Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!craig From: craig@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca (Craig Hubley) Newsgroups: comp.sys.next Subject: Re: NeXt Performance/Price Message-ID: <1989Apr17.223618.11354@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca> Date: 18 Apr 89 02:36:18 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> <43290@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> Reply-To: craig@gpu.utcs.UUCP (Craig Hubley) Distribution: usa Organization: University of Toronto Computing Services Lines: 84 Checksum: 50728 In article <43290@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> J Greely writes: > (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 Of course. I was actually referring to the hardware. I should have clarified that. And in fact, really only to the basic system board hardware produced by NeXT... the NuBus seems pretty supportable in the long run. But I've seen no evidence as yet that the basic CPU and DMA and peripheral chips will be able to reconfigured to support, say, two 88000s and two 56001s. Which would be nice. I don't want to be stuck with an underpowered main processor because the 68000 family was supposed to be 'the best' forever. I compare it to the Amiga because all the Amiga custom chips run at 7.16 Mhz, as does the 68000, but the bus effectively runs at double this rate while the interleave scheme relies on synchronous (every-other-cycle) access. Great machine for 1985, but try upgrading that! Maybe NeXT has dealt with its DMA and DSP support in a way that won't gnash teeth for the board designers, maybe not. Any hardware designers care to comment ? >>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! It's beautiful, but why does that monochrome screen have to be physically attached to the microphone, keyboard and mouse connectors, etc... there must be a couple of hundred dollars worth of circuitry in that thing BESIDES the CRT, which is a wash if one upgrades to colour... or is it ? Does it actually come apart with the right screwdriver ? And why not a desktop bus ? >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; As both, I agree. > the angle it sits at is not adjustable, making me want to glue > little rubber feet to it. This seems inexcusable. Not to perpetuate the argument, which is actually silly in light of aliases, I agree, but I actually think I was taken out of context here: >>rm and ls make MORE sense than del and dir TO A NON-COMPUTER-USER, to whom 'removing' and 'listing' are common ideas, and 'deleting' and 'directories' something he learned in computer class. I've NEVER heard anyone use words like delete and directory in conversation unless they were already familiar with computers. And my experience with users is that when explaining DEL and DIR, the words 'remove' and 'list' inevitably come up, while the reverse is not true. Besides, most types of shorthand remove vowels and use the first few consonants to define a word, and we WERE interested in what secretaries could learn, weren't we ? I think a lot of people like to think they're doing something hard when they're not, which is how this 'Unix is harder than DOS' myth is perpetuated. >"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 >J Greely (jgreely@cis.ohio-state.edu; osu-cis!jgreely) Not defending Unix commands for being easy to use. Only refusing to credit MS-DOS with having solved those problems, which in fact it hasn't. Anyway, I really would like to hear a comment on how adaptable NeXT's proprietary hardware will be to new generations of processors and DSPs and graphics chips, etc... anyone have any opinions on this ? -- 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