HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: jimu@orthanc.cs.su.oz.au (James Uther)
Subject: Re: Object Oriented File System: Huh??
Reply-To: jimu@orthanc.cs.su.oz.au (James Uther)
Organization: Basser Dept of Computer Science, University of Sydney, Australia
Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1992 04:59:17 GMT

In article <92245.123014MKK2@psuvm.psu.edu>, <MKK2@psuvm.psu.edu> writes:
|>    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-)

The field is known (to me anyway) as Persistant Systems, where the persistance
of the data is a measure of how long it persists. Persistant systems tend to
remove the memory heirachy (file system - main memory), and view the whole
file system as a 'persistant object store', in which programs are composed 
of combinations of these objects, and 'move around' changing other objects
as computation. Research systems include Napier88 and Monads (still in the
research stage) and perhaps some interpreted environments like 
Boxer, Logo, Smalltalk(?) and some Lisps. 
The persistant stores tend to look like databases, because the concurrency 
and recovery problems in such a system are very database-like. (Most of 
the guys in this room are either writing an object store or trying to 
prove database like theories about it).
	hope that muddies the waters a bit-
	james
From: hardy@golem.ps.uci.edu (Meinhard E. Mayer (Hardy))
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
Subject: Re: Is BSD dead? (Sorry, Avie)
Date: 30 Aug 92 05:41:54 GMT
	<17jl79INN2jj@darkstar.UCSC.EDU> <2035@ltb.ltb.bso.nl>
Organization: Department of Physics, UC Irvine, CA 92717-4575, USA
In-reply-to: wierda@ltb.ltb.bso.nl's message of 28 Aug 92 07:41:06 GMT

In article <2035@ltb.ltb.bso.nl> wierda@ltb.ltb.bso.nl (Gerben Wierda) writes:

   ....
>   NeXT should then team up with HP (who also happen to have an attractive Intel
>   x86 operation).

And the new 7100 RISC chip with no announced machines which use it ...
--
Hardy 
-----
Meinhard E. Mayer,  Department of Physics, UC Irvine 
e-mail: hardy@golem.ps.uci.edu (preferred) or MMAYER@UCI.BITNET
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: a74k110@titan.ucc.umass.edu (Chris Lloyd)
Subject: Re: Is BSD dead? (Sorry, Avie)
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1992 19:15:34 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?
>
>From a technical standpoint,would NeXTstep be just as capable running on  
>top of NT or Chorus rather than Mach?

What does it matter? NeXT is trying to move away from Unix to begin with.
I think the phrase "Exorcise Unix from Mach" was used at one point and NeXT
has been consistently replacing elements of Unix with their own stuff.

There aren't that many Unix dependancies in the kits, but there are heavy
Mach dependencies so I'd expect to see something more along the lines
of a NeXTSTEP single server for Mach, and a token Unix one than any sort
of Unix beef up.

I also know for a fact that AT&T has a System V single-server for Mach,
so things tend to fall into NeXT pushing aside Unix altogether and leaving
single servers for that while building up their own NeXTSTEP server and in
the end getting all the worlds on top of one microkernel.

The banner NeXT carries is Mach/NeXTSTEP, not Mach/BSD.

la la la,
-- 
::   Christopher Lloyd  ::  a74k110@titan.ucc.umass.edu  ::  Yrrid, Inc.    ::
::"He said he'd make me elite for $5...I think he wanted a sub or somethin'"::
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: mdw@corona.att.com
Subject: NeXT, DTP, and Kodak Photo CD
Originator: mdw@cbnewsg.cb.att.com
Reply-To: mdw@corona.att.com
Organization: AT&T
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1992 12:14:41 GMT

Over in rec.photo, there is considerable discussion regarding the new
Kodak Photo CD and Kodak's licensing arrangements for translating the
stored images from their (proprietary) format to other formats.

They offer software for PeeCees and Mack's for a nominal fee, but the
only Unix box they are looking at is Sun.  I know PhotoShop can read
these CD's (again, I believe, with some nominally priced add-on).  Does
anyone know of plans for any of the NeXT products (e.g.: Image) to be
able to read Kodak Photo CD's?  Is the NeXT going to be left out in
the cold?  Will Wilbur ever get rid of that dumb parachute?  Are Batman
and Robin DOOMED?

Mark
-- 
Mark Wuest                            *MY* opinions, not AT&T's!!
mark.wuest@att.com
mdw@cheshire.att.com (NeXT Mail)
From: wierda@ltb.ltb.bso.nl (Gerben Wierda)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
Subject: Re: Is BSD dead? (Sorry, Avie)
Date: 28 Aug 92 07:41:06 GMT
Organization: BSO/LT, Baarn, The Netherlands

In <17jl79INN2jj@darkstar.UCSC.EDU> isbell@cats.ucsc.edu (Art Isbell) writes:


>In article <1992Aug27.173723.11979@leland.Stanford.EDU> shiva@vega.Stanford.EDU (Marcos Javier Polanco) writes:
>>
>>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  

>Although USL has announced licensing Chorus, I believe SysV.4 is still a
>megakernel (correct me if I'm wrong).  I haven't heard any estimate of when a
>Chorused SysV might be available and Mach has a several-year head start.  I'm
>also not sure it's accurate to say that IBM, HP, and DEC are cozying up to
>SysV.4.  On the contrary, they seem to be digging in their heels to avoid
>leaving {AIX,HPUX,Ultrix}.

AIX: PowerOpen is supposed to run OSF. The only thing AIX about it is its
name. Probably has to do about not scaring customers away at this point. Maybe
some AIX compatibility libraries will survive. Btw. AIX is a SVR3 with BSD
compatibility libraries.

Ultrix: DEC seems to be concentrating on ``Open VMS''. It looks to me that the
last battle in the war between Ultrix and VMS inside DEC has been won by VMS.
The Alpha machines will have VMS, NT and OSF. But the attempt to back away
from MIPS and the attempt to abandon OSF for some of the machines is a sign on
the wall. Ultrix is a BSD unix.

HPUX: SVR3 with BSD things also. NewWave is a small improvement over Motif.
They seem to be aware that more is needed with respect to the user.  I expect
HP to be smart and not spend to much effort in this stadium of the game. I
think personally that HP has very smart people running the company. NeXT
should talk with them. Rumours about this are abundant, but probably more or
less the result of wishful thinking. One remark: NeXT wants the professional
desktop market, HP is strong in engineering and the proces industry. They
are not competitors in the sense that Sun and NeXT are (or NeXT and
Microsoft).

I sincerely hope OSF will succeed. But the speed of OSF will have to improve
rapidly because of the wau SVR4 is hitting the market. Per 1/93 IBM and DEC
should ship RS/6000 and DECstations with OSF/1....

NeXT should then team up with HP (who also happen to have an attractive Intel
x86 operation).

I think...

-- 
wierda@ltb.bso.nl (Gerben Wierda) || I speak for myself and not for my employer.
(+31) 2154 84415/(+31) 35 833539  || Support the League for Programming Freedom!
	"If you don't know where you are going, any road will take you there."
	(Almost from) Lewis Carroll, "Alice in Wonderland".
From: julie%erix@uunet.uu.net (Julie Cafritz)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
Subject: Re: Is BSD dead? (Sorry, Avie)
Keywords: unix bsd
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 92 21:01:25 EDT
Distribution: world
Organization: Erix Remote

In article <1992Aug28.133250.7000@ni.umd.edu> louie@sayshell.umd.edu  
(Louis A. Mamakos) writes:
> In article <1992Aug27.191534.4003@nic.umass.edu
> a74k110@titan.ucc.umass.edu (Chris Lloyd) writes:
> > What does it matter? NeXT is trying to move away from Unix to begin  
> > with.
> 
> Well, if this is the case, then NeXT ought to tell their customers
> what their strategy is so we can begin to look for another platform
> *now* while we still have a chance to sell the machines before they go
> out of business.  Take a survey of people that you know that bought
> NeXT platforms, and see how many bought because they were a good (BSD)
> UNIX platform *first*, with a whizzy application enviroment.  Everyone
> that I know bought a NeXT because it was a UNIX platform.  The
> competition is Sun, DEC, SGI, HP and not DOS platforms or MACs.  This
> include the 75-odd machines that the University of Maryland bought to
> upgrade its existing UNIX platforms.
> 
> 

I agree.  If NeXT moves away from UNIX, I will definitely move away from 
NeXT.  I would wager that most of us have more of a commitment to UNIX than
to Steve Jobs.  I already feel marginal owning a NeXT:  if it weren't for 
the UNIX, I would feel like (and probably would qualify as) a total klutz 
for having bought one.

--------------------------
Julie Cafritz  uunet!erix!julie
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: urquijo@seri.philips.nl (Francisco Urquijo)
Subject: Re: NeXT, WordPerfect, WriteNow, Nisus, etc.
Organization: SERI-CEN Network Services, Philips C&P, Eindhoven, The Netherlands
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1992 23:49:22 GMT

In article <1992Aug26.161734.328@cs.mcgill.ca> news@cs.mcgill.ca (Netnews
Administrator) writes:

>In article <1992Aug25.172016.21686@adobe.com> byer@adobe.com (Scott
Byer) writes:
>>Only thing I'm missing is PhotoShop.

>Appsoft Image.

ComposeInColor is maybe what you are looking for and is already
shipping. Unter Ecker Soft had send progressive beta
copies of the package to the Purdue server.
From: mikes@velo.ucr.edu (Mike Shebanek)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
Subject: Correction to: Release 3.0 is shipping, as of Aug 24th. (?)
Date: 31 Aug 92 20:59:13 GMT

> NS 3.0 has been shipped on new NeXT computers since August 14, 1992.  Since  
> distribution of the NS 3.0 upgrade kits is not being handled by NeXT (they've  
> given the task to a professional distribution company), we should see the  
> upgrade kits around the second week of September.


Stupid me.


My local NeXT System Engineer informed me that NeXTSTEP 3.0 is indeed shipping,  
but it started on Monday August 24, not August 14.  Sorry  If I rasied anyone's  
hopes only to dash them on the rocks. 


My apologies.


[Thanks for pointing this out m@crito]

--

Mike Shebanek
Computing and Communications
University of California, Riverside
Riverside, CA.  92521
From: jeffo@uiuc.edu (J.B. Nicholson-Owens)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
Subject: Re: Next vs Macintosh for the Graphic Professional (rtf)
Date: 2 Sep 92 16:39:57 GMT
Article-I.D.: news.BtyMAM.81G
Reply-To: jeffo@uiuc.edu (J.B. Nicholson-Owens)
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana

Christophe Janot writes
> When will RightBrain stop filling the netnews with their
> advertising or marketing posts ? 

When people stop buying their products.  Perhaps when RightBrain employees  
realize that RTF is rarely, if ever, necessary for such wide distribution  
as USENET news.

Yes, that's right, it's not enough to just label posts as RTF when you  
should also know when RTF is necessary.
--
-- Jeff (jeffo@uiuc.edu)
-- no NeXTmail please
From: drm@esl.com (Don McGregor)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
Subject: Re: Stability of Next as a company
Date: 25 Aug 92 19:50:01 GMT
Reply-To: drm@esly.com
Followup-To: comp.sys.next.advocacy
Organization: ESL, a TRW Subsidiary

In article 21909@leland.Stanford.EDU, spagiola@frinext.stanford.edu (Stefano Pagiola) writes:
>Jim Becker writes
>> 
>> walking  by  the  [Computer Attic in Palo Alto]  last 
>> wednesday  night  there  was  the   big  multi-color
>> NeXT sign, but i really had to look deep into the store
>> to spy a single NeXT on the backwall. Everything else
>> was Macs.
>> 
>The sign has been there at least since early 1991.
>C.A. sells their NeXTs at full list price, so it may not be  
>surprising if they're not doing too well with it.
>
 Walk-in retail really isn't NeXT's market anyway.  They do
sales to big corporations that have a need for machines that
can be networked into big groups and easily programmed.
There are a bunch of students around that buy them, but they're
getting them from bookstores at edu discount.

A reseller really needs to add value and create demand, not just
fill walk-in orders.  Prominent display isn't going to get them a
lot of sales (though it can't hurt).
---
Don McGregor | "That which does not overflow my swap file makes
drm@esl.com  |  me stronger." --Friedrich Nerdzsche

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 18:14:37 GMT

In article <timm.715222975@void> timm@void.ncsa.uiuc.edu (Tim McClarren)  
writes:
> Hmm...I haven't really been following this thread very closely, but 
> I noticed this post.  Asynchronous may have a lot to do with animation.
> Anyways, equating the Amiga blitter with a 68030 is dangerous at best.
> And the comment the the 040 is 3 times faster than the 030 in integer
> performance may have little or nothing to do with animation speed.
> The first poster has made a very valid point...hardware blitters (or
> any form of hardware rendering) can make a definite improvement
> in graphics performance.

We are talking about the Amiga blitter, not hardware support in general.   
NeXT had hardware support in the original Cube for doing blits(moving  
memory).  I don't want an original Cube.


> This may make animation "prettier", but it has little to do with  
animation
> performance (the sync'ing bit).  Anyways, the maximum appreciable FPS 
> you'd want would be whatever said sync. rate is.  A 486 PC (33 Mhz) can
> do about 200 FPS in the 320x200 x-mode of the VGA card (I know this is
> true because someone here has done it with a their own 2D graphics  
library
> specially tailored for this mode).  It's ridiculous, because for every 
> frame you see there are 3 that you don't.  But there are other issues as
> well, for instance on the Macintosh, NuBus will be a bottleneck soon
> (and some would say that it is already a bottleneck).  But, all things
> considered, if you can get 20-30 FPS in a decent sized full color window
> using a buffer and flushing dirty rects, the convenience pays for itself
> and any speed increase at the cost of using a less simple drawing  
environment
> isn't a good trade-off in my book.

You can blast a lot of images to the screen on the NeXT, but it looks like  
crap because it flickers unless you do a lot of work.  If the Window  
Server had a little intelligence and it could draw to the screen after the  
beam had passed the lower part of your window then I think better  
animation would be possible.  Sure there is no guarantee that it would  
finish everything before the beam comes around again, but you would at  
least have a fighting chance.  You might get one "great" animation app  
running.  I think that it's worth investigating.  How about one more  
option in IB?

Nonretained
Retained
Buffered
Animated

-Mike


Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: david@postman.gr.osf.org (David George)
Subject: Re: NextStep 486 and misc. (was Re: Stability of Next...)
Organization: OSF RI Grenoble
Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1992 11:47:35 GMT

In article <180jm5INNk39@darkstar.UCSC.EDU>, isbell@cats.ucsc.edu (Art Isbell) writes:
|> 
|> In article <1992Sep1.155156.4330@sinix.UUCP> dhg@sinix.UUCP (David Griffith) writes:
|> >In article <1992Aug25.170813.21133@adobe.com> byer@adobe.com (Scott Byer) writes:
|> >>
|> >>At this point, what I understand is that it'll be
|> >>$300-$500 for the base system.

|> >Imagine if a car manafacturer 
|> >took that line and tried to compete against similar models but would only 
|> >sell you the top of the range model with all the extras...
|> 
|> Japanese auto makers adopted a similar approach when they started penetrating
|> the US auto market.

You should maybe think a bit more about the differences between the auto and
computer industry before posting idiotic similes like the above ....

A better comparison would be that you build only the luxury model, then when
someone asks for a base model you take out all the extras, throw them in the
bin and charge him less ! 

On a base model car you pay less because (to a degree) there is less work and materials in that car.  With an operating system all those 'optional extras'
have already been built.  It makes no difference whether you deliver the full
or base system, in fact supporting another configuration costs money.  The cost
is not writing a few extra bytes on a floppy disk but paying for the task of
creating the code that went into those bytes.

Microsoft offer a base system because they can afford a loss leader with low
profit margins (just as say Volkswagen can)  NeXT can't afford it (nor can say
Rolls Royce).

I bet they could give NeXTSTEP away and still not shift as many copies as
Windows NT can sell (actually one of Bill Gates early marketing ploys was
giving away 'his' software).

Of course there is a good case for a dynamically configurable kernel to run on low end machines.

David.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: mark@cyantic.com (Mark T. Dornfeld)
Subject: Re: NextStep 486 and misc. (was Re: Stability of Next...)
Organization: CYANTIC Systems
Date: Sun, 30 Aug 1992 01:53:24 GMT

In article <SCOTT.92Aug28171614@nic.gac.edu> scott@nic.gac.edu (Scott Hess) writes:
>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 ...]

Not so long ago, I was told that NT WAS Mach. Can anyone confirm/deny that?

If so, then comments in the computer mags that NT looks a lot like UNIX are
interesting.  Also, MS would do whatever it could to keep this a secret.

Isn't POSIX comprised mostly of UNIX-derived system calls and interfaces?
If NT is POSIX compliant (whatever that means), then isn't it (almost) UNIX?

Can anyone post a list of system calls for NT?

-- 

Mark T. Dornfeld                              Voice: (416) 234-9048
CYANTIC Systems                               Facsimile: (416) 234-0477
101 Subway Crescent Suite 2103                Email: mark@cyantic.com
From: pitre@n5160d.nrl.navy.mil (Richard Pitre)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
Subject: Re: Is BSD dead?
Date: 2 Sep 92 15:06:33 GMT

In article <1992Sep2.000728.28100@cs.su.oz.au> jimu@orthanc.cs.su.oz.au  
(James Uther) writes:
> In article <1992Aug29.225335.9995@cubetech.com>, andrew@cubetech.com  
(Andrew Loewenstern) writes:
> |> (I have heard that there are about 5 MILLION lines of code in NS  
3.0).
> 
> What possible excuse do they have for this perversion? 
> 
..

> 	is NeXTstep too big? If so, why? I mean correct me if i'm wrong,
> but even X is not that big!!
> 
> 	james.		'Dickie-bird?'
> 			'Yes Sam'

Late at night I toss and turn with worry and fright over the  perverse,  
zillion line, bug eyed monster lurking in my next. I've heard stories  
about a hand coming out of the floppy disk drive slot and grabbing small  
animals and insects that wander by. I wonder if those mysterious belching  
noises I hear are my data objects meeting their lonely, bitter end in some  
dark forgotton corner of virtual memory. I long for something benign and  
wonderful from AT&T (other than my miniscule, almost gratuitous, long  
distance bill).

During the day I enjoy my NeXT and laugh at systems that really teach  
people the meaning of hard, pointless, irrelevant, logically consistent,  
drudgery.  

-richard

The rat of GOD is upon us all. 
Stop gerbil fornication now, while there is still a chance for HIS mercy.