HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: rpomeroy@aunext3.cam.amd.com (Ron Pomeroy x(Coop))
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
Subject: Re: NextStep 486 and misc. (was Re: Stability of Next...)
Date: 25 Aug 92 23:59:09 GMT
Reply-To: rpomeroy@aunext3.cam.amd.com
Distribution: usa
Organization: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.; Austin, Texas

In article <SXMRP.31.0@orca.alaska.edu> SXMRP@orca.alaska.edu (Michael R.  
Platzke) writes:
>>In article <1992Aug25.022738.2537@leland.Stanford.EDU>  
spagiola@frinext.stanford.edu (Stefano Pagiola) writes:
>>>From: spagiola@frinext.stanford.edu (Stefano Pagiola)
>>>Subject: Re: NextStep 486 and misc. (was Re: Stability of Next...)
>>>Date: 25 Aug 92 02:27:38 GMT
>>
>>>Quite right.  So, just _why_ did you buy a 486?
>>
>>Because, while Next is 'real neat-o' and a good price for what you get, it is
>>not the 'real world'.
>>
>>Now, before I'm flamed to a crisp, let me explain.  I am a senior in EE and
>>in one year I have to leave this safe haven of academica and actually get
>>a real job somewhere.  I am interested in getting a job in the computer
>>industry, anywhere.  If I have a 486, I can run NT, DOS/Windows, OS/2, or
>>Unix off of this box.  I personally believe that NT will make a big impact
>>in the market and I believe that programming experience in this OS will
>>maximize my marketablity with the maximum number of employers.  And if I'm
>>wrong, I can allways get OS/2, Solaris, or even NS486.
>>
>>Take a look through any computer magazine in the early 80's.  You will find
>>loads of computers that have superior price/performance ratios to the PC.
>>Most of those companies are no longer in business.  If I want to play with
>>Next machines, I can go up to our university computer center and program
>>there.  Currently, I simply don't have the money to take a risk on the Next.
>>It would be a cool machine to play with.
>>
>>>--
>>>-
>>>Stefano Pagiola>Food Research Institute, Stanford University
>>>spagiola@frinext.stanford.edu (NeXTMail encouraged)
>>
>>-Michael R. Platzke (sxmrp@orca.alaska.edu)

From one senior EE to another...I'm out here in the real world (co-op)
and I'm (we're) using NeXT's.  In fact it was my NeXT experience
that differentiated me from everyone else and got me my job :-)  By 
buying into the NeXT I got exposure to OO technology, REAL Unix, networking
Postscript, digital signal processing, Mathematica, etc. etc.  Everyone
and their mother knows DOS/Windows and the Mac desktop.  If I told MY 
employer that I know Window/DOS or Mac programming he would have said "so  
what?" This isn't meant to be a flame.  I just want to convey the positive and  
rewarding experience I've had since I took the "NeXTea Plunge (tm)".

--
Ronald Pomeroy                (NeXT - It's not just for academia anymore) 
Advanced Micro Devices        (Unix - It's not just for mainframes anymore)
CAM Applications Group        (Sun - It just causes the instances of cancer and                  
rpomeroy@aunext3.amd.com             X-Windows to increase )
From: rmyers@dec5200.acs.uci.edu (Richard Myers)
Subject: Re: Object Oriented File System: Huh??
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
Organization: University of California, Irvine
Date: 1 Sep 92 18:51:14 GMT

In article <92245.123014MKK2@psuvm.psu.edu> MKK2@psuvm.psu.edu writes:
>"OOFS" can mean a lot of different things to different people.  One thing it
>might mean is this:
Someone just punched you in the stomach.

Kurt
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: ernest@pundit.cithep.caltech.edu (Ernest Prabhakar)
Subject: Re: Those Jokers at Lighthouse......
Reply-To: ernest@pundit.cithep.caltech.edu (Ernest Prabhakar)
Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
Distribution: usa
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 1992 20:13:30 GMT

In article <1992Aug28.215359.701@count0.cmhnet.org> cgb@count0.cmhnet.org   
(Charles G. Bennett) writes:
> [munch]
> > And just how does one aquire one of these t-shirts ?
>
> Second that question..

Well, I got mine more or less by surprise after I submitted a Diagram! pallette  
to the archives, and the NeXT CD-ROM.  The T-shirt has a list of their products  
(Concurrence, Diagram!, and VOID) on the front, and the steamroller thing on  
the back.  However, I have no idea exactly what their overall policy is, so I  
can't say exactly what I did to qualify and how long the offer is good.
I suspect it is a 'reward' thing, rather than a commercial offering.  So  
perhaps your best bet is to make yourself a friend at Lighthouse.

- 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>
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: shiva@vega.Stanford.EDU (Marcos Javier Polanco)
Subject: Re: Open Letter: Don't get rid of UNIX
Organization: DSO, Stanford University
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 92 00:03:41 GMT

In article <870@rtbrain.rightbrain.com> glenn@rightbrain.com (Glenn Reid)  
writes:

>Without the hundreds of UNIX utility programs lurking in /usr/bin, the  
>computer is not a development environment at all, but a few clever toys  
>like InterfaceBuilder. If you can make my shell scripts work with an  
>object-oriented database instead of a file system, then I won't care, of  
>course, but don't underestimate the power of being able to write things  
>like release scripts or use standard UNIX tools like 'awk' and 'sort'.

Yes. Lurking is the word for it. It is precisely programs like awk and sed  
that scare the hell out of most people and keep them away from UNIX boxes.  
IMHO what NeXT should so is provide an exorcised, Unix-less NeXTstep. If  
we want the Unix, fine. NeXT can provide a Unix shell, a BSD server, and a  
filesystem mapping of the ObjectStore. That would satisfy the weenies  
(myself included) yet not scare Joe-average.

If we want NeXTstep to succeed, then the community must be willing to  
accept some commercial realities. Being able to ftp the Unix source code  
will NOT help us in the battle with Windoze!

-Marcos J. Polanco
-shiva@vega.stanford.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: gad@eclipse.its.rpi.edu (Garance A. Drosehn)
Subject: Re: Open Letter: Don't get rid of UNIX
Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1992 17:04:14 GMT

ustin@mik.uky.edu (Justin Sullivan) writes:
> Philip McDunnough writes
> > It has to keep Unix on their systems for 1/2 of its current
> > customer base.  NeXt should simply have it as an option for
> > those who want it.
> 
> Only half? I'd wager that more of us use NeXTs and UNIX (in tandem)
> then just 'half.' In fact, I've often wondered (and maybe it's time
> to discuss it?) just where NeXT would be if it DIDN'T have UNIX..
> It would not be any fun, I'm sure (no multitasking on this beast
> would be a real drag)..

While I'm sure it'll be a shock to much of the Unix world, you do not need  
Unix to do multitasking.  There are a number of operating systems which have  
been multitasking quite well since the late 60's, and most of those  
operating systems are not unix.  Both the PC and Mac worlds are developing  
preemptive multitasking systems which are not Unix.

I think this highlights the main difficulty with this debate.  Say the words  
"Get rid of Unix", and just about every one of us has a different picture of  
what is meant.

Some of unix is nice, some of it is utter crap.  I'll take the easy way out  
of this argument and say "I hope they remove the crap of unix, but I think  
it's very important to keep all the nice stuff".  Similar to the "Get rid of  
Unix" comment, everyone will have a completely different opinion of what  
that statement means -- but hopefully no one will argue with it...  :-)

--
Garance Alistair Drosehn     =     gad@eclipse.its.rpi.edu
ITS Systems Programmer            (handles NeXT-type mail)
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute;           Troy NY    USA
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: woodacre@mips.com (Michael Woodacre)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
Subject: Re: Open Letter: Don't get rid of UNIX
Date: 4 Sep 1992 18:42:08 GMT
Organization: MIPS Computer Systems, Inc.
Distribution: world
Reply-To: woodacre@mips.com (Michael Woodacre)
NNTP-Posting-Host: krell.mips.com

In article <jbone.715623560@splat>, jbone@splat.dell.com (Jeff Bone) writes:
> 
> Clarification of something in my last message:  same DISCLAIMER applies:
> 
> 
> I said:
> >
> > Now --- how about one good reason why people who feature set X
> > from UNIX will buy NT to get that feature set rather than buying
> > UNIX?  Your argument is flawed.
> >
> 
> I meant:
>  
>   Now --- how about one good reason why people who *NEED* feature set X
>   from UNIX will buy NT to get that feature set rather than buying
>   UNIX?  Your argument is flawed.
>  
> 
> Makes a little more since -w- the missing word in place. ;)  Still a
> pretty nasty sentence all in all.  Point remains:  if you need UNIX,
> or UNIXy features, why buy NT?  Buy UNIX, and get everything else that
> UNIX offers as well...
> 

