Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
Subject: Re: 100 Mips Intel NeXT (moved from comp.sys.next.misc)READ/NEW
From: athomson@otago.ac.nz (Alastair Thomson)
Date: 22 Dec 92 09:31:15 +1300
 <BzD5I6.GG@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> <1992Dec17.225633.135279@lexmark.com>
Organization: University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand

In article <1992Dec17.225633.135279@lexmark.com>, songer@lexmark.com (Christopher Songer) writes:
> Gee, What a shame it is going to cost $500 more than NT and $800 more
> than OS/2. Also note the rumors of a GDI printer data stream in the
> works from Microsoft and HP. NeXT may not be the only company with
> a consistent imaging model soon, and while PS is cool there is some question
> as to the need for looping constructs, etc in a page descirption language.
> After all, what's the first thing to do to improve performance? Get your
> stuff out of PS and into C.

Anyone who has done professional typesetting and design can understand the
need for looping etc. in PostScript. The other huge advantage of PS is that it
is here now, on anything from 300 dpi laser printers, to 300 dpi colour
printers to 3600 dpi image setters. No matter how hard MS and HP try, they are
not going to convince companies like Agfa and Linotronic to change to GDI.
 
> Sure, you can whip an app together faster on the Next than on anything
> else but that's about it. C'est La'Vie. Next was great when I was in
> college -- playing around and doing custom code for simulations / class
> projects etc. Now that I'm out though, Sun is better for the development
> work I do due to the speed and a PC is better for the "project management"
> work I do due to the plethora of software available.

The point about NeXTstep for the corporate user is that they don't have the
shrink wrapped apps they need. They want software designed for their special
needs, usually a good UI for a database engine. This is exactly the reason the
Swiss banking industry uses NeXT. Many Swiss banks have replaced their Suns
with NeXT simply because they can produce their specialist tools faster and
better. In this case the raw speed if the NeXT is less important, as the
database server is usually running on something else. This is why Data General
have connected with NeXT, run Oracle on a DG Aviion, develop UI on a NeXT,
sounds great to me. 

> 
> NS486 needs to be cheap to get lots of developers on the Next platform 
> otherwise Next is in serious trouble.
> 

NeXT are developing their markert further by allowing corporates to
use white hardware as well as black. The price is high for an individual user or
company, but the cost effectiveness of NS for a corporate is huge.


> PS: I suppose I'm just peeved at Next for having such a good product which
> due to lack of speed, high cost, slow hardware and low volumes is 
> practically unusable for anything outside custom development.

Believe me I understand what I mean, but bitching about it won't do much good.
Tell people about NS, the more people who really see the advantages, the more
likely we will see a port to some really good hardware (Alpha, PA-RISC) 8-)

Alastair

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Alastair Thomson,                   | Phone +64-3-479-8347
University of Otago,                | Fax   +64-3-479-8529
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Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy