Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!asuvax!ncar!ico!vail!ism780c!darryl
From: darryl@ism780c.isc.com (Darryl Richman)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: WOULD *YOU* BUY A NeXT COMPUTER? (Read even if you wouldn't)
Message-ID: <37648@ism780c.isc.com>
Date: 19 Dec 89 12:58:21 GMT
References: <317@ns-mx.uiowa.edu> <1TqpCt#6PkSJw=eric@snark.uu.net>
Reply-To: darryl@ism780c.UUCP (Darryl Richman)
Organization: Interactive Systems Corp., Santa Monica CA
Lines: 21

In article <1TqpCt#6PkSJw=eric@snark.uu.net> eric@snark.uu.net (Eric S. Raymond) writes:
"Why should I buy Steve Jobs's Mac-on-steroids closed-architecture box when
"I can get cheaper, faster commodity iron with better standards conformance
"based on the 386?

For the same reason that people continue to buy light powered Macs for the
same prices as 386s on steroids:  it's different, and perhaps better, for
their needs.  Besides, the NeXT is not a closed architecture box--it takes
NuBus cards (of admittedly funny size and speed), but it is not closed in
the sense of the Macs up to the Mac+.  It also runs Mach, which means it
ought to do multiprocessing easily and well (remains to be seen).

		--Darryl Richman

P.S.  I am hardly a NeXT fan, but I can see why someone might choose to
pay more for an integrated GUI with a policy than Unix with X.
-- 
Copyright (c) 1989 Darryl Richman    The views expressed are the author's alone
darryl@ism780c.isc.com 		      INTERACTIVE Systems Corp.-A Kodak Company
 "For every problem, there is a solution that is simple, elegant, and wrong."
	-- H. L. Mencken