From: dillon@overload.Berkeley.CA.US (Matthew Dillon)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
Subject: Re:   100 Mips Intel NeXT (moved from comp.sys.next.misc)
Distribution: world
Date: 15 Dec 92 13:34:06 PST
Organization: Not an Organization

In article <1992Dec14.180303.20755@adobe.com> byer@adobe.com (Scott Byer) writes:
>Matthew Dillon writes
>
>>     First, to get it running on relatively generic 486 boxes, and
>>     none of this crap about it working only on specific non-mainstream
>>     hardware or only with video standards that nobody heard of 8
>>     months ago, etc...
>
>The previous video standards of the PC are unuseable for several
>reasons, all due to massive original design flaws.  Register-based
>interfaces cannot support the raw video bandwidth required by a
>GUI.  Color tables provide a severe problem for doing reasonably
>quick alpha-channel computations, not to mention that color tables
>are a severe problem for doing just about anything reasonable in
>a multitasking GUI environment.
>
>Even Microsoft is pushing for LocalBus framebuffer based video.
>It's about time the PC video hardware made it into the 90's...

    That's an excuse, not a reason.  Those 'previous' video standards have
    resolutions near to what you get on a low/medium end NeXT and some have
    *better* resolutions and if for all of that they are slow, many people
    will not care.   It's plenty good enough for many people and that is
    the whole point of the exercise, to get NS486 running on as many boxes
    as possible and let the consumer deside on upgrading the hardware, not
    to force the consumer to purchase high priced crap because the OS
    designer doesn't want to get his hands dirty writing drivers, or fixing
    problems with the OS (like the byte ordering requirements for
    NeXTStep... dumb!).

    Besides, there are a huge number of local-bus machines on the market
    these days.

>>     Second, to cut a deal with (predominantly hardware) companies
>>     to port NeXTStep to other state of the art platforms and to
>>     OEM those platforms.  You can't hope to develop your own hardware
>>     faster then others have, so don't even try!
>
>Developing hardware is more than just throwing chips on a board.
>I/O bandwidth, memory bandwidth, DMA channels, good bus archtectures
>- all relatively ignored by the PC makers (ISA? EISA? For serious
>work?!?).  And what about a good multi-chip design?

    I am not a defender of the PC architecture but your response is
    indicative of a person with blinders on.  If a 66MHz Dell 486 box is
    significantly faster running NS486 then a Next Turbo, the something is
    obviously being done right.  The point is to make it work on low end
    486 boxes as well as high end 486 boxes, not to skip the low end boxes
    (thus locking out half your market and getting people mad at you)
    because you don't like their video or memory architectures.

    Besides, the memory architecture used on high end 486 boxes these days
    is not kids stuff.	Dell is interleaving memory accesses in high end
    boxes such that main memory is fast enough to burst to the processor at
    full speed without an external cache, for example, whereas NeXT tends
    to rely on the 68030's and 68040's internal cache.  386 machines have
    had 64K and 256K external caches in them for YEARS.

    Furthermore, The EISA bus specification has no problem with all
    elements required for a workstation... DMA, vectored interrupts, etc...
    Since I'm not familar with how much of the specification has been
    implemented, I can't remark on existing EISA machines, but I don't see
    the problem with EISA.  (ISA, on the otherhand, has huge problems with
    DMA).

>>     Why spend major kilobucks on color NeXTStation hardware when
>>     I can spend a quarter of the money on a 486 box with equivalent
>>     capabilities?
>
>You couldn't get anywhere near the ColorStation's capabilities for
>1/4 the price.  Or even half.	You'd be hard pressed to match it
>dollar for dollar, though it could be done if you love fiddling
>with the gazillion primitive dip switches that are always present
>on PC hardware to remind you how out of date their architectures
>are.  NeXT has fallen behind the power curve, we all know that,
>but PCs still don't in general have the capabilities to be
>workstations without massive hardware retrofitting, or shelling
>out the bucks in the first place.

    That's total bull.  Lets see... computer shopper, Jan issue, look up
    486 boxes (about three dozen sources listed).  Here's my first try:

    Dell Dimension 486DX2/50	$2700
	8MB ram (64KB cache)
	212MB 15ms HD
	6 drive bays
	6 expansion slots
	Duel Floppy
	SVGA
	1024x768 .28mm non-interlaced color monitor
	mouse
	keyboard, etc...
	(also comes with windows 3.1, MSDOS 5.0)

    Add:
	  add 8MB ram	    $300
	  add sound card    $200 (mic, multi channel CD qual. out / mixer)

    Total price:    ----------> $3200 <----

    And that's without looking very hard.  Sure it isn't exactly a
    NextStation.. smaller monitor, for example, but it's quite a reasonable
    COLOR configuration.  No ethernet card (were talking about personal
    work stations here, consumer machines)


    Lets try another configuration:  page 143

    Hyundai 433S	price:	    $2000
	486SX/33
	32 bit VESA local bus graphics
	128KB cache
	4MB main memory, expandable to 64MB
	170MB IDE HD
	1.44MB 3.5" drive
	14" non interlaced 1024x768 color monitor (72Hz refresh)
	mouse port
	5 external drive bays, 2 internal
	6 expansion slots, 1 VESA local bus slot
	keyboard, etc...

    Add:
	8MB of memory	$300	(for 12 total)
	sound		$200

    Total price:   ---------------->  $2500 <----

    Getting better, and we haven't even reached the low end yet.  Lets
    see if I can do better...  now I'm starting to look.

    Accel local-bus winstation	    $1800 (486SX/25)  $2100 for 486DX/33)
	15" SVGA non-interlaced color monitor
	32 bit VESA Standard local-bus video, capable 1280x1024/16.7M colors
				    (SVGA capabilities installed, I presume)
	211MB HD, IDE
	256K cache
	8MB main memory
	1.2/1.4MB floppy

    Total price:    ----------------> $1800 (486SX/25) <-----
		    ----------------> $2100 (486DX/33) <-----
		    ----------------> $2350 (486DX2/66) <------ (damn fast)


    Gee, I keep trying to go lower end and I wind up finding better higher
    end deals...

>All of the 486-based OSs coming out really want new hardware -
>Solaris, NT, NeXTSTEP.  They all love memory bandwidth, video
>bandwidth, and disk bandwidth.  PCs with those things built in are
>right on par with the low end workstations for price.	NeXT has
>some hardware catching up to do, but they aren't that far behind.
>Certainly not enough behind to justify shutting that part of the
>company down.

    I think they ARE that far behind.  The machines are reasonable, but the
    prices are not.  I don't think they will ever sell enough hardware to
    be able to absorb the R&D costs and lower the price nor are they in the
    type of market that promotes competition.  NeXT is making one mistake
    after another... initial press releases about NS486 looked promising,
    but they've slowly destroyed their advantage (and cut their potential
    market massively) by restricting the types of 486 machine
    configurations NS486 can run on.

    I love NeXTStep, but sometimes I wonder.  NS486 is the future of the
    company and they do not seem to care.  I can't see how they will ever
    do better then they currently are if they do not break into the PC
    consumer market.  Even if NeXT somehow magically produced a workstation
    that blew the socks off of everyone else, even if they magically
    reduced the price to, say, under $3000, they would STILL not do much
    better in the marketplace.

    I want to see NS486 work on *any* 486 box with an intel processor in it
    and I truely believe that it is the only thing that will save NeXT.
    THEN I want to see it run on lightning OEM'd workstations.  They have
    to get out of the hardware business and into the software business...
    look at NeXTStep... look at the complaints, this is NeXT's centerpiece
    and they do not even have enough time to work on it.  NeXT is screwing
    up right and left... I've stopped sending in bug reports because of
    their idiotic question and answer policies, I am not as enthusiastic as
    I was before, having been beaten down by their very IBMish press
    releases.  I'm getting sick and tired of special deals that aren't
    special at all, sick and tired of overpriced configurations, hard
    drives, and machines, sick and tired of NeXT's refusal to validate
    multiple third party vendors for common items such as SCSI peripherals.
    NeXT is acting as though they control the peripheral market (only
    support so and so modem, only support so and so CD drive, only support
    so and so type of printer, etc...) when in fact they have no control at
    all.  They purposefully make their software only work with certain
    types of peripherals and then tell everyone it's the fault of the
    peripheral instead of the software.  They barely support the SCSI
    standard, can't deal with mixed synchronous / asynchronous devices in
    their SCSI device, make it difficult for people to use non-postscript
    printers when there is absolutely nothing wrong with non-postscript
    printers, don't even have a parallel port, hand out garbage about their
    printer being cheaper when in, fact, it isn't, only support one
    particular brand of fax modem fully.... I'm really getting sick of it
    all.  Even Commodore, with its messed up managers, supports third party
    devices better.

    NeXT attempts to excuse many of these problems by saying 'it's the job
    of our third party vendors', but third party support for things like
    the DeskJet, SupraFax modem, other brands of monitors, CD drives, HD
    expansion, etc... is an effect rather then a plan and, while excellent,
    does not excuse NeXT's design decisions (which I get the feeling are
    made in a board room instead of by a design engineer).  If NeXT is
    waiting for the world to conform to it it's going to be waiting till
    hell freezes over.

				-Matt

>--
>Scott Byer				NeXTMail: byer@mv.us.adobe.com
>Adobe Systems Incorporated		  These are *my* opinions, and
>1585 Charleston Road, P.O. Box 7900	    do not necessarily reflect
>Mountain View, CA 94039-7900		  the opinions of my employer.
>---------------------------------------------------------------------

--

    Matthew Dillon		dillon@Overload.Berkeley.CA.US
    1005 Apollo Way		uunet.uu.net!overload!dillon
    Incline Village, NV. 89451	ham: KC6LVW (no mail drop)
    USA 			Sandel-Avery Engineering (702)831-8000

Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy