From: gad@eclipse.its.rpi.edu (Garance A. Drosehn)
Subject: Re: Why Macs are better (and the others aren't) (long)
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 22:39:58 GMT

coolidge@sirius.aux.apple.com (John L. Coolidge) writes:
> feijai@endor.byu.edu (Sean Luke) writes:
> >John, I don't know who you talked about at your university's computer  
> >store, but they clearly didn't know what they were talking about.
> >Just so everybody at c.s.m.a knows, All NeXTS come with NeXTSTEP
> >for free.  PERIOD.
> 
> This may be true. It _does_not_ deny that I had not one but three
> salescritters, _and_ the printed price sheet, disagree with you.

Pardon me for jumping in here.  If I understand what you are saying, then  
the three sales critters and whoever wrote up the printed price sheet at  
that store should be fired.  I can't help but think there is some  
misunderstanding going on here, because the statement you seem to be saying  
is unquestionably false.

> >What the bookstore said is something like saying that when you buy
> >a new Mac, you have to get the Mac ROMs seperately.  It's BALONEY.
> >Please don't continue to spread it.
> 
> I'll continue to spread it, because it's the truth. You may wish it
> weren't so, but there are (apparently unscrupulous) people out there
> who at least claim that you have to buy NeXTStep separately. What use
> a NeXT is without an OS, I dunno. But then you have to buy SunOS too,
> so it didn't seem all that farfetched.

Please don't spread it.  It is not true.  The fact that there are  
(apparently) unscrupulous people out there saying it is true, does not make  
it true.

I work with the ITS Product center here at RPI.  We sell Macs, NeXTs, Suns,  
IBM PC's, and some PC clones of one type or another.  All I personally care  
about are the Macs and NeXTs.  I own one of each.  I have two Macs and two  
NeXTs in my office.  I like both platforms.

I just finished the latest revision to the NeXT price sheet.  This means I  
read the price sheets that NeXT mails to the store, and I reorganize that  
(which has on it the prices NeXT charges the store) into the price sheet we  
give to students, staff and faculty.

If you buy a NeXT system, which is to say the CPU part of the system (sans  
monitors, keyboards, printers, mouse, etc), you will get all of NeXTSTEP 3.0  
with that system.  You can not buy a CPU without getting the rights to  
everything in the current system release.  Besides having it installed on  
the hard disk, you will receive a CD-ROM disc with the entire system  
software release on it.  Everything.  Complete.  Multiple copies of some  
stuff, in fact.

And, on the flip side, you can not buy NeXTSTEP as a separate product from  
NeXT (not unless you're IBM and have millions of dollars to spend... :-).   
Thus, when you see our pretty price sheet, the reason it does not list  
NeXTSTEP as a separate product is because it does not exist as a separate  
product.  It is not because we (the store) decide to bundle in the NeXTSTEP  
product with the hardware that we are selling.

What you *can* buy is upgrades.  People who bought a NeXT a year ago  
received NeXTSTEP release 2.1 on it.  They received all of Release 2.1.   
They did not buy a machine and then buy various pieces of Release 2.1 as a  
separate products.  However, all they did receive was 2.1.  They do not have  
free upgrades to Release 3.0 (as opposed to Apple's historical free  
distribution of new system releases).  If an owner of one of these older  
NeXT's wants to run Release 3.0, they have to buy the upgrade to 3.0.

Now, admittedly, what that amounts to is Release 3.0 on a CD-ROM.  All of  
Release 3.0, you don't need to have any pieces of an earlier Release around  
in order to install 3.0 from this disc.  You could install it on an empty  
hard disk (and I have, in fact...).  In some sense, it's probably accurate  
to call this a "Release 3.0 product".  You walk in, pay $295 (list price),  
and you walk away with a CD-ROM that has all of Release 3.0 on it.

However, that CD-ROM disc isn't going to give you a whole lot if you run it  
on a machine which is not a NeXT.  And if you do run it on a NeXT, then  
you've already been licensed for some version of NeXTSTEP.  Thus, to you it  
is just a system upgrade, even though it contains all of NeXTSTEP 3.0 on it.

Things will also get a bit more complicated once we start talking about  
NeXTSTEP 486.  When that is released, it will be a separate software  
product, because NeXT has no plans to sell any 486-based hardware of it's  
own.  So, once that is out, then there *will* be a NeXTSTEP product -- two  
of them in fact.  The "plain release" system, and the "extended release"  
version.  The second one will be considerably more expensive than the first  
(and the prices are being debated furiously in cs.next.advocacy :-).

Disclaimer:
I know I've seen postings from John before, and he's always seemed like a  
reasonable and accurate guy to me.  I'm sure this is just some  
misunderstanding on his part (or, more likely, on the part of the store he  
was at).  If this article (mine) sounds a bit crisp or condescending, it's  
because I was up all night last night working on this *very same* NeXT price  
list.  I've had a total of 2 hours sleep since Monday morning, due to a  
variety of unexpected events and dumb moves on my part.  My ability to write  
clear, concise articles has fallen asleep by now...

I even have a NeXTmail/NewsGrazer "people tiff" for John here somewhere, but  
it looks like he's changed his email address so it's not showing up for me  
in NewsGrazer right now.  If I *really* wanted to start a flame war, I could  
always post a rich-text article of his icon in a Mac news group...   :-)

Disclaimer #2:
I don't follow cs.mac.advocacy all that closely.  If I don't respond to  
followups to this article, it's probably because I'm not seeing them.

John also wrote:
> What I'm arguing with is the notion that you _cannot_ run lots of apps
> in total harmony _unless_ you have preemptive multitasking. It isn't
> true. It's never been true. It will never be true.

I pretty much agree with this.  I don't intend to fritter away time debating  
it with the preemptive multitasking fanatics though.

If I don't respond to any followups to the above paragraph, it's because I  
think it's a stupid issue that's been beaten to death too many times  
already, and I've got better things to do with my life than argue it all  
over again.  Such things as playing solitaire until dawn, with a deck of 51,  
would be more interesting to me than yet another rehash of this issue.

And I do prefer preemptive multitasking systems, as I have worked on them  
(and I mean, *on* the system software itself) for over 15 years.  Please  
don't anyone send me messages trying to "explain" preemptive multitasking to  
me.  I know what it is.

--
Garance Alistair Drosehn     =     gad@eclipse.its.rpi.edu
ITS Systems Programmer            (handles NeXT-type mail)
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute;           Troy NY    USA
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy