From: dillon@overload.Berkeley.CA.US (Matthew Dillon)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
Subject: Re:  End of NeXT
Distribution: world
Date: 4 Jan 93 00:24:49 PST
Organization: Not an Organization

>In article <1992Dec25.143726.3939@wam.umd.edu> rsrodger@wam.umd.edu (Yamanari) writes:
>
>>	NeXT designed their systems so that adding non-next peripherals
>>	(who else would be dense enough to make a printer that can only
>>	hook to a NeXT??) is either impossible, or agonizing.  A parallel
>>	port (which would add, what, 30 cents to the cost of the machine?)
>>	would have opened the doors to printers that are arriving now.
>>	By the end of '93, those lowly PC users will be buying fast
>>	600 dpi printers for about $1000 to $1200.
>>
>
>So those same PC users can have their parallel port and run NeXTSTEP 486.

    I'd agree with the article... NeXT has purposefully made interfacing to
    non-postscript printers difficult.	They have a special 'printer' port
    which serves no useful purpose except to lock in their market for their
    own printer and their software cannot properly support anything but
    postscript despite the fact that their own laser printer stuffs rasters
    and despite the fact that raster conversion is simple (that is, support
    for non-postscript printers must be hacked in rather then go through
    NeXT's .PPD files).  Consider the fact that it is certainly possible to
    run a standard parallel port at megabyte/sec speeds for 'conforming
    printers', i.e. a NeXT-specific printer, requiring nothing more then a
    shorter cable, and still be able to run the SAME port at standard
    speeds for standard parallel printers. NeXT, going with a ludicrous
    custom 'printer' port and then trying to explain it away as being
    better on technical grounds is idiotic. The current scheme forces
    non-NeXT printers to use the serial port since no parallel port is
    available.	This results in potentially poor performance for non-NeXT
    printers the fault of which is the NeXT, not the printer.

    Frankly, I don't give a damn about NeXT's laser printer.
    price/performance arguments aside, there is simply nothing special
    about it that I can see that isn't possible with other printers using a
    more standard interface.  All this crap about it being 'just an engine'
    is just that...crap.  There is no reason to require one to spout
    postscript to a printer when one can spout rasters quickly enough and
    that just about removes the processing requirements on the printer
    side... And, gee, guess what?  HP's standard printer protocols do just
    that... the processing engine in an HP500-C (non-postscript) is no more
    complex then the processing engine in NeXT's laser printer.  Less so,
    in fact.  Not only that, but you lock yourself into NeXT's technology
    and must hope that it stays up with the wider world which, as we have
    seen, it does not.

    Cheaper?  Ha!  Barely competitive, I say.  No thank you.

					    -Matt

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