Checksum: 62302 Path: utzoo!utgpu!craig From: craig@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca (Craig Hubley) Date: Wed, 12-Apr-89 23:06:04 EDT Message-ID: <1989Apr12.230604.23347@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca> Organization: University of Toronto Computing Services Newsgroups: comp.sys.next Subject: Re: NeXt Performance/Price Summary: Unix for the masses, 88open group? References: <2648@tank.uchicago.edu> <56267@yale-celray.yale.UUCP> <16912@cup.portal.com> <16964@cup.portal.com> <3081@haven.umd.edu> <17032@cup.portal.com> Reply-To: craig@gpu.utcs.UUCP (Craig Hubley) Distribution: usa In article <17032@cup.portal.com> BruceH@cup.portal.com (Bruce Robert Henderson) writes: >shap@polya.Stanford.EDU Writes: >>As someone who has owned a mac since day one, is fairly happy with it, >>and has done extensive consluting in the Mac domain, I am afraid I >>must disagree. There is a definite need for a decent text editor such >>as emacs. Those of us who are touch typists simply lose too much >>speed by having to reach for the mouse all of the time. I must agree with this, although my need for EMACS has more to do with producing genuine character-level-portable text files... MS-Word just won't do when you have literally hundreds of files to move to a real computer (No, MacOS does not a real computer make) and none of the communications programs you have will do it automatically. Far better, often, to keep the files text-only to begin with. Although it's multi- tasking OS is flaky, the Amiga wins over the Mac here - AmigaDOS DOES real timeshared priority-based multitasking, even though it does crash because it lacks a hardware MMU - so does multifinder, which is far less demanding of its hardware. I consider a NeXT to be an 'Amiga done right', with the same hardware support for graphics and sound, good price/performance, a supportable bus, a real OS, lots of bundled software and a SCSI disk subsystem. Of course, I use an Amiga as a workstation with a flickerless 700x500 monochrome screen (YES, and grayscaled to boot - monitor and adapter together cost me less than US $80). Folks who use it for video won't agree, since that's an unfortunate lack on the NeXT... as the Mac proved, if you don't build in video from the start, it NEVER gets there at any price humans can afford. Perhaps a killer board will come out for the NeXT, though, with 24 DSPs or so and realtime video processing. I hope. Point is, there are many tradeoffs in workstation design, and I also see the NeXT as having some Amiga-style problems: being tightly tied to a particular processor family (now almost old-fashioned), having its own OS ported from academia (AmigaDOS was once Tripos from Britain - cute but not used anywhere else - thankfully Mach is better supported), being tied to a display that may be the bane of its existence (Amiga NTSC flicker has scared many folks away, perhaps the NeXT megapixel will too, eventually). Thank God NeXT has bundled software, paid close attention to aesthetics in the operating environment, and is aiming at a vertical market first. These were the most deplorable mistakes made with the Amiga, trying to be all things to all people too soon - plus the Mac mistake of building a powerful but obtuse programming environment that is almost object-oriented but not quite - please no crap about MacApp, Object Pascal is simply unacceptable to a serious developer who insists his work be portable. > >Let's get one thing straight. The concept behind a macintosh and your common workstation >are completely diffrent. The bottom line is ease of use. Unix is for computer geeks >only. [I am one!] The mac was a godsend for the people because it made software intuitive. This I disagree with completely. Unix is in fact more consistent and easier to explain than MS-DOS, in my experience. rm and ls make MORE sense than del and dir - removing and listing are more useful concepts than deleting and directories when you're trying to explain something. Options likewise, although these need to be standardized some in Unix. A good profile solves 95% of these problems for the naive user. >people would have access to the tremendous power of unix in a way that wouldn't require 4 >years and an MS in CS to master. There is a lot of mac bashing going on and a lot of NeXT >bashing too. Quit comparing these machines to WorkStations! [I hear those f keys now!!! :-)] This micro/workstation terminology business is not very useful, is it ? >view that Joe Blow needs to be able to run it straight out of the box. ND SHOULD >be able to master it in a couple of months! I know that I'm about to be roasted on the >spit by all of you, but the viewpoint of the comercial developer needs to be heard! I won't roast you on a spit, I agree. Straight out of the box, right away. That's how our microwave ovens work, there's no excuse for our computers not to, except at the very leading edge of design, which the NeXT and Mac are not. This is not meant to be inflammatory, you can buy a better day-to-day work station than the NeXT - for about $50 000, counting all the software of course. >software out there that will make people buy these machines. Get real! how many >MIS types give a hoot if thier new $12,000 widget can grep at the speed of light? >or that it comes with a zillion X Window gadgets on line? [/dev/null] thats right! >what counts is that he can create the reports and the papers and the stuff that >doesn't get considered by the workstation world. > >BruceH@cup.portal.com I would rather write hypertext than paper reports, but until I can do this and deliver them to my client's desk, I need Adobe Illustrator and Ready! Set! Go! and yes, even LaTeX. is directed towards 88open folks, I'd like to hear some more about 88open-class machines. Is there a newsgroup for discussion and announcements of these machines? If it has the broad support claimed, why not ? If there's even one 88open machine (which there is) then comp.sys.88open ought to already be in action. If it isn't, and if discussion of DG's new box is in comp.sys.data.general, then that speaks worlds to me about what that binary-level compatibility is REALLY worth. It would also help get this 88open boosting and bashing out of comp.sys.next. If someone more familiar with 88open could write such a proposal for news.groups, I'd be more than pleased to support it. For that matter, I'd like to see more on 88open itself. For those of us presently evaluating NeXT versus the competition, it would be very valuable. Can anyone provide any references ? Craig Hubley -- Craig Hubley ------------------------------------- craig@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu "Lead, follow, or get out of the way" mnetor!utgpu!craig@uunet.UU.NET ------------------------------------- {allegra,bnr-vpa,cbosgd,decvax,ihnp4,mnetor,utzoo,utcsri}!utgpu!craig