From: dillon@overload.Berkeley.CA.US (Matthew Dillon)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
Subject: Re:  NeXT's, Amiga's, PC's, MAC'S, (was Re: Question #2 "Are Macintosh Users Really Happy?")
Distribution: world
Date: 12 Aug 92 18:19:52 PST
Organization: Not an Organization

In article <7324@ayumi.stars.flab.fujitsu.co.jp> mikhe@flab.fujitsu.co.jp writes:
>In article <dillon.0kwu@overload.Berkeley.CA.US> dillon@overload.Berkeley.CA.US
>
>>    Something the NeXT has but look at the cost difference... FaxModems can
>>    be had for the PC for less then $100, and many people go for that
>>    despite the lack of software integration.
>
>Only because the ones you are suggesting are of the plug-in type. If you want
>to use that same fax-modem on some other platform later you're hosed. Net
>result is that a standard fax-modem costs the same regardless of the platform.

    Take a look in computer shopper.  External V.32bis+fax modems can be
    had for the order of $200 these days.  Fax-only externals are in the
    $100 range.

>>	applications.  Hell, the Amiga's graphics are twice as fast as the
>>	NeXT's running on a simple 68000 and 4 to 8 times faster running on a
>>	25MHz 68030 with no cache.  Why?	Because the Amiga has several
>>	coprocessors to deal with it.  NeXT only added a coprocessor when it
>
>Ah, come on Matt. I can't believe your trying to pull this one. How can you
>even start to compare a base 640x480 display model with a 7.56 MHz Blitter that
>could only display 4096 colors at a time in HAM mode, and is limited to, what,
>2MB of VRAM? Oh, yes Commodore did kludge it so we now have, what, 640x960?
>What about Display PS, Matt? I don't call "productivity mode" a great feat of
>graphical engineering either. You're just used to staring at the thing.

    Ok, maybe I overdid it a bit...  I don't use productivity mode on my
    A3000, it's a waste.  The Amiga slows down with higher resolution
    screen modes, but take a 4 color workbench verses a NeXT monochome and
    the Ami beats it out by a factor of 4 easy.

    Did I say I didn't like Display PS?  I *love* Display PS!  The NeXT
    display is slow (you simply can't say it isn't!), but so far I don't
    mind too much.

>>    Now, I realize that anything running under UNIX is catering to a
>>    restricted market, but all these little 'only $500' things add up to
>>.....
>
>What are you talking about? The reason I got a NeXT in the first place was so
>that I could get the software that I needed, and mostly for free. There are as
>you are no doubt aware of, thousands of ftp site around the globe that provide
>software for free. Of course full fledged CAD packages etc. is out of the
>picture, but still, a lot of quality stuff. Written by a lot more people than
>were ever involved in writing software for the Amiga. Agreed, you together with
>a lot of other people wrote a bunch of great software for the Amiga, but that
>for one thing could be the reason why there is still so few *QUALITY* apps for
>the machine; You personally put both Lattice and Metacompco out of the Amiga
>market with dcc (I'm exaggerating, but anyway... ;^).

    I've been combing Archie and various ftp sites for a while, perhaps you
    should do the same....  I'm flattered by the rest of the paragraph
    though!

>The incentive for developers to try and make a living off of writing software
>for the Amiga is just not there (other than in the games market), and I
>...

    I'll skip this one, it's too off-topic.

>>    A good measure of one's market prospects is the number of
>>    developers-at-heart writing software for the machine.  Companies such
>>    as IBM do not realize the long term investment these 'hackers' make to
>>    a machine. People who fall in love with a machine and write a lot of
>>    freeware and shareware stuff eventually graduate, as they mature, into
>>    developer's of the highest calibre.
>
>Yes, but in the mean time how many developers were scared off by the
>non-profitability of the software and the machine. If you are a developer you
>...

