Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uunet!adiron!richf
From: richf@adiron.UUCP (Rick Fanta)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Next computer (Re: CISC Silent Spring)
Message-ID: <430@adiron.UUCP>
Date: 12 Feb 90 03:10:17 GMT
References: <15108@cs.yale.edu>
Organization: PAR Technology, New Hartford, NY
Lines: 46


There's been a LOT of speculation in this series about Jobs' next move.  I
have been reading a variety of magazines over the past few months toward this
end too, and offer a few hopefully interesting insights.

First, the next NeXT is likely to offer a kick ass color graphics system 
(probally as an option).  Remember, Jobs is a part owner in Pixar, and he needs
to find a niche market for his machine (just as the Mac succeed, at least in
part due to the fact that it answered the needs of the desktop publishing).  
It has been a very poorly kept secret that color is in the works.  In article 
in EE times (last September?) when the Renderman standard was announced, Jobs 
raved of the possibilities of 3D desktop movies and the attributes of the Intel
i860.  Commitments to Motorola may prevent him from using it though (I don't 
know a damn thing about this, but if he's getting a cut-rate deal on MC micro-
processors, they probably wouldn't take too kindly to his going to the oppo-
sition for a RISC to do his ray-tracing).  I think I remember an article 
speculating that a MC96000 32-bit DSP chip would be used to boost the vidieo,
but it I don't think it would have enough muscle for Renderman (then again, 
what do I know).

Second, the next NeXT is likely to use the MC68040 instead of a RISC.  Although 
it may make you nauseous, think like a marketing person.  If he switches to a 
RISC, compatibility with the small but promising software base that's already
out there is toast!  This pisses off users and software developers too; not
good for a small company trying to build a user base.  Besides, if NeXT was
going to build a machine around the MC88000, they could have done so already.
The fact that they scheduled the announcement of the new machine for sometime
in the first quarter (me thinks) of this year coincides strangely with the
recent (expected) announcement of the new MC68040.

Performance is a problem, but there maybe a two prong solution (my speculation)
to this problem within the next year or two.  The slow optical disk access is
mainly due to the multiple passes that are needed.  I am hopeful (as is Jobs
too, I'm sure) that this problem will be solved in the near future.  I'm sure 
that the 40Mb hard disk buffers will help this problem in the short term though.
The other solution to the performance problem may be some sort of Postscript 
coprocessor (could the same RISC being used for the kick-ass graphics be used
for this as well???).  From what I hear, Postscript puts quite a burden on 
any system, so this seems like a good move if it is possible. 

Comments (and more news) from more knowledgeable sources would be much 
appreciated.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rick Fanta,
PGSC, New Hartford, New Yawk