Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!decwrl!adobe!greid
From: greid@adobe.com (Glenn Reid)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: NeXT alternatives
Message-ID: <700@adobe.UUCP>
Date: 28 Mar 89 21:08:55 GMT
References: <12192@reed.UUCP>
Sender: news@adobe.COM
Reply-To: greid@adobe.COM (Glenn Reid)
Organization: Adobe Systems Incorporated, Mountain View
Lines: 38

In article <12192@reed.UUCP> mdr@reed.UUCP (Mike Rutenberg) writes:
>I thought I would be a little more explicit in my assertion that many of
>the desirable features of the NeXT box are making it into other commercial
>products very quickly.  I think this is occurring because NeXT's product
>has seduced some interested parties and shaken up the competition.
>
>The Microsoft/OSF/Motif interface, which uses the good parts of the
>Microsoft Presentation Manager "look and feel" looks surprisingly
>like NeXT.  It actually looks solid and 2.5 [sic] dimensional.
>
>DSPs and fast floating point crunchers like the i860 are making it into
>a variety of products.  My understanding is that some of the mc56000 DSP
>
>Finally, the ease of application development that NeXT claims through
>use of Objective-C and their (large) library of predefined objects is
>apparently to be matched by Microsoft, according to what I've seen.

Where is Display PostScript?  Where is the "mainframe-on-a-chip"
architecture?  Where is the Digital Librarian?  Where is Mach?

The thing that impressed me the most about the NeXT machine was not the
surface-level features, but the complete system design from bottom to
top.  Not only is there a DSP chip, but the system architecture is
strong enough to make it useful to you.  It runs Mach (Unix), not
multi-finder or OS/2.  It has Display PostScript built in on the ground
floor, not added as afterthought.  Everything is carefully designed and
integrated.  You can invoke Webster's dictionary from within a word
processor.  You can play tunes while you edit.

Look at Microsoft Windows, which is a "feature imitation" of the
Macintosh interface.  Is it as good?  Is it integrated into the machine
itself?  Do all programs run under it?

I think that you cannot simply copy what NeXT has done and run it on an
existing machine.

Glenn Reid
(personal remarks, not company position)