    It's not an exclusive deal.  Letting in the programming buffs does not
    let out the serious developers.  It might force serious developers to
    develop meaningful stuff (i.e. better then the freeware stuff), but if
    that is undesireable then someone's got skewed thinking.

>The developers-at-heart who eventually graduate will only, when they do get
>employed, really contribute to the success of a machine, since prior to that
>there will be no guarantee that the software they've written for free will ever
>get supported, and is therefore useless in the long run. How can a company base
>its decisions and major income on what a bunch of college kids do for fun? Lets
>face it corporations exist to make money. They're not charitable organizations
>that build cool stuff because they want to grace everybody with something cool.

    True enough, and the IBM-PC/compatible arena is the best example of
    what can happen.  Would you like to program PC's ?  Windows 3.1 ?
    Window NT?	I'll tell you, we could all pack up with our multitasking
    expertise and take the PC arena by storm, make a lot of money, and
    retire.

    But I'm not about to do that, I get heartburn whenever I touch an
    IBM/compatible, let alone start to type on one.   What about the rest
    of you?  Why do *YOU* persue the NeXT with it's restricted market
    rather then go for the bucks?

    Seems to me there's a bit more to it then simple profits.  It also
    points to a well known rift between management and programmers.  When
    we buy a piece of software, we can usually tell when the original
    programmer has left the company by the quality of the updates for the
    product (i.e. they go to 0).  Well over HALF of the products we've ever
    purchased are no longer in the control of competant programmers.  What
    happened?  Real simple... some programmers program for money, others
    for fun, but tucked in there is a class of professional programmers who
    do it for both and, simply put, are inclined to work on the machine of
    their choice regardless of their manager's desire.

    Seems to me that many NeXT programmers fit into that category or they'd
    all be off programming for the multi billion dollar Windows market.

>>    NeXT seems to have the same problem with a 'professional developers only'
>>    attitude, cutting off an obvious investment in their future because it
>>    does not have noticable short term gain.
>
>The long term gain is to create an incentive for people to put their money into
>the machine. I agree that NeXT is a bit too paranoid about the
>Freeware/Shareware thing (esp. in conjunction with the BackSpace incident), but
>I do think that it is healthy for a machine to have a large professional
>developer base, which can offer long-term support for their product and for the
>platform, rather than having all good software come from people who do it for
>fun, and who will, down the line, find something else that will amuse them.

    There are many side effects to a large grass roots programming
    community the least of which is the fact that it really does force the
    commercial side of the coin to produce more professional products.
    Think less of what the student-programmer makes and more to the side
    effects he or she indirectly causes.  We are all guilty of the narrow
    view when it comes to cause and effect, often simply looking at history
    tells a tale much different then the one perceived at the time.

    Simple short term profit and loss is a very narrow view indeed, one
    guarenteed to make a company bankrupt.  If you keep going for local
    maxima you miss the bigger picture entirely, and often get stuck in a
    rut for which your simple equations have no solution.  If the equation
    were simple we'd simply sell our goods for $1M apiece and become
    $1Minares (but not $<3M>inares, which is trademarked).

    Perhaps I should amend my opinion to something more on the order that I
    believe a very serious imbalance exists in the NeXT community which
    most people already esconed are blind to, and that this imbalance leads
    to instability for nearly everyone associated with the machine (not
    just companies trying to stay alive).

				    -Matt

>>				    -Matt
>		-Mike
>--
>Mike Henry				mikhe@flab.fujitsu.co.jp	///
>Fujitsu Nakahara House West 8 #524	mikhe@cs.uoregon.edu	       ///
>6-7-1 Shimokodanaka, Nakahara		mikhe@ida.liu.se	   \\\///
>Kawasaki 221, JAPAN						    \XX/

--

    Matthew Dillon	    dillon@Overload.Berkeley.CA.US
    891 Regal Rd.	    uunet.uu.net!overload!dillon
    Berkeley, Ca. 94708     ham: KC6LVW (no mail drop)
    USA

Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy