Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!ncar!tank!phd_ivo@gsbacd.uchicago.edu
From: phd_ivo@gsbacd.uchicago.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: Price/Performance
Message-ID: <2693@tank.uchicago.edu>
Date: 12 Apr 89 16:48:13 GMT
Sender: news@tank.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Graduate School of Business
Lines: 28

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For me, a machine is attractive if it is versatile. And I think the NeXt is.
Potentially, it can be as user-friendly as a Mac and as powerful and easy to
program as a workstation.

I wonder how many people bought a Mac hoping to add Mac-features on top of
their PC applications. As it turns out, however, many PC applications are not
available on the Mac, nor is there good hope of porting (again: the Mac is just
terribly difficult to program). NeXt with its UNIX base and tools does allow
this porting reasonably easily. PCs are just limited by their history; DOS and
640K, the variety of hardware, drivers and software, etc. NeXt of course
can help there, too.

The fact that NeXt could potentially assume Mac/PC functions should not mean
that it is forbidden to compete with workstations (incidentally, something that
Macs and PCs tend to aspire to). I believe if it doesn't, there are enough 386
machines in the wings to do right that. Again, I wish NeXt had provided for
better floating point performance, or would give us an idea whether one will
eventually be able to upgrade...

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Our local MDC has just told me that NeXt has stopped shipping computers until
the new system software is out (by the end of this month). Is the end of the
month a good (or an optimistic) estimate of when one can get these machines?

/ivo welch	phd_ivo@gsbacd.uchicago.edu