Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!previous.cis.ohio-state.edu!jgreely
From: jgreely@previous.cis.ohio-state.edu (J Greely)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: NeXt Performance/Price
Message-ID: <43290@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu>
Date: 13 Apr 89 16:17:41 GMT
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> <1989Apr12.230604.23347@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca>
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In article <1989Apr12.230604.23347@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca> craig@gpu.utcs.UUCP
 (Craig Hubley) writes:
>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), 

Uhhh..., how about "loosely tied"?  The only things that would be at
all bothered are applications distributed as binaries, and porting is
simply a matter of recompiling (identical OS, identical compilers,
identical environment, *poof*).  The only problems that would be at
all difficult are those written in assembly language, and that's not
done very much on (or in!) Unix.  The only thing that could really
bite you is byte ordering (the "all the world's a vax" syndrome).

>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).

My only physical complaint about the NeXT monitor (besides only having
2-bit gray) is that it seems to make a particularly effective feather
duster, collecting dust at an obscene rate.  Not all of my grayscale
is *in* the monitor.  I end up Windexing the Windows every other day,
at least.  On the plus side, this does keep it nice and shiny!

>Thank God NeXT has bundled software, paid close attention to aesthetics
>in the operating environment, and is aiming at a vertical market first.

Sort of.  The keyboard is blessed with several annoyances for several
classes of user: 
  superuser and LaTeX-er will love the location of the '`' key;

  clumsy typists will *scream* for the power switch (under 0.8, if
  you're not logged in, hitting the power switch is a no-questions-
  asked power-off. result?  I frequently shut it off while trying to
  turn the screen up to log in);

  the angle it sits at is not adjustable, making me want to glue
  little rubber feet to it.

The bundled software is an eclectic's dream: I can do text-processing,
database management, math/stats, programming, music, lions-and-tigers-
and-bears-oh-my!, and <add false sincerity> Mom *finally* has
something powerful enough to hold her recipes <remove false sincerity,
put it carefully back in the box, and hide box>.

  And, of course, any dedicated reader of this group knows about the
vertical market orientation bending slightly (unable to see how *far*
it's bent from the press release).

>This I disagree with completely.  Unix is in fact more consistent and easier
>to explain than MS-DOS, in my experience.

Mostly because MSDOS is the bastard child of Unix and CP/M.  The
attempt to be an easy path to/from both is painful.

>rm and ls make MORE sense than del and dir

"rm" is more intuitive than "delete" or "erase" (which may be abbr.)?
Not sure I'll buy that one.  Any attempt to defend Unix command names
on the grounds of "ease of use" is doomed from the start, unless
you're comparing them to a JCL interpreter (such as NCR's ITX, whose
command interface is, literally, interactive JCL).

-=-
J Greely (jgreely@cis.ohio-state.edu; osu-cis!jgreely)