I guess this is the cause of my difference of opinion with you. The
reason NT will probably be a success is because it supports the vast
majority of users it is aiming at - those from the dos/windows world.
As an additional benefit to these users, they will also get some of
the features that people in the unix world have enjoyed for years.
Now if you could sell a unix that could support all the dos/windows
software in an environment that looked very familiar to PC users then
that version of unix would have a chance to compete with NT. I don't
see any sign of this happening though. I don't believe NT will take
much market share from the high end unix market. I think it will
certainly give the low end unix market some troubles. The reason for 
this is fairly straight forward - high end PC users who wanted more
power have been forced from PC's onto unix platforms, such as SUN's.
With NT they have the chance to get access to more powerfull hardware
but in an environment that they are fully conversent with today - windows.

Cheers,
Mike

> 
> jb
> 
> 
> --
> -- Jeff Bone ------------------------------------------------------------
>       "Imagination is more important than knowledge."  - A. Einstein
> ------------------------------------------------------- jbone@dell.com --
>                                                                        --

   Michael S. Woodacre | Phone: (408) 524-8120
UUCP: {ames,pyramid,decwrl}!mips!woodacre OR woodacre@mips.com
USPS: MIPS Technologies Inc, 928 E. Arques, Sunnyvale, CA 94086
From: scott@nic.gac.edu (Scott Hess)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
Subject: Re: NextStep 486 and misc. (was Re: Stability of Next...)
Date: 28 Aug 92 22:16:14 GMT
 <SXMRP.35.0@orca.alaska.edu><dillon.0miu@overload.Berkeley.CA.US> <8165@dirac.physics.purdue.edu>
Organization: Gustavus Adolphus College

In article <8165@dirac.physics.purdue.edu>,
	murphy@gibbs.physics.purdue.edu (William J. Murphy) writes:
>It galls me that I can't boot a PC from a different version of the
>operating system and expect to be able to read the files on my
>hard-drive.  DOS 5.0 is little changed from the DOS 3.3 that I am
>running on the PC in my office.  At least with the Amiga and even
>my NeXT, I could boot from an older version of the OS and expect
>to at least rummage around the files.  More importantly, I can boot
>a newer OS and not lose my old files.  I quit buying MS products
>for programming when they weren't ANSI compatible and cost more to
>upgrade than buying the competitors product.

Just a note to the Unix-haters out there - this is one of those
things that using a "proven" operating system gets you.  Maybe
Microsoft got it right - maybe not.  Unix has been banging on it
for 20+ years.  [BTW:  Has anyone noted a suspicious resemblance
between OS/2's HPFS, NT's whatever-the-name-is-FS, and BSD's FFS?
All I've read on either appear to be documentation about the FFS,
with all the names changed (like vnodes are fnodes, or something
of the sort).  That wouldn't be worth pointing out except that IBM
and Microsoft make all these claims about how advanced their version
is ...]

Later,
--
scott hess <shess@ssesco.com>  <Who achieved programmer nirvana on Aug 11th>
12901 Upton Avenue South, #326  Burnsville, MN 55337 (612) 895-1208 Anytime!
   <Text: One Class to bring them all and in the darkness bind them ...>
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: waltrip@capd.jhuapl.edu
Subject: Re: Is BSD dead? (Sorry, Avie)
Organization: CAPVAX, JHU/APL
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1992 21:58:36 GMT

In article <1992Aug27.173723.11979@leland.Stanford.EDU>, 
shiva@vega.Stanford.EDU (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?
	Don't know but I also wouldn't count OSF out yet.  OSF and USL
	are cooperating more than they're fighting these days and both
	will probably support each other's APIs so it probably doesn't
	matter whether they both survive.  I'd bet on an eventual
	merger.  There was a need for OSF because of arrogance on AT&T's
	part at one time but with NT around there's plenty of competition
	and probably no need for both OSF and USL.
> 
> From a technical standpoint,would NeXTstep be just as capable running on  
> top of NT or Chorus rather than Mach?
	From a non-technical standpoint, I've said it MUST be made to run
	on top of NT.  I'd like to hear more about the technical issues
	myself.

c.f.waltrip

Internet:	<waltrip@capsrv.jhuapl.edu>

Opinions expressed are my own.
From: sheep@tankgirl (Sheep T. Iconoclast)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
Subject: Re: Release 3.0 is shipping, as of Aug 24th. (?)
Date: 2 Sep 92 14:50:36 GMT
Organization: Bloomsbury Computing Consortium

Hi just out of intrest does anyone know when NS 3.0 will be 
relased in Europe ? 

