be less than 5 seconds.

Most of these observations are from looking over the shoulders of the crowd
in line before me. I'll post more observations when I get some real experiance.


-- 
			   *** mike (starship janitor) smithwick ***
"Scientists say 'Saturn is so light, if you put it in a bucket of 
water, it would float'. Don't forget, it would also leave a ring".
[disclaimer : nope, I don't work for NASA, I take full blame for my ideas]