HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: feijai@endor.byu.edu (Sean Luke)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: NeXT OS, TOO SLOW TO $#@#$, etc.
Date: 10 Nov 92 03:06:19 GMT
Article-I.D.: yvax.1992Nov10.100620.1131
Reply-To: sean@digaudio.byu.edu
Distribution: na

In article <1992Nov10.140943.11034@gn.ecn.purdue.edu>  writes:

>The NeXT OS is a hog, even WITHOUT the overhead of Display Postscript.
>Recent tests showed A/UX running on a 25 MHz 040 was SUBSTANTIALLY
>faster than the NeXT OS on a 25 MHz 040.  

Uh-oh, here it comes.

Okay.  Please don't set up straw men like "Recent tests" unless you post  
what those tests were.  It's my experience that Mach is fast, clean, and  
elegant.  Kill the NeXT's window server (the Display PostScript thing) and  
you have a straight UNIX machine.  Although it's possible that A/UX might  
outrun this, I don't think so.  Certainly not "substantially".

One thing that *is* annoying, though:  The NeXT has a broken SCSI driver  
(software, thankfully), resulting in disk throughput significantly lower  
than the hardware can put out.  We're trying to get NeXT to fix this.



>The tests were non-graphical in nature to avoid the Display
>Postscript part of the equation.  I believe that they appeared in
>Byte SEVERAL months ago.

Very odd.  Sounds like Byte has a habit of alternating praises with  
attacks in their (almost monthly now) articles on NeXT.



>Display Postscript is nice, but I don't think that that many people
>really NEED it or even lust after it greatly.

A mouse is nice, but I don't think that many people really NEED it...

:-)



>Besides, there are
>other GUI's whose screen displays are Postscript based.  Why not one
>of them instead of NeXT???

The NeXT sells because of its development environment and GUI, not because  
of DPS.


>Yes, I know NeXT comes with a lot of software, but
>how much are the updates???

The last was $300.  And that included Renderman, the DBKit, AppleShare,  
Mac file system compatibility, and Novell client software in addition to  
all other things NeXT.  How much is MacRenderman going for these days?   
:-)



>How much is it to buy WingZ on the NeXT??
>(It's $190 for the Mac, educationally, $99 when I bought it)  

I'm not sure.  Anyone?



>What if
>there isn't a package in area X for the NeXT???

There are three.


>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???

The NeXT can be programmed in at least three common languages (C, C++,  
Objective-C).  If you only want to use Objective-C for the interface,  
that's fine.  This results in code that's quite easy to port.


--

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: jess@gn.ecn.purdue.edu (Jess M Holle)
Subject: NeXT OS, TOO SLOW TO $#@#$, etc.
Organization: Purdue University Engineering Computer Network
Distribution: na
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 92 14:09:43 GMT

I already posted this once, but it appears that it didn't get through.

The NeXT OS is a hog, even WITHOUT the overhead of Display Postscript.
Recent tests showed A/UX running on a 25 MHz 040 was SUBSTANTIALLY
faster than the NeXT OS on a 25 MHz 040.  Unless you NEED UNIX or run
LOTS of processes simultaneously (and actually need/want to do so,
rather than the "but can it run 30 useless daemons at once?" thing),
the Mac OS is faster than A/UX, so the Mac OS should blow the NeXT OS
away.  The tests were non-graphical in nature to avoid the Display
Postscript part of the equation.  I believe that they appeared in
Byte SEVERAL months ago.

Display Postscript is nice, but I don't think that that many people
really NEED it or even lust after it greatly.  Besides, there are
other GUI's whose screen displays are Postscript based.  Why not one
of them instead of NeXT???  Why any of them with the price of UNIX
software so high?  Yes, I know NeXT comes with a lot of software, but
how much are the updates???  How much is it to buy WingZ on the NeXT??
(It's $190 for the Mac, educationally, $99 when I bought it)  What if 
there isn't a package in area X for the NeXT???

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???????

Jess Holle
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
From: jbailey@world.std.com (james d bailey)
Subject: Re: EGGPLANT, IMPLANT, EMPATH, BLAZEPLANT...
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1992 04:21:30 GMT

philip@utstat.uucp (Philip McDunnough) writes:

>The built in Ethernet needs a special connector which costs almost as much as
>an Amiga's Ethernet card. ZorroIII competes favourably with NuBus. Sound on
>the Amiga is far better than on the Mac. The Amiga multitasks. In many ways
>the Amiga is far better (especially the A4000), and if Jim Drew gets the bugs
>out of the Emplant software then one would be hard pressed to not consider
>the combination.
> 
>The Quadra is nice. It's really meant for A/UX which has never been accepted.
>Might help if Apple started using DMA properly.

Give me a break.  I bet less than 1 out of 50 Quadras run A/UX.  Apple
knows more about marketing than that.  They would never produce a
machine meant for A/UX.

>Philip McDunnough
>philip@utstat.toronto.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: 5 Nov 92 23:38:16 GMT
	<TTN.92Oct29064455@matkijarastas.cs.tut.fi> <mna19jh@rpi.edu>
Organization: Tampere Univ. of Technology, Finland.
NNTP-Posting-Host: sepelrastas.cs.tut.fi
In-reply-to: johnsd2@jec322.its.rpi.edu's message of 30 Oct 92 03:55:28 GMT

In article <mna19jh@rpi.edu> johnsd2@jec322.its.rpi.edu (Daniel Norman Johnson) writes:

   If you are in the background you should NOT call WNE with sleep=0
   because if you do the system WILL bog down. Ive done it,
   it really happens.

I've done it too. And it didn't. It swithced among applications like
there was nothing running in the background.

So I don't still buy this. I haven't had the chance to rty and find out
the exact beahviour had I been runnig several copies of the same
application simulataneously. But I still think the controlling factor is
how often your program will call WNE. If you call it seldom, the system
slows down wether you are in the foreground or in the background. If you
call it often, it won't matter either.

I really don't believe that MacOS would keep a sorted list list of the
sleep times and pick allways the first one that has expired (in an
environment where WNE is called very often with small varying sleep
values that expire quickly). Instead it most likely checks each
aplication every time through the list to see if that process wants to
run. Now if you call WNE with a positive value, say 10 seconds (600
tics) and there are no other applications running, yuy will guerantee
that your program will not continue running until that 10 seconds has
gone. If you call WNE with 0, in your application might not ever release
controll, since it expires immediately at call time and would thus
regain controll at one (if the OS didn't go through the list of
applications first).

I would surely believe, had the sleep value such a priority aspect, it
would have been said so in Inside Mac or some of the Tech Notes. But I
have never seen anythig even suggesting it. Instead the sleeping
behaviour is explained to be quite straight forward with no guarantee of
the accuracy of the wakeup. It would allso agree much better with the
cooperating nature of the MacOS.

Though I must confess that I haven't been following  thigs that closely
since the releasing of sys7, which I hope, will be cinsidered as an
excuse (I don't have a Mac anymore).
-- 
         Tero Nieminen                      DANGER!
         ttn@cs.tut.fi                   Computer Bytes!
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
From: johnsd2@jec317.its.rpi.edu.its1 (Daniel Norman Johnson)
Subject: Re: the NeXT option (Was Re: 7.1 vs. OS/2 a
Reply-To: johnsd2@jec317.its.rpi.edu.its1
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Date: Sun, 8 Nov 1992 18:18:48 GMT

In article 16174@cubetech.com, andrew@cubetech.com (Andrew Loewenstern) writes:
> In article <jak1=sl@rpi.edu> johnsd2@rpi.edu writes:
> >In article <1992Nov6.121308.4320@cubetech.com>, andrew@cubetech.com (Andrew Loewenstern) writes:
> >|> NO!  Excuse me from using the term thread.  I am used to using threads
> >|> on Mach.  On Mach, everything is a thread, and threads are grouped
> >|> into processes (where they share the same address space among other
> >|> things), and they are the base unit of the task scheduler.  They are
> >|> all premptively scheduled.  The situation which you describe is SunOS
> >|> (?)  where each task is scheduled, and the threads (a.k.a. lightweight
> >|> processes on SunOS) co-operatively schedule themselves within the
> >|> task's time-slice. This is not the same situation to which I am
> >|> referring.  Therefore I will stop using the term threads.
> >
> >So on SOME systems threads a co-operatively multitasked within a processes,
> >but in others they are just processes (but they share memory spaces
> >with other processes)
> 
> No, they are different from processes with shared memory.  They are
> threads.  They are basically multiple paths of execution within the
> same process.  Since you must be executing something in a process, all
> processes have at least one thread of execution.

I don't see what the difference is.

[deletia- example of cthread_yield()]
>
> >It looks like in this case cthread_yield will make this loop
> >switch out much, much more often than it otherwise would have. Why
> >is this necessary? The thread should be pre-empted during the loop,
> >regardless of what its doing, right?
> 
> Yes, but a time-slice is usually pretty big.  That assuming
> check_something() was always false, that would be a really tight loop
> and would loop several hundred if not thousands of times before it was
> switched out.  In this case you don't need it to do that, so on every
> loop it asks to be switched out early.  It also burns a LOT more CPU
> as the scheduler gives more resources to it.
> 
> I don't use yield functions very often at all, they are just there if
> you want them.  You don't have to use them.

I see, so this just makes it switch out earlier than it normally would,
so that other tasks get more time. Sounds a bit like lowering
ones priority, but a little "smarter"; it doesn't take effect if
the checker returns true.

Dat about right?

---
			- 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,comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
From: ewright@convex.com (Edward V. Wright)
Subject: Re: NeXT OS, TOO SLOW TO $#@#$, etc.
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 20:15:08 GMT
Distribution: na
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 <1992Nov11.154001.1141@yvax.byu.edu> feijai@endor.byu.edu (Sean Luke) writes:

>WriteNow for the NeXT is made and marketed by AppSoft, which is not owned  
>by Steve Jobs.

Rewrite history how you will.

WriteNow was contracted for by Apple, which wanted a second source 
for a word processor in case it ran into trouble developing MacWrite.  
Steve Jobs picked up the rights to it after he left Apple; he set up
a small software company and developed it as WriteNow.  Sales from
the Mac version of this product helped provide cash before NeXT sold 
its first machine.  It is not "made and marketed by AppSoft."  In fact, 
AppSoft only markets it on the NeXT (on whatever terms were Jobs negotiated).  
It is marketed on the Mac by T/Maker.
From: killjoy@fubar.sgi.com (Steve Jobless)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: System 7.1 Upgrade ($35 for each CPU)
Date: 8 Nov 92 14:48:34 GMT
Organization: The HIgh order of the Monkey dung.

Why should we pay for their bugs, they(apple:AKA Cupertino Fruit Company)
assured that 7.0 was rock solid.....HA! Pay for system software indeed!!

All I have to say is........ftp......ftp.apple.com


nuff said

The Scarlet Pumpernicle 
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
From: bcoleman@hayes.com (Bill Coleman)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: Macintosh advocacy (really!)
Date: 12 Nov 92 18:33:38 EDT
Organization: Hayes Microcomputer Products, Norcross, GA

In article <1992Nov9.132256.1127@yvax.byu.edu>, feijai@endor.byu.edu (Sean Luke) writes:
> 
> Since Apple does non-expanding scroll bars, that Apple would find the  
> expanding type "non-intuitive" is not what I'd call "good science" :-)

Perhaps Apple did their testing BEFORE they released their scroll bars.

Or it could be that Apple wanted to know the truth. Are these proportional
scroll bars more intuitive? How would *YOU* find out? Would you ask a bunch
of technophiles in a survey? Heck no.

You'd test users. Especially users who's brains don't necessarily think
like a computer.

You'd come up with the same results.

> IMHO, expanding scroll bars make more sense.  Apple should use them.

Your opinion doesn't count. Unbiased research and testing does.

Since Apple could easily use proportional scroll bars merely by including
a new CDEF and a couple of toolbox calls, it doesn't necessarily follow
that Apple wouldn't use them.

*IF* they made sense. They don't.

-- 
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,comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
From: bcoleman@hayes.com (Bill Coleman)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: EGGPLANT, IMPLANT, EMPATH, BLAZEPLANT...
Date: 12 Nov 92 18:44:16 EDT
Organization: Hayes Microcomputer Products, Norcross, GA

In article <1992Nov11.211714.1837@dartvax.dartmouth.edu>, abs0@coos.dartmouth.edu (Kelvin Leung) writes:
> torrie@cs.stanford.edu (Evan Torrie) writes:
>>dtiberio@csws20.ic.sunysb.edu (David Tiberio) writes:
> 
>>>	FULL MACINTOSH QUADRA SYSTEMS FOR UNDER $4,000.
>>  Hmmm.  Look at my price list
>>M5921LL/A Macintosh Quadra 700 4MB RAM             $3227.00
>>Been there, done that.
> 
> Monitor, keyboard, harddisk?? where's the *FULL* system?? ;)

Give 'em an inch, and they'll take a mile!

<grin>

-- 
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: spagiola@frinext.stanford.edu (Stefano Pagiola)
Subject: Re: Macintosh advocacy (really!)
Reply-To: spagiola@frinext.stanford.edu
Organization: DSO, Stanford University
Date: Thu, 5 Nov 92 03:36:06 GMT

Bill Coleman writes
>> 8. The Amiga's autosizing scroll bars are much nicer and
>> more intuitive to use than the Mac's thumbnail scroll bars.
>> I can never tell how much of the document I am viewing or
>> exactly where in the document I'm at with the Mac scroll bars.
> 
> Apple studied the use of proportional scroll bars. They
> found that they were NOT intuitive. They confused users.
> They did this through expensive user testing, not some survey
> of technogeeks.
> 

Its good of Apple to tell me what's intuitive to me.  For a while  
there I was deluding myself that the proportional scroll bars on my  
NeXT were very intuitive.  I stand corrected.


> > 5. SW doesn't break every time the OS gets upgraded. 
> 
> Same on the Mac. My software didn't break when the OS got
> upgraded. Indeed, the SECOND version of Smartcom II that
> ever shipped (summer of '85) works under System 7.
> 

On my NeXT, not only does (most*) softare not break after an oS  
upgrade, most of the software gets upgraded right along with the OS,  
thanks to object orientation and shared libraries.

(* be honest now - _nothing_ broke going to Sys 7?)

--
-
Stefano Pagiola
Food Research Institute, Stanford University
spagiola@frinext.stanford.edu (NeXTMail encouraged)
spagiola@FRI-nxt-Pagiola.stanford.edu (NeXTMail encouraged)
From: ibhan@husc8.harvard.edu (Ishir Bhan)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: specifically comparing NeXT with Mac...
Date: 10 Nov 92 19:00:58 GMT
Article-I.D.: husc3.1992Nov10.140059.17302
Organization: Harvard University Science Center

>
>Nononononono! The ONLY Mac equivilant to the NeXTstation Turbo Color
>would be a Quadra 950.
>These are the latest (Canadian) edu prices for both systems:
>Quadra 950, 8MB RAM, No HD, 1 floppy drive      $6 514
>Keyboard                                        $  233
>Monitor and VRAM (your prices -> Canadian)      $1 300
>(Please tell me where I can get a 17" Colour 
>
>monitor and 16MB or RAM for $1100!!!)
>(Also: Isn't it necessary to add a display
>card to get 24bit colour for a Quadra? If not
>please correct me.. I havn't used it in these
>prices, though)
>200MB Hard Drive                                $  500
>Total						$8 547

Give me a break.  Since when does the NeXTStation Color have 5 NuBus
slots?  PDS slots?  Who cares what I use them for?  That's irrelevant.  If
you pay for them, then you cannot make a comparison.  I've seen an
accelerator that will tkae the Q700 up to 33 mhz for around $500.  The Mac
is STILL cheaper.  Sure, you don't get the DSP, but you get a more
flexible video system (multiple monitors, etc.).  There are many uses for
sltos.  Accelerators is one.  Special network boards (the Quadra has built
in Ethernet, like the NeXT).  Data Aquisition boards (how many are there
for the NeXT)?  PowerPC upgrades?  Future expansion?  The NeXTStation
Turbo may run at the same speed as the Quadra 950, but you can make no
direct comparison between the two in terms of price when one includes lots
of expansion and the other - well - very little.

>As for having the expansion slots on the Quadra, what (realistically)  
>are you going to use them for? A faster colour card? A nice sound  
>card?(CD-quality stereo perhaps) How about a DSP? ;-)

How many people need DSP?  How about expansion for another monitor?  How
about a QuickTime accelerator.  How about compression boards?  How about
video input from video cameras?  How about VideoVision?  Accelerators?

-- 
             --      Ishir Bhan (ibhan@husc.harvard.edu)      --
From: tzs@carson.u.washington.edu (Tim Smith)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: the NeXT option (Was Re: 7.1 vs. OS/2 and Windows NT)
Date: 5 Nov 92 09:05:30 GMT
Article-I.D.: u.1992Nov5.090530.8592
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle

In article <1992Nov4.044023.819@cubetech.com> andrew@cubetech.com writes:
>The poster is not really correct on what sleep is for.  Sleep causes
>the process to be inactive for a specified amount of time.  You use it

You misunderstood.  I was talking about the Unix kernel routine named
sleep, *NOT* the Unix system call named sleep.

The kernel routine takes two arguments.  The first is an arbitrary
number, and the second is a priority.  When kernel code makes this
call, the running process is placed on the sleep queue and the CPU
is given to the next runable process.

The process will become runable again when either someone calls
wakeup with the same arbitrary number that was used as the first
argument to sleep, or when the process is given a signal (unless
the priority is higher than a special value, in which case signals
will not make the process runable).

--Tim Smith
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: specifically comparing NeXT with Mac...
From: feijai@endor.byu.edu (Sean Luke)
Date: 9 Nov 92 13:17:36 -0700
Reply-To: sean@digaudio.byu.edu

In article <1992Nov9.025701.12333@pellns.alleg.edu>  writes:
>I use the NeXT here at Allegheny College and have a Macintosh IIcx in my  
>room.  First, I have not seen a word processor as good as MS Word 5.1 for  
>the Mac on any of the NeXT machines.  


Sad but true.  NeXT is a workstation at heart...and workstations are  
famous for having great *specialized* software--but no good word processor  
:).  Nissus, where are you?


>Another shortcoming regarding the NeXT is the lack of manufacturers that  
>make any perhiperals.  Laser printers, scanners, modems, _monitors_, and  
>alternitave hardware in general.  Again I am not looking to have three  
>modems. I am looking for a choice.


Laser printers:	The NeXT works with most any serial PostScript printer.
Scanners:	NeXT is building up a nice line of scanners.
Modems:		NeXTs work with a wide range of modems and fax modems.

Monitors:	This is where it hurts.  NeXTs won't work with but a 
		small subset of expensive monitors.  Hopefully, NS/486
		should cure low-quality modem envy.  :)  NS/486 gives
		support even for 640x480.



>With regard to the posts regarding prices, how many people need a Quadra  
>950?!?  Why not a IIvx?  NeXT has a very limited hardware line, where  
>Apple's overlaps its own products.


Indeed.  But NeXTs are not marketed to, say, the LC crowd.


>Besides on the NeXT Station Turbos over in Quigley Hall(The  
>Econ. department on our campus) the info panel shows that the machine 
>runs at 30mhz.  Apple has 030s that run faster than that! Convincing 
>me to buy a NeXT would be very hard work! 


And I suppose a Classic beefed up to 60 MHz would be faster than a Quadra.   
:) :)

Seriously, though, this is really a problem of power vs. speed.  There are  
tradeoffs everywhere.  NeXT realises, as most manufacturers do, that in  
the long run, the speed of the machine is less significant a factor than  
what it can do (i.e., it's "power").  This is because hardware speed grows  
at an exponential rate, whereas software capability grows at a linear rate  
(IMHO).

Nonetheless, NeXT needs to do one of a few things:

1)  NeXT needs to target *only* high-end stuff, with powerful machines  
able to support their software base.

OR 2) NeXT needs to strip their software down to where it can be managed  
by smaller machines (the Performa strategy).

But NeXT MUST lower prices at any rate, to remain competitive.  Perhaps  
NeXT has realised that it can't make money playing the software price  
game, but *can* make money in software.  Hence NS/486.  Could we be  
looking at the last generation of NeXT hardware?

Hope not.  Black is cool.  :-)

--

Sean Luke
Brigham Young University                   MILK:  It Comes From Cows
sean@digaudio.byu.edu  
NeXTmail and nifty Mac stuff welcome