Sheep T.
Organization: Penn State University
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1992 12:30:14 EDT
From: <MKK2@psuvm.psu.edu>
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
Subject: Re: Object Oriented File System: Huh??

"OOFS" can mean a lot of different things to different people.  One thing it
might mean is this:

We are all by now used to the idea that our programs manipulate objects.
Typically, we use variable names to represent them within our program, as in

   id aDoc, anImage;

and so on.  However, we also know that the variable name we use is local to
our program.  Another App, or even another subroutine in our App might call
the object something else.  Also, our variable goes away when the App finishes,
and so does the object itself *unless* we take care to write it to disk or
other peripheral memory.

   Notice that once it has been written to a Unix file system, it becomes
a sequence of bytes, and isn't really an object any more.  (forget
NXWriteObject for a minute 8-)

   In an Object Oriented File System, this is no longer the case.  Imagine
that every object *on disk* has a unique name (like a vnode, or pathname).
When your program references that name, you get that object.  When anybody
else references that name, they get that object.  Multi-user concurrent access
is "handled" by the file system (big job!).  When new versions of the object
are created, Apps that expect an older version are handled transparently by the
file system (bigger job!!).  The location of the object on a physical disk
somewhere on the network is optimized by the File System.

   In short, objects are no longer bound to specific apps.  They become
global properties of the distributed environment.  We won't even use words
like file and directory unless we write interfaces to old-fashioned systems
from way back in the 1990's 8-)

   NeXTstep already provides very limited support for this kind of approach
with NXWriteObject and NXReadObject.  If you can imagine those concepts
disappearing from your code into the file system, then you are getting the
idea.
From: isbell@cats.ucsc.edu (Art Isbell)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
Subject: Re: NextStep 486 and misc. (was Re: Stability of Next...)
Date: 25 Aug 1992 21:55:51 GMT
Organization: Cubic Solutions - NeXT software development and consulting
NNTP-Posting-Host: am.ucsc.edu


In article <SXMRP.31.0@orca.alaska.edu> SXMRP@orca.alaska.edu (Michael R. Platzke) writes:
>a real job somewhere.  I am interested in getting a job in the computer
>industry, anywhere.  If I have a 486, I can run NT, DOS/Windows, OS/2, or
>Unix off of this box.  I personally believe that NT will make a big impact
>in the market and I believe that programming experience in this OS will
>maximize my marketablity with the maximum number of employers.

Of course, you are looking at only part of the equation.  Many of us looked at
the number-of-employers/number-of-qualified-applicants ratio and discovered
that while the numerator is certainly larger in the
{NT,DOS/Windows,OS/2,PC-Unix} world, so is the denominator.  We decided that
the ratio in the NeXTSTEP world was close enough to that of the
{NT,DOS/Windows,OS/2,PC-Unix} world that we opted for more fun and went with
NeXTSTEP :-)
-- 

Art Isbell                                                      Cubic Solutions
NeXT Registered Developer #745         NeXT software development and consulting
Email: isbell@cats.UCSC.EDU                                Voice: (408)335-1154
USmail: 95018-9442                                           Fax: (408)335-2515
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: todd@liveware.com
Subject: The BSD vanishing act
Keywords: BSD 4.4 Final Version Can you say bye bye
Reply-To: todd@liveware.com
Organization: Liveware Corporation   Fort Collins, CO.  USA.
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1992 06:11:25 GMT

Dear Advocatios (not a party treat),

I read a while back that the Berkley Software Distribution
was canning its efforts on BSD after 4.4 release.  Evi
Nemeth of CU Boulder was talking of working hard to get
the rights to work and maintain the source.  Does
anyone know what the details are on this issue and
how it affects NeXT and its efforts with BSD compatable
NeXTstep...

Todd Nathan
Liveware Corporation
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: gad@eclipse.its.rpi.edu (Garance A. Drosehn)
Subject: Re: Byte: Is Unix Dead ?
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 1992 04:04:16 GMT

cmcurtin@bluemoon.rn.com (Matthew Curtin) writes:
> > All of this plays to NeXT's advantage.  NeXT is, and will be for some
> > time, more stable than Windows NT.  The same can be said for OS 2.0;
> > altough, I'm not sure I would characterize OS 2 as stable yet (much
> > better than before though).  
> 
> I would completely disagree. The same friend of mine said OS/2 has more 
> bugs than a bait store (see "Tron"), and is slow, takes too much of a 
> machine to run for what you get, has trouble with DOS emulation, is not 
> really have pre-emptive multi-tasking (when he has something going in one 
> window, he can't go to another and do something else...the wait icon won't 
> make way for a mouse pointer...) From what I've been reading on the net, 
> the support from IBM is practically nonexistant.

If we're free to quote friends here, I have a friend who has almost exactly  
the opposite reaction to OS/2 as the one stated above.  The one thing he  
said which might match up with the above is that IBM seems to have little  
*marketting* support behind OS/2.  The lack of *marketting* may indeed be a  
problem over the long term.

Just another 0.002  (deflation, since I'm just quoting a friend.  I myself  
have little to no interest in Windows/NT or OS/2)

--
Garance Alistair Drosehn     =     gad@eclipse.its.rpi.edu
ITS Systems Programmer            (handles NeXT-type mail)
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute;           Troy NY    USA
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: gvh@metrosoft.com (Gordon Van Huizen)
Subject: Re: PasteUp (was RE: NeXT, WordPerfect ...)
Reply-To: gvh@metrosoft.com (Gordon Van Huizen)
Organization: Metrosoft
Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1992 15:37:02 GMT

In article <871@rtbrain.rightbrain.com> glenn@rightbrain.com (Glenn Reid)  
writes:
> patrick carnahan phillips writes
> 
> > Is PasteUp really a word processor, or more of a page layout
> > program with some word processing capabilities 
> 
> It's more and more difficult to draw the boundaries any more, but
> I'd say that PasteUp makes a very fine word processor. 
> [...]
> You also get much better
> control over graphic elements on the page than a word processor,
> because it is, after all, a page layout application.

"It's a floor wax!"    "It's a dessert topping!"    :-)

Sorry - somebody had to do it...

Gordon
-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------
Gordon Van Huizen           vox: 619.488.9411  fax: 619.488.3045
Metrosoft                   gvh@metrosoft.com [NeXTmail welcome]
----------------------------------------------------------------
From: pitre@n5160d.nrl.navy.mil (Richard Pitre)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
Subject: Re: Object Oriented File System: Huh??
Date: 1 Sep 92 13:39:16 GMT

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

I think that you will wonder how you got along without it.

A problem with UNIX type file systems is that a file is just an  
unspecified pile of information that the user has to remember the meaning  
of. Nextstep  helps a lot by recognizing file name extensions when the  
extensions are correctly specified. An object data base type of system  
would help to remove the distinction between the way Nextstep programs  
deal with data(as objects and containers of objects) and the way that data  
is stored on the disk(a-file-is-a-pile). With an object system the  
operating system could *interpret* files/objects based on the structure of  
the information they contain. Among many other things, this would alow the  
operating system to do some pretty intelligent searching and sorting and a  
user could expect the user interface to reliably do the right thing when   
s/he selected a file/object. Communication of data between applications  
and systems could be more reliably automated. We could get away from our  
preoccupation with the details of the storage medium and worry about more  
relevant things like whether or not information is permanent or temporary.

A good thing to read is the Commodore documentation on IFF (I think this  
stands for interchange file format). IFF is like a language for creating  
interpretable file formats and it was motivated by many of the problems  
that people are attempting to address with these object oriented storage  
systems. The discussion at the beginning of the report is brief but very  
interesting.

The UNIX type file systems are the MS-DOS's of the 90's. They  give you a  
lot of backward compatibility but they limit the intellect, evolutionary  
potential, and useability of your operating system. NeXT has to find a way  
of maintaining the file-is-a-pile system while it evolves to a completely  
object oriented system.

- Richard
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy