HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: rpomeroy@aunext3.cam.amd.com (Ron Pomeroy x(Coop))
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
Subject: Re: Those Jokers at Lighthouse......
Date: 26 Aug 92 00:00:54 GMT
Reply-To: rpomeroy@aunext3.cam.amd.com
Distribution: usa
Organization: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.; Austin, Texas

In article <1992Aug25.181331.11065@cco.caltech.edu>  
ernest@pundit.cithep.caltech.edu (Ernest Prabhakar) writes:
>>In article <Bt949n.9s4@monitor.com> shawn@monitor.com writes:
>>> just got a brochure from the lighthouse folks about Diagram!, VOID, and  
>>> Concurrence.  never ones to do things the 100% straight-laced way, the  
>>> super-fine print on the back of the brochure goes as follows:
>>> [amusing notice deleted]
>>
>>This is also part of their "SteamRoller" campaign:
>>"If you're not part of the Steamroller,
>>You're part of the Asphalt"
>>[their latest T-shirt]
>>
>>Hmm, I wonder who they're referring to...
>>
>>- Ernie P.
>>
>>--
>>Ernest N. Prabhakar                  Caltech High Energy Physics
>>Member, League for Programming Freedom (league@prep.ai.mit.edu)
>>CaJUN President        NeXTMail:ernest@pundit.cithep.caltech.edu
>>"...and ourselves, your servants for Jesus sake." - II Cor 4:5b
>>#import <std/disclaimer.h>

And just how does one aquire one of these t-shirts ?
--
Ronald Pomeroy
Advanced Micro Devices
CAM Applications Group
rpomeroy@aunext3.amd.com
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: samurai@homer.cs.mcgill.ca (Darcy Brockbank)
Subject: Re: NextStep 486 and misc. (was Re: Stability of Next...)
Reply-To: samurai@uriel.cs.mgill.ca
Organization: SOCS, McGill University, Montreal, Canada
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1992 17:03:09 GMT

In article <1992Aug26.072753.1328@prim> prim!dave@germany.eu.net (Dave  
Griffiths) writes:
> In article <1992Aug25.012133.19175@nic.umass.edu> a74k110@titan.ucc.umass.edu  
(Chris Lloyd) writes:
> >
> >Second thing is that they dont know how well it will do, what if they
> >sell it for $99 odd and the best it does is their current hardware sales  
#'s?
> >Oh boy, 10-20,000 sales a year of a $99 product with little to none
> >hardware sales. insta-doom.


> I don't think your argument is logical. First you say that there is no


Dammit, Spock, I'm a doctor, not a lawyer!

:-). Couldn't resist.

- db


Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: caro@adobe.com (Perry A. Caro)
Subject: Re: Open Letter: Don't get rid of UNIX
Reply-To: caro@adobe.UUCP  (Perry A. Caro)
Organization: Adobe Systems Incorporated, Mountain View
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1992 17:07:34 GMT

In article <PFKEB.92Aug31205200@kaon.SLAC.Stanford.EDU> pfkeb@kaon.SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Paul Kunz) writes:
>- RCS (ships with the OS)
>- CVS (ports fine to NeXT, and probably needed for NS 3.0)
>- NFS (needed for multi-person development environment)
>- make
>- install
>- strip
>- emacs (when loging in from home)
>- vi (when booting single user on a non-extended release machine)
>- rsh, rlogin, rcp, suite
>- indent 
>- ctags (if you use them)
>- perl, rexx, bash, or your favorite
>- tar, gnutar, etc.
>- dump, rdump, etc.
>- netbooting (if you so choose)
>- lpr, lprm, lpq, lpc suite
>- diff
>- grep
>- sendmail and the infamous sendmail.cf files.

With the exception of the lpr stuff, there is not a single thing on
your list that is unique to UNIX!  Indeed, several of the things you
list run on MS-DOS or VMS, neither of which could be considered even
remotely similar to UNIX!  With respect to lpr, the other systems
have equivalent functionality, which in most cases is SUPERIOR to
the lpr stuff!

All of which goes to the heart of my confusion about all this UNIX
angst: what exactly do people mean when they say they need UNIX?
See my other posting on this thread.

Perry
-- 
caro@adobe.com	...!{sun,decwrl}!adobe!caro   Contents: my opinions, no others
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: howard@netcom.com (Howard Berkey)
Subject: Re: Byte: Is Unix Dead ?
Date: Sun, 23 Aug 92 18:40:35 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 


>> the hard disk to be much faster than NeXT.  The really big win is with  
>the
>> compilers.  IBM has spent a lot of effort, and it shows.  Compiles are  
>VERY
>> fast, and the executables are very small in size.  Even things like unix
>> compress runs at incredible speed.
>> 
>
>Can't agree. Running the same compilations on NeXT and a RS6000/320h, the  
>NeXT is about 20-30 % faster, even if it has a slower CPU. And RS6000  
>executables are VERY big compared to NeXT. Because RS6000 are paging all  
>the time with 16 MB, you have to buy 32 MB to make them usable. It's not a  
>very advanced system compared to NeXT, but has better security at least.  
>And number-crunching should be better too. But not more....
>

I like the RS/6000, but I've had a couple of problems w/ xlc and AIX...
These seemed to be fixed w/ AIX 3.2.2 but the compiler still won't 
generate a load map (as in 'errors dumped to load map' ... AARGH!).

There are typically 5 people using our RS/6000 at once and we have
no problem bogging it down.  :-)

-Howard
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: Tom Christiansen <tchrist@convex.COM>
Subject: Re: Is U*IX dead ?
Originator: tchrist@pixel.convex.com
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1992 14:26:18 GMT
Reply-To: tchrist@convex.COM (Tom Christiansen)
Organization: Convex Computer Corporation, Colorado Springs, CO
X-Disclaimer: This message was written by a user at CONVEX Computer
              Corp. The opinions expressed are those of the user and
              not necessarily those of CONVEX.

From the keyboard of david@postman.gr.osf.org (David George):
:Not true, USL is porting SVR4.2 to the Dec Alpha (when they get a
:machine!), USL seems to see itself as a seller of shrink wrapped Unix
:for desktop machines a la SCO.  DEC itself will offer VMS, OSF/1 (by
:popular demand) and NT on its systems.

Popular demand??  By whom? 

--tom
-- 
    Tom Christiansen      tchrist@convex.com      convex!tchrist

User n.:
        A programmer who will believe anything you tell him.
From: kjohnson@castor.cs.uga.edu (Kristopher Johnson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
Subject: Re:   NeXT's, Amiga's, PC's, MAC'S, (was Re: Question #2 "Are Macintosh Users Really Happy?")
Date: 31 Aug 92 06:23:33 GMT
Organization: University of Georgia, Athens

In article <1992Aug30.010838.9118@Trirex.COM> mmelling@Trirex.com (Michael Mellinger) writes:
>
>Properly written programs that make the system call to use the blitter  
>will work on future hardware.  However, most game skip the call and access  
>the hardware directly.  Also, most games are written in 68000 assembler.   
>I'm not sure about the rest of the Amiga software.  Hopefully it is better  
>behaved.  At any rate, do you think Commodore has an Intel version of the  
>Amiga in the works?  A RISC Amiga?  Not likely.

Actually, I wouldn't be surprised at all if Commodore is doing some R&D
on a RISC-based Amiga.  After all, Atari has been messing around a little
with the Motorola 88000 RISC processor, so I wouldn't be surprised at all
if Commodore's Amiga R&D (now in Germany) were also messing around with
RISC processors.  They may not have new RISC-based machine "in the works"
per se, but the interest in RISC-based machine is there.  I'm still 
impressed that Atari came out with the ATW (Atari Transputer Workstation)
over 3 years ago.

Steve "Not Kris, So No Mail!" Johnson
GEnie: S.JOHNSON10
Internet: ???@athena.cs.uga.edu (in about three weeks)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
Subject: Re: Is BSD dead? (Sorry, Avie)
From: Alex Raftis
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1992 23:27:39 GMT
Reply-To: alex@cosmos.acs.calpoly.edu
Organization: Cal Poly State University, San Luis Obispo

Marcos Javier Polanco writes
> 
> The latest issue of UnixWorld states that the group at Berkeley  
> responsible for BSD will disband after BSD4.4 is released. In other news,  
> OSF/1 seems to be dead in the water; even the hard-core members of the OSF  
> (IBM, HP, DEC) are cozying up to USL's SVR4.2, the one that uses the  
> french Chorus microkernel. So the question is, will NeXT continue to carry  
> the banner of Mach/BSD when the rest of the Unix community has gone SVR4  
> and the PC community has gone NT?
> 
> From a technical standpoint,would NeXTstep be just as capable running on  
> top of NT or Chorus rather than Mach?
> 
> -Marcos J. Polanco
> -shiva@vega.stanford.edu

The key to remember about NeXT is that it isn't running BSD, it's running
Mach. The BSD feel of the NeXT is because they chose to implement the top
layer of their OS as BSD. They could have as easily chosen System V. Were
BSD to completely die (which is doubtful considering it's free) then NeXT
could presumably release a version of their OS with System V on top.

Alex
--
______________________________________________________
    Internet: alex@data.acs.calpoly.edu (NeXT mail)
              alex@cosmos.acs.calpoly.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: mmelling@Trirex.com(Michael Mellinger)
Subject: Re:   NeXT's, Amiga's, PC's, MAC'S, (was Re: Question #2 "Are Macintosh Users Really Happy?")
Organization: Trirex Systems Inc.
Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1992 18:00:34 GMT

In article <10667547.111.715324390@eng2.eng.monash.edu.au>  
10667547@eng2.eng.monash.edu.au (JIMMY FANG) writes:
> I think you missed the point on asynchronous.  It means both at once.
> Blitters and CPU's are totally separate things.  Some Amiga's (such as  
the 
> A3000 might have a redundant 68030 chip in it and a 68040 card acting as 
> the main processor).  Having two processors doesn't necessarily mean  
they 
> work both at once, such as parallel processing or multi-processing.

My point was that there is more horsepower in the 68040 than in the A3000  
with a 25MHz 68030 and blitter.  So what if the blitter is asynchronous.   
The 040 can do the work of both of them, in general that is.  The blitter  
still wins in some cases.

> The CPU can be doing something while the blitter works independently.   
Those 
> high-end gee-whiz bang graphic workstations (I think SGI is an example)  
are 
> stacked full of blitters and co-processors.  DMA is another example of 
> asynchronous.  What's the point huh?

So, you would rather have 6 1MHz 6502s in a computer?

> Using your logic, a 25mhz 68040 Amiga would perform better than your  
NeXT 
> platform.

Yes, I would say that it would.  However, the blitter chip is now starting  
to become a bottleneck in the system.  You could do faster animation with  
the 040.  Wait until you get a 50MHz 68060 upgrade board for your A3000,  
then you'll use CPUBLIT all of the time.  In my opinion, unless Commodore  
beafs up the blitter, the NeXT and Amiga will converge with their next  
generation of hardware.  The blitter edge will be gone.  I'll take a dual  
or quad processor NeXTstation RISC with one CPU dedicated to the Window  
Server.

> Yeah, and I think NeXT owners would appreciate a 2000*1000, 256 colour  
work-
> bench screen.  (Although you'll need a mighty big monitor to be able to  
read 
> anything.)  You can do this running the GVP EGS chip set with a 68030 or 
> 68040 card.  120 fps with full 24bit depth screens!  Cool!  Any program  
that 
> works on the WB screen will work just fine on this graphics board.
> But of course this costs big $$$.  Then again, NeXT's cost big $$$ over  
here 
> as well.

Yep, I'd love it.  I vaguely remember talking about this chip set with  
another Amiga user.  I thought that there were some drawbacks.  Just how  
much software works with these boards?  Games?

> Also, I've read posting from Commodore Engineers talking about 68040,  
68060 
> processors and beyond...  Perhaps risc?  Perhaps not?

The Amiga is not dead by a long shot.  However, it is going to have some  
growing pains.  The blitter, which used to be one of the best reasons to  
own an Amiga, is now a hindrance because of backwards compatibility.

-Mike
From: rpomeroy@aunext3.cam.amd.com (Ron Pomeroy x(Coop))
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
Subject: Re: Object Oriented File System: Huh?? (Long and possibly boring)
Date: 1 Sep 92 14:54:46 GMT
Reply-To: rpomeroy@aunext3.cam.amd.com
Distribution: usa
Organization: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.; Austin, Texas

In article <Btvzus.678@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> asd@sage.cc.purdue.edu (Kareth)  
writes:
>>
>>The subject pretty much says it all.  What the hell is an Object
>>Oriented File System and why do we even want it?  What's so superior
>>about it?  Is it totally revolutionary and will make me wonder how I
>>got along without it (like I do about my NeXT, Engage, and Virtspace).
>>Will it make my life a breeze in keeping stuff organized?  With 1Gig
>>storage capacity, I've got to constantly try and be organized, or
>>loose everything.
>>
>>So, as they say in the Valley, Like Huh?  Enlighten me!
>>
>>-k

Well, it all has to do with persistency of Objects.  In the "old days" (in  
which we still exist/persist - pun intended) the data we stored often took the  
form of an ascii file (in which case we stored it in the file system), or a  
record (in which case we shoved it into a relational database or such).  But,  
now the things we want to store are OBJECTS.  Real first class OBJECTS.  Let me  
motivate this with a close-to-home example (my home that is).  I work for a  
semiconductor manufacturer - we make 386's and such.  These things are made on  
8" silicon wafers (with maybe a hundred or so per wafer).  Wafers move through  
the fab (facility) and are processed in batches of ~25-50 wafers.  This batch  
is known as a Lot.  Now, in my (still to be written) object-oriented shop floor  
control system,  I have a Lot class from which I instantiate lot objects which  
correspond to real lots on the shop floor.  As the real lots move through the  
factory - so the lot objects move through the system, collecting various data  
along the way.  Now here's a scenario.  If the systems goes down for some  
reason,  I need to be able to retrieve all those Lot objects that were in the  
system before the disaster.  I would much rather retrieve the lots as "lot  
objects" in the state they last in as opposed to having to rebuild them by  
taking the data from some *other* form and going through all the motions to  
bring the objects back to the necessary state.  Now, I think of a filesystem as  
a type of database.  This might not be appropriate for this discussion (anyone  
- please fill in the holes here).  This whole thing is not without problems -  
like what happens when the Lot class changes while the instances of lot objects  
persist ?  Any takers ??

PS - Sorry if this was trite, I'm just a neophyte. (rhym er)
--
Ronald Pomeroy
Advanced Micro Devices
CAM Applications Group
rpomeroy@aunext3.amd.com
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: cgb@count0.cmhnet.org  (Charles G. Bennett)
Subject: Re: Those Jokers at Lighthouse......
Reply-To: cgb@count0.cmhnet.org
Organization: BenaTong
Distribution: usa
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1992 21:53:59 GMT

[munch]
> And just how does one aquire one of these t-shirts ?
> --
> Ronald Pomeroy
> Advanced Micro Devices
> CAM Applications Group
> rpomeroy@aunext3.amd.com

Second that question..
-- 
Chuck Bennett, BenaTong Consulting
Harem Security (UNIX Consulting :-) )
cgb@count0.cmhnet.org
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: ddean@sapphire.risc.uni-linz.ac.at (Drew Dean)
Subject: Re: Is BSD dead? 
Keywords: Not quite
Reply-To: ddean@risc.uni-linz.ac.at
Organization: Wirtschaftsuniversitaet Wien
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1992 13:06:09 GMT

In article <1992Aug27.234159.9790@nic.umass.edu>  
a74k110@titan.ucc.umass.edu (Chris Lloyd) writes:
> In article <1992Aug27.183333.1@woods.ulowell.edu>  
perezc@woods.ulowell.edu writes:
> >	I had the impression that NeXTStep was built on an outdated  
version
> >of Mach (i.e. 2.0?).  Is NS3.0 built on top of Mach 3.0?  On the other  
hand,
> >does it really matter if NS is built on top of Mach/BSD, Choros/SysV,  
or NT?
> >What's more important is that NS be available across several hardware  
platforms
> >and that it provide application interoperability with systems under  
different
> >OS's.  My 2 cents worth.
> 
> NeXTSTEP 2.0 and 3.0 are based on Mach 2.6ish which is a bastard  
half-Mach
> half-BSD kernel.  Theoretically a move to Mach 3.0 with a Unix single
> server shouldn't *cough* pose as a problem for developers as the end  
result
> would "look" the same, but internally be different.

	Uh, I think the original poster was right.  If you haven't used  
CMU Mach 2.5, you might think NeXT is running a 2.5/6ish system, but it's  
not.  Where's the external pager ????  [And yes, that matters; for some  
applications, it matters a lot.]
	And no, moving to a Mach 3.0 kernel would not be transparent at  
all.  CMU does not keep the Machisms backwards compatible.  Mach 2.{5,6}  
and Mach 3.0 RPC are quite different, so any Mach RPC-based apps would  
break, and probably a fair amount of NeXTStep.  Any BSD-only binary  
shouldn't be able to tell the difference between Mach 2 and Mach 3, but  
Mach programs certainly know.
	If you want more gory details, I can dig them up....If you haven't  
used Mach on other machines (preferably with FQDNs ending .cs.cmu.edu),  
please don't become flame bait. :-)

Drew Dean
ddean@risc.uni-linz.ac.at
Not speaking for RISC, of course.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
Subject: Re: Is U*IX dead ?
From: eer1@midway.uchicago.edu(Paul Woods)
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1992 13:11:41 GMT
Reply-To: eer1@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations

In article <1992Aug28.162009.173478@zeus.calpoly.edu>  writes:
> First things first, sorry about the blank post. I let my fingers do the
> thinking...

[chomp,chomp]

> > No, you need a System V licence from USL to get a BSD licence.
> 
> I was being simple. It's still drastically cheaper to base an os on BSD than
> System V, and the source code is much more readily availble to programmers.
> I doubt you'd find System V source code availble on the net for anonymous  
FTP.

Not only will you find it difficult to get SysV source (unless you are a  
student) when you do get it, if you modify anything you will wind up in jail  
(even if AT&T gave you the source) just like Len Rose.  AT&T does not play  
games when it comes to their source.  Take the BSDI lawsuit as an example. 

Actually, I think that the U of CO. is going to pick up development of BSD.  It  
can even keep it's name (BSD) because it would be Boulder Software Dist.

Paul-
> 
> Alex
> --
> ______________________________________________________
>     Internet: alex@data.acs.calpoly.edu (NeXT mail)
>               alex@cosmos.acs.calpoly.edu

--



____________________________________
	Paul R. Woods
     University of Chicago
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: nwc@blackbox.cc.columbia.edu (Nick Christopher)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
Subject: Re: Open Letter: Don't get rid of UNIX
Date: 2 Sep 92 11:59:42 GMT
Organization: Columbia University

> UNIX is only a burden, because if they even have a fairly  
> minor problem, it is impossible for them to fix.  Most of the time during  
> a consult, I find myself wishing that they had bought a Macintosh.
>
> I think that NeXT *has* to keep UNIX on their systems for half of their  
> customers, and it also *has* to strip UNIX off their systems for the other  

At face value I have no problem with what you have said. But, I have
yet to see sowftware environment that was intuitive to an "average
user". I sat in a mixed lab (NeXTstep, OS/2, Windows, System 7), ALL these
machines consistently confused and mystified lots of users.  UNIX
is difficult, but the NeXT hides it well. No computer is simple to a
"technically challenged" individual.

\n
From: Alex Raftis
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
Subject: Re: Is U*IX dead ?
Date: 28 Aug 92 16:20:09 GMT
Reply-To: alex@cosmos.acs.calpoly.edu
Organization: Cal Poly State University, San Luis Obispo

First things first, sorry about the blank post. I let my fingers do the
thinking...

David George writes
> 
> Alex Raftis writes: 
> 
> > The BSD feel of the NeXT is because they chose to implement the top
> > layer of their OS as BSD.
> 
> No they took Mach 2.0 which was developed from BSD.  They have taken some  
> Mach2.5 features.  Mach 3.0 is a separation of Mach 2.5 into microkernel and  
> server, the server layer being the original (USL encumbered) BSD kernel.   
Since  
> then CMU have produced a server based on the BSDI unencumbered kernel, the  
> basis of which is subject to an AT&T lawsuit.  CMU have stopped distributing  
> this "free" server. 
> 
> Mach 2.6 ? isn't that Mt Xinu's Mach 3.0 offering ?

This goes somewhat contrary to what I've been told by representatives from
NeXT early on in NeXT's history. I don't wish to start a flame war, I'm just
pointing out that I got different news. 

My understanding is that they took a BSD kernal and tried to make Mach back
into the original idea of UNIX by removing as much as possible from the kernal.
This makes the central kernal under Mach very small with loadable drivers
being used to control the devices.

> > Were BSD to completely die (which is doubtful considering it's free)
> 
> No, you need a System V licence from USL to get a BSD licence.

I was being simple. It's still drastically cheaper to base an os on BSD than
System V, and the source code is much more readily availble to programmers.
I doubt you'd find System V source code availble on the net for anonymous FTP.

Alex
--
______________________________________________________
    Internet: alex@data.acs.calpoly.edu (NeXT mail)
              alex@cosmos.acs.calpoly.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
Subject: Re: NeXT Developer Support
From: feijai@endor.byu.edu (Sean Luke)
Date: 31 Aug 92 09:19:22 -0700
Reply-To: sean@digaudio.byu.edu

In article <1992Aug24.063915.5599@leland.Stanford.EDU>  writes:
>Sorry, but for us NeXT users, WP's support isn't free.  Its
>an 801 number, which is a toll call.  And its hardly 7 days
>a week.  More like normal business hours, Utah time.

Well, it is for *me*.  :)
--

Sean Luke
Brigham Young University  (down the hill from WP)
sean@digaudio.byu.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: shiva@vega.Stanford.EDU (Marcos Javier Polanco)
Subject: Re: Is U*IX dead?
Organization: DSO, Stanford University
Date: Sun, 30 Aug 92 00:45:50 GMT

****Alex Raftis****
>I was being simple. It's still drastically cheaper to base an os on BSD  
>than System V, and the source code is much more readily availble to  
>programmers. I doubt you'd find System V source code availble on the net  
>for anonymous FTP.

But this is  classic Unix-thinking that leads to umpteenth different  
versions of the OS, and that has led the Unix community into our present  
bind. You will nowhere find the source to Windoze NT either, but it is  
available from ONE supplier, who will port to Alpha, 80x86, and R4000.  
That is what USL is trying to do, control source.

****david@postman.gr.osf.org (David George)***
>OSF makes OSF/1 available on several reference platforms (such as the AT  
>386).  It is then up to member companies to take this technology and port  
>it to their own hardware.

..and thus add fuel to the fire. Look at the way NeXT and Microsoft do  
multiplatform OSes (when they ship) for a lesson.

Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: songer@lexmark.com (Christopher Songer)
Subject: Re: Open Letter: Don't get rid of UNIX
X-Disclaimer: These views are the poster's and not necessarily those of Lexmark
Organization: Lexington, KY
Date: Tue, 01 Sep 1992 13:53:03 GMT

rabjab@golem.ucsd.edu (Jeff Bytof) writes:
>
>Maybe NeXT should sell three operating systems:  NeXTstep only,
>the one we now have and a fast, efficient UNIX system.
>

It would be interesting to see which sold best :)

-Chris

Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy