HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: oscar@mi.el.utwente.nl (Oscar ter Hofstede - UT)
Subject: Question about IIvx, P600, Duo & displays
Organization: Utwente
Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1992 09:47:03 GMT


Hi!

I have read the announcements from Apple about the new macs, but there
are still a few questions open to me.
Can anyone fill in this table for me for each of the following machines?

	- IIvx
	- Performa 600
	- Powerbook Duo



CPU	68030 / 32 MHz		?
FPU	68882 / 32 MHz		?

External Bus width:	32 bits	?
External Bus speed:	16 bits	?

Internal Cache size:	??K	?
External Cache size:	32K	?
External Cache access:	external bus?

Build-in videocard:	?? K	?
Maximal videocard:	?? K	?



Also, Apple announced two new 14" displays, while I have only seen
the price of one of them. Which price goes with wich display?
And while I'm at it, what's the price of the 16" display?
Finally I'd like to know if the Duo comes with a active cristal display,
for less submarining :)

Thanx!

Oscar.

--
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Oscar ter Hofstede            Tel: +31-53-892778        Fax: +31-53-340045
Faculty of electrical engineering -- University of Twente, The Netherlands
preferred: oscar@mi.el.utwente.nl       SMTP: oscar@utelmi01.el.utwente.nl
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
From: rob@hobbes.cuc.ab.CA (Rob Parkhill)
Subject: Re: specifically comparing NeXT with Mac...
Organization: The Ohio State University Department of Computer and Information Science
Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1992 11:38:00 GMT

ewright@convex.com (Edward V. Wright) writes :
>In <FISCHER.92Nov3013446@steiner.iesd.auc.dk> fischer@iesd.auc.dk (Lars Peter Fischer) writes:
>
>
>>Edward> Ever hear of scientific visualization, image processing,
>>Edward> rendering, CAD, multimedia, simulation, desktop publishing, or
>>Edward> electronic illustration?
>
>>Sure, and? Some of us do not do these things -- or do them in black
>>and white (i.e., publishing). 

>
>Especially those who own NeXTs.  

>
>>A lot of people do not use colour for
>>anything but fiddling with their Windows background colour. 

>
>Yeah, I'm sure.  Then there are those of us who own Macs.
>
>
>>Edward> That's like saying "Color is nice, but Display Renderman
>>Edward> is also nice.  So we'll give you the ability to create nice
>>Edward> pictures and no way to display them." 

>
>>What on earth are you talking about? We're talking tradeoffs here, not
>>absolutes. We'd all like a 21" 1600x1200 trinitron 96bit real-time
>>phong-shading, but since this is expensive, we need something less.
>
>Expensive?  Nonsense.  You can score a 24-bit graphics board, with
>acceleration, for under $400 -- retail.  If NeXT can't do as well,
>everyone in purchasing ought to be fired.

Plus about $2000 for a decent monitor, at least 16" in size  (Using 

Canadian dollars here, so don't flame me if this seems high)

>>Your analogy is hogwash. Renderman with out a display is useless. A
>>monocrome system is useful for many things.
>
>A monochrome monitor is useful for perhaps 20% of the things that
>a computer can do today.  That makes the monochrome NeXTstation 1/5 

>of a computer -- a (much) faster version of the Mac Classic with a
>large screen.
>
>Renderman, however, is one of the few remaining advantages that NeXT
>has.  Apple will soon negate the advantage of Display Postscript with
>Quickdraw GX.  NeXT has promoted its objected-oriented programming and
>development tools, but those are no longer unique.  You can get MacApp,
>TCL, AppMaker, Marksman, etc. on the Mac -- at a fraction of the cost.
>NeXT programmers say, "there's no comparison, NeXTstep is so much better,"
>but they're never able to say *how*.  Display Renderman, on the other
>hand, is neat.  A very elegant way of creating impressive 3D graphics 

>-- which you then have no way to display on the NeXT.
>
>
>
>>NeXT has colour, too, but they do not have small screens. 

>
>Yeah, they have NeXTdimension.  "Color for the rest of us" --
>where the rest of us is defined as people like Steve Jobs and
>Ross Perot.  If you can afford to spend $60 million to buy a
>Presidential election for a buddy from Arkansas, you can afford
>a NeXTdimension.  If you can't, you can't. :-)

ACK! If you want colour, how about a NeXTstation Turbo Color
machine?  Even with the 21" Monitor it's less than a Quadra.

---
Rob Parkhill
rob@hobbes.cuc.ab.ca
(NeXTmail preferred!)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
From: ewright@convex.com (Edward V. Wright)
Subject: Re: NeXT OS, TOO SLOW TO $#@#$, etc.
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 20:23:38 GMT
Organization: Engineering, CONVEX Computer Corp., Richardson, Tx., USA
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.

In <1992Nov11.173515.6099@cuug.ab.ca> wilcoxt@cuug.ab.ca (Terrance Wilcox 260-8100) writes:

>Jobs owns part of Pixar. George Lucas owns a big chunk. 

I think this is out-of-date.  I recall an article in the Journal
which stated that Lucas sold off his investment to Jobs several
years ago. 

>Jobs is just better than Sculley at getting discounts. Or does Sculley 
>even try (or care)?

Why should he?  Apple isn't marketing Renderman on the Mac.  Pixar is.
However, $266 for a bundle that includes MacRenderman and Showplace,
but a lot of examples, clip art, and Pixar-generated goodies, isn't
too bad, even compared to NeXT's $300 upgrade.
From: cl871@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Simon B. Woodside)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: specifically comparing NeXT with Mac...
Date: 9 Nov 1992 03:01:29 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio (USA)
NNTP-Posting-Host: hela.ins.cwru.edu


My information is that NeXT (and all UNIX software) is more
expensive and more space consuming than mac software.  Sometimes
the difference is great.

Simon
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
From: dtiberio@csws19.ic.sunysb.edu (David Tiberio)
Subject: Re: EGGPLANT, IMPLANT, EMPATH, BLAZEPLANT...
Organization: State University of New York at Stony Brook
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 22:00:52 GMT

In article <1992Nov12.130235.13076@gn.ecn.purdue.edu> jess@gn.ecn.purdue.edu (Jess M Holle) writes:
>
>Jess Holle
>
>P.S.  Say no to Amiga owners who beg to tear apart your machine to try to
>      copy your Macintosh ROM.  This DOES happen.

            HOW TO TEAR APART A MAC IN SEARCH OF A COPY OF THE ROMS
				By David Tiberio


	First, be very careful and find a Mac owner who you know you can push
around, or who is just really gullible.

	Get a socket set, hammer, two magnetic screw drivers (phillips), a
static guard, workgloves, and some clean rags.

	First, make the Mac owner think that you aren't really going to open
his case, and ask him if he can get something out of your car while you are
working. When he goes outside, take one of the screwdrivers and a hammer.

	Next, insert a blank floppy disk in the drive. Double click on the
rom dump program. Remove the floppy disk. 

	You now have a copy of the roms from a friend's Macintosh.



DISCLAIMER: It is illegal to take a copy of ROMS from a machine that you
do not own, and you cannot legally run two Macintosh operating systems off
of the same ROM at the same time, and you cannot expect to say anything
negative about Apple and expect to have money in the bank the next day.

-- 
      Amiga Graphics Association BBS (516) 473-6351  24 HRS, 14.4k baud
PEROT PEROT PEROT PEROT PEROT PEROT PEROT PEROT PEROT PEROT PEROT PEROT PEROT
    "I don't have any experience in running up a 4 trillion dollar debt."
From: feijai@endor.byu.edu (Sean Luke)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: specifically comparing NeXT with Mac...
Date: 10 Nov 92 03:13:33 GMT
Article-I.D.: yvax.1992Nov10.101334.1133
Reply-To: sean@digaudio.byu.edu

In article <1992Nov09.232013.28765@watson.ibm.com>  writes:
>Hey, great!  Everyone should run out and buy a NeXT because they have
>a great development environment!  Even teachers and students writing
>term papers and people in the real world!  So they can program!
>
>There is more to using a computer than developing.  From a marketing
>standpoint, a great development environment is not a strong selling
>point.  Sure, it might appeal to people here on the net, but if the
>only people that buy NeXT's are programmers, then where can NeXT hope
>to go with their machines?  It will take years before these programmers
>start producing apps that the rest of the world will want to use.

Well, it's been "years".  And applications are finally beginning to come  
out.  Good ones, too:  check out PasteUp, Page1 and Page2, and Pages.   
Watch out, Quark. :-)

--

Sean Luke
Brigham Young University                   MILK:  It Comes From Cows
sean@digaudio.byu.edu  
NeXTmail and nifty Mac stuff welcome
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
From: oliverm@nevada.edu (Moises Oliveira)
Subject: Re: NeXT OS, TOO SLOW TO $#@#$, etc.
Organization: University of Nevada System Computing Services
Distribution: na
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 19:40:44 GMT

In article <1992Nov10.140943.11034@gn.ecn.purdue.edu> jess@gn.ecn.purdue.edu (Jess M Holle) writes:
>I already posted this once, but it appears that it didn't get through.
>

>As for NeXT's development system, doesn't the use of Objective C make
>porting to the rest of the world a might bit difficult???  On all other
>platforms C++ seems FAR more dominant.  It would appear to be MUCH
>easier to recode member functions here and there rather than rewrite 
>the whole mess in another language.  Any comments???????

Why would you have to rewrite it in another language?

First off, the NeXT comes with support for all three varieties of C,
Ansi-C, C++, Objective-C.  All three can be called and mixed with each
other.  There is no need to write everything in Objective-C.  But when
you have good tools, you tend to want to use them.

The Objective-C extensions (Objective-C is a true superset of Ansi-C), have
been incorporated by Gnu into gcc.  The source is available. Thus Objective-C
is available on just about every platform under the sun.  Even a Mac.
I'm sure it will even be ported to PowerPC. 

The only thing left is the runtime system (the objects, and dispatch).  You
can either write your own, or wait for the gnu version which is close to done.


Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
From: strobl@gmd.de (Wolfgang Strobl)
Subject: Re: the NeXT option (Was Re: 7.1 vs. OS/2 and Windows NT)
Organization: GMD, Sankt Augustin, Germany
Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1992 16:15:12 GMT

In <6280.2af55c0f@hayes.com> bcoleman@hayes.com (Bill Coleman) writes:

>Let's put that in a different light. Is the goal of an operating systems
>multitasking method to benefit the user or the programmer?

Well, one goal of operating systems - and this doesn't apply to
their multitasking architecture only - is to benefit the programmer, 
in order to enable her to write better programs, for the benefit 
of the user.

The above statement is pure rhetoric, written to confuse users
which aren't programmers, IMO.

Wolfgang Strobl
#include <std.disclaimer.hpp>
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
From: johnsd2@vccnw01.its.rpi.edu.its1 (Daniel Norman Johnson)
Subject: Re: EGGPLANT, IMPLANT, EMPATH, BLAZEPLANT..
Reply-To: johnsd2@vccnw01.its.rpi.edu.its1
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1992 21:29:05 GMT

In article 8851@rmece49.upr.clu.edu, raist@rmece02.upr.clu.edu (Ricardo Hernandez) writes:
>In article <j!s1#zr@rpi.edu>, johnsd2@vccnw05.its.rpi.edu.its1 (Daniel Norman Johnson) writes:
>[stuff deleted]
>
>|> but I dont know exactly.
>|> 
>|> >	If you think high-end software is more important, then ask me
>|> >how glad I am that I can run almost all IBM and Mac software for 
>|> >under $1,000 of additional hardware, and under $1 in software only.
>|> 
>|> $1 in software? :) They been cutting the A-MAX prices?
>|> 
>|> Im a bit surprised you think being able to run other computers
>|> software is a big deal. Can the Amiga not stand on its OWN virtues?
>
>   Yes, but to those that don't wanna compare objectively, the ability to 
>run other machines, I believe it's awesome!

This no parse. What do you meant?

---
			- Dan Johnson
And God said "Jeeze, this is dull"... and it *WAS* dull. Genesis 0:0

These opinions have had all identifiying marks removed, and are untraceable.
You'll never know whose they are.
From: ibhan@husc8.harvard.edu (Ishir Bhan)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: PowerBook Tuner 1.0---what is it?
Date: 10 Nov 92 19:21:49 GMT
Article-I.D.: husc3.1992Nov10.142150.17303
Organization: Harvard University Science Center

In article <neilg.721370615@sfu.ca> neilg@fraser.sfu.ca (Neil K. Guy) writes:
>werner@cs.utexas.edu (Werner Uhrig) writes:
>
>> jelmore@nyx.cs.du.edu (Jay Elmore) writes:
>>> While browsing through some FTP site (I think it was the RASCAL mirror
>>> at WUARCHIVE.WUSTL.EDU) I found something called "Powerbook Tuner 1.0"
>>> What is it?
>
>>	basically, it is the alfa version of a fix for a PowerBook serial
>>	port problem;  supposedly os 7.1 has the fix applied, but when I
>>	asked if/when when the release version can be expected (for users
>>	who do not plan to upgrade to os 7.1) I was told "soon"...
>>	but I'll believe it when I see it.
>
> Is this supposed to be a software fix for the hardware problem
>involving the power-saving circuitry that prevents the use of MIDI
>hardware with all PowerBooks except the 100? (gosh that was a long
>convoluted sentence...) I think I remember reading in Macworld or
>somewhere that the new Duos can't MIDI properly either. So does this
>mean that Apple hasn't fixed the problem with 7.1?
>
> And, yes, it does strike me as being kind of irresponsible on Apple's
>part to release these machines that can't use MIDI while still pushing
>Macs as wondrous multimedia computers.

You are so full of it, it's rediculous.  The problem with the PowerBooks
is that they cannot perform LARGE SYSEX DUMPS.  They have no problem at
all performing sequencing, which is what most MIDI musicians (including
myself) do.  Saying that they "can't use MIDI" is rediculously far from
the truth.  While I'm not one to scold posters for their lack of
knowledge, the fact that you actually claimed to read the Macworld article
makes me wonder, since it said that the Duo's have no problem with
anything except MASS SYSEX DUMPS (it can still do individual bank
transfers).  Also, the Duo's were running a beta of System 7.1.  The
problem may be fixed (and probably has been fixed) in the release.  

-- 
             --      Ishir Bhan (ibhan@husc.harvard.edu)      --
From: ttn@cs.tut.fi (Tero Nieminen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: the NeXT option (Was Re: 7.1 vs. OS/2 and Windows NT)
Date: 6 Nov 92 00:51:01
Organization: Tampere Univ. of Technology, Finland.
Distribution: world
	<TTN.92Nov5095242@mustarastas.cs.tut.fi> <2wh14#q@rpi.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: sepelrastas.cs.tut.fi
In-reply-to: johnsd2@vccsouth29.its.rpi.edu's message of 5 Nov 92 08:58:03 GMT

In article <2wh14#q@rpi.edu> johnsd2@vccsouth29.its.rpi.edu (Daniel Norman Johnson) writes:

   Ah; so it doens't pre-emptively switch from thread to thread
   just process to process.

Right. Threads are a Mach kernel feature that NeXT takes use of. Also,
SunOA has a sysV light weight process library, but it doesn't seem to be
utilised too much. Probably, because it isn't very portable.

   More ammo! :) Thanx!

Ammo or not, but given it is..
-- 
         Tero Nieminen                      DANGER!
         ttn@cs.tut.fi                   Computer Bytes!
From: jcav@quads.uchicago.edu (JohnC)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: Mac vs. PC
Date: 5 Nov 92 18:35:15 GMT
Article-I.D.: midway.1992Nov5.183515.5037
Reply-To: jcav@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: The Royal Society for Putting Things on Top of Other Things

In article <aelman.720916458@Xenon.Stanford.EDU> aelman@Xenon.Stanford.EDU (Adam Elman) writes:
>>In article <torrie.720726145@Xenon.Stanford.EDU>, torrie@cs.stanford.edu (Evan Torrie) writes:
>>	But when did the Mac plus come out?
>
>It would have had to be sometime in 1985.  Well after the AT came out.

some selected early Apple Macintosh product milestones.

January 1984	original Macintosh, original Imagewriter dot-matrix
		printer, MacWrite word processor, MacPaint painting program

January 1985	Laserwriter printer - first Postscript output device

Fall 1985	the Heirarchical Filesystem (HFS) - real subdirectories!
		Introduced with the original Hard Disk 20.
		(did you know that HFS was the first INIT file?)

January 1986	Macintosh Plus - SCSI, 800K diskette drive, SIMM memory,
		128K ROM with HFS built in.  First Mac able to boot from HD.

January 1987	Macintosh SE - two internal diskette drives, internal HD,
		ADB peripheral interface

April 1987	Macintosh II - color, NuBus slots, Apple sound chip

Fall, 1987	HyperCard - software toolkit
		Multifinder - multitasking Mac OS extension

-- 
John Cavallino                  |  EMail: jcav@midway.uchicago.edu
University of Chicago Hospitals |         John_Cavallino@uchfm.bsd.uchicago.edu
Office of Facilities Management | USMail: 5841 S. Maryland Ave, MC 0953
B0 f++ c+ g++ k s++ e+ h- pv    |         Chicago, IL  60637
From: bcoleman@hayes.com (Bill Coleman)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: Apple's CEO?
Date: 12 Nov 92 18:10:48 EDT
Organization: Hayes Microcomputer Products, Norcross, GA

In article <1992Nov7.041734.7773@ra.oc.com>, matt@ra.oc.com (Matthew Lyle) writes:
> 
> There are many who think that Apple already has taken a step backwards.  The
> Quadras have been a disappointment to many, far less than was expected.  

What did you expect? They are just '040 powered Macs. What more is there to
expect?

> Similar things have been said about System 7.

The only disappointing thing about System 7 is that Apple didn't deliver
everything that originally promised 3 years before they shipped. If you 
ignore the early promises, you'll find that System 7 adds a LOT of
functionality.

[ WARNING -- No postings about the lack of preemptive tasking will be accepted ]

> Apple's announcements in the high end of the market, both "MIPS"-wise and
> technology wise, have been less then groundbreaking.  

Hmm. AppleEvents is pretty groundbreaking. So's OCE. How about Casper?
Sounds like groundbreaking stuff to me. QuickTime? 

> Put on top the that the fact that Apple it absolutely gutting their dealer 
> channels, who provided high quality service, 

This is a joke, right?

> in favor of "consumer" channels where the "sales associates" have a hard 
> time figuring out what kind of memory to put into the systems.

Apple has divided their Sales and Marketing into several different channels:
Education, Comsumer, General Business and Institutional computing. What
you see in the "consumer" channels is only one of four pathways for their
business. Don't interpret this action as the demise of the old dealers
-- there's still room for them in the other channels.

> Of course Apple is so far ahead of the MS-Windows/MS-DOS world... but unless
> they do something substantial the lead isn't likely to last against
> Microsoft's money...

Wake up. Apple is doing a lot of substantial stuff. A lot of this is like
spagetti on the wall -- they are looking to see what sticks. 

If you close your eyes, it is no wonder you can't see what Apple is doing.

And if you are only looking at how many MIPS a particular computer 
can crank out -- you are missing the keystone of the entire market:
Software.

-- 
Bill Coleman, AA4LR                ! CIS: 76067,2327    AppleLink: D1958
Principal Software Engineer        ! Packet Radio: AA4LR @ W4QO
Hayes Microcomputer Products, Inc. ! UUCP: uunet!hayes!bcoleman
POB 105203 Atlanta, GA 30348 USA   ! Internet: bcoleman%hayes@uunet.uu.net
Disclaimer: "My employer doesn't pay me to have opinions."
Quote: "The same light shines on vineyards that makes deserts." -Steve Hackett.

Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
From: torrie@cs.stanford.edu (Evan Torrie)
Subject: Re: specifically comparing NeXT with Mac...
Originator: torrie@Xenon.Stanford.EDU
Organization: CS Department, Stanford University, California, USA
Date:  7 Nov 92 19:00:19 GMT

spagiola@frinext.stanford.edu (Stefano Pagiola) writes:

>Not quite.  A Q700 is really equivalent to a non-turbo color NeXT, so  
>that comparison is misleading.  The proper comparison is between a  
>Q950 and a Turbo color NeXT.
>According to my edu price list, a Turbo Color NeXTstation 16/250 is  
>$4790; the 21" monitor is $2392:  Total $7182
>A Q950 8/230 is $5520; 21" monitor is $2630, total 8150
>So the NeXT still has a price advantage.  Notice also that you're  
>actually getting a better system (eg 16MB RAM vs 8).

  Hmmm.  I didn't notice the 5 NuBus 90 slots in the Turbo Colour
NeXTstation last time I looked...

-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Evan Torrie.  Stanford University, Class of 199?       torrie@cs.stanford.edu 
Embrace rationalism, reject superstition.           Break away from the past.
"...there is only one thing worse than having marketing people on a project,
 and that is having no marketing people on a project."  - Larry Tesler.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
From: johnsd2@jec314.its.rpi.edu.its1 (Daniel Norman Johnson)
Subject: Re: specifically comparing NeXT with Mac...
Reply-To: johnsd2@jec314.its.rpi.edu.its1
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 17:16:24 GMT

In article 9043@cubetech.com, andrew@cubetech.com () writes:
[deletia- various arguments about NeXTs lack of software]
>
>It's funny...  now all the Macintosh people are saying exactly what
>all the PC people said when Macintosh came out...  you guys forget too
>quickly...
>

Some of us, anyway, aren't the same guys. Im not so sure I woulda
bought a Mac in '84. No, make that Im pretty sure I would not have.
No software, cheezy display, awful keyboard, tiny memory, no expansion,
little software. Nice floppies and a nice GUI are all very well, but I
doubt they would have overcome these difficulties in my mind, anyway.
(remember, back then I would not have known how the PC would turn out in
8 years..)

I rather expect the sort of people who bought Macs then are buying
NeXTs now. (not that I have any evidence, tho..)

---
			- Dan Johnson
And God said "Jeeze, this is dull"... and it *WAS* dull. Genesis 0:0

These opinions have had all identifiying marks removed, and are untraceable.
You'll never know whose they are.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
From: ewright@convex.com (Edward V. Wright)
Subject: Re: specifically comparing NeXT with Mac...
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1992 20:39:59 GMT
Organization: Engineering, CONVEX Computer Corp., Richardson, Tx., USA
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.

In <1992Nov8.074751.12249@u.washington.edu> tzs@carson.u.washington.edu (Tim Smith) writes:

>>From what I have seen(note this qualification), the Mac has a much larger  
>>software selection compared to NeXTs.  How is NeXTs selling point  
>>justified by software in leiu of this difference?

>How many word processors do you use?  How many spreadsheets?  How many
>data bases?  How many symbolic mathematics systems?  If the answer for
>each of these is 1 or 2, then you have your answer.

Nonsense.  Just because most people only use one word processor,
that doesn't mean they all use (or should use) the *same* word
processor.  Having a greater number of programs to choose from
makes it easier to find one that fits *your* needs, not some
hypothetical average user's.


>Who cares if NeXT has N programs that do X, the Mac has 5N, and the IBM
>PC clone has 25N?  All I care about is how good the best 1 or 2 are, 

"Best" is a highly subjective term.  The best word processor for
a screenwriter may not be the best for a scientist or a lawyer 
or a poet or a programmer or a secretary or....