HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: nathan@laplace.csb.yale.edu (Nathan F. Janette)
Subject: Re: Sun and DSP: Some people don't get it
Reply-To: nathan@laplace.csb.yale.edu (Nathan F. Janette)
Organization: Yale University, Department of Computer Science, New Haven, CT
Distribution: na
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 03:59:45 GMT

In article <ANDERSON.93Jan25160837@sapir.cog.jhu.edu>  
anderson@sapir.cog.jhu.edu (Stephen Anderson) writes:
> 
> I can't believe I'm in the position of sympathizing with a defense of
> Sun, but I found Kim Wallen's post troublingly persuasive. And I think
> Nathan's rejection of his argument is out of line (in tone, as well as
> in substance, but that's something else). For one thing,

Thanks for contributing that personal slander, Stephen. 
Good argument style.  There was nothing "troubling" about
my tone, I even said "please" in the conclusion, thank you
very much.

My point was that Kim appeared to be cheerfully repeating
Sun anti-NeXT propaganda that has long been refuted.  The
generic inference that NeXT has problems with
connectivity in a heterogeneous computing environment is a
tired mis-truth.

However, Kim has correctly followed up by pointing out that
one significant problem (for some users) remains: you can
run X on the NeXT, but you can't run NeXTstep apps on other
machines.  Perhaps the porting of NeXTstep to every capable
platform on the planet will solve that little problem... 

> 	NFJ> Since those nasty 3rd party apps work just great, your
> 	NFJ> conclusion is erroneous.  NeXT requires no such
> 	NFJ> "commitment".
> 
> I presume you're referring to co-Xist, eXodus, etc. Well, at least as
> far as co-Xist is concerned, it does indeed work just great - as long
> as you don't have NeXT's "top of the line" system, a ND. If you do,
> you're screwed,

Well, you're screwed with an ND period, no argument there,
but ND systems are a tiny minority of installed NeXTs.   I'm
not saying it's correct for NeXT to have so totally hosed
over the suckers - errrr - customers that forked up zillions
of dollars for ND NeXTcubes, but the vast majority of NeXTs
work fine with 3rd party X products.   

--
Nathan Janette
PPP link from hilbert.csb.yale.edu

Please reply to: nathan@laplace.csb.yale.edu (NeXT)
From: kim@unix.cc.emory.edu (Kim Wallen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
Subject: Sun and DSP: Some people don't get it
Date: 25 Jan 1993 15:34:17 GMT
Organization: Department of Psychology
Distribution: na
Reply-To: kim@unix.cc.emory.edu
NNTP-Posting-Host: wallen.psy.emory.edu

The recent excitement over DSP on Sun and the irritation that Sun
didn't include NeXT as a major Unix player (maybe $140m in sales
qualifies, maybe it doesn't, but Sun sure seems to like to get the
goat of NeXT users, doesn't it) misses the point of the announcement
by a long shot.

Instead of another example of NeXT leading the technology it is
another example of Sun's flexibility and concern with  customer
standards.  Sun had NeWS before DSP (it was based upon the
Adobe redbook) and used it instead of both DSP and X11 (which
was too undeveloped for production work).  So Sun was out ahead
of everyone initially.  What happened?  The market decided on X11
instead of NeWS.  What did Sun do?  It merged NeWS with X11.
Now the market has decided that DSP is the best way to go.  What does
Sun do?  It moves to DSP.  With the advent of X11R5 Sun will be moving
to X11 and DSP completely.

What is NeXT's response to the changing market.  It used DSP from
the start (good idea), but still thinks X11 is brain-dead and leaves that
up to 3rd parties to develop X11 compatability.  So the net effect is
that NeXT requires users to completely commit to a NeXT environment
(good from NeXT's viewpoint), whereas Sun's approach doesn't lock
the user (or the developer) into one vendor.

NeXTStep may be the best thing since sliced bread, but it is  a 
NeXT-only product.  NeWS had many advantages over X11, but the
market didn't buy it.  Sun changes with the times, but NeXT will
continue to try to force the user to change to them.  Time will tell,
but I prefer a company that allows me to integrate my system into
the larger world and not be dependent just on them.


Kim

 ----------------------------------------------------------
| Kim Wallen                        Internet: kim@unix.cc.emory.edu 
| Department of Psychology          Bitnet: kim@emoryu1             
| Emory University                                                  
| Atlanta, GA 30322                                                 
|                                                                   
| Phone: (404) 727-4125             FAX: (404) 727-0372             
 ------------------------------------------------------


Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: anderson@macc.wisc.edu (Jess Anderson)
Subject: Re: Sighting in Digital News & Reviews 1/18/93
Organization: Madison Academic Computing Center, UW-Madison
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 93 14:03:39 GMT

In article <1993Jan20.211440.24478@cs.wisc.edu>
bestor@cs.wisc.edu (Gareth S.  Bestor) writes:

>From the article "Appraising Unix on the PC"
>(reprinted w/o permission, oh bugger)

>"Basile does think that NextStep 486 will
>appeal to application developers because of its object-orientated
>programming environment."

"Object-orientated?"  Hmph.  The poor language, what a
beating it takes!

>"A University should be a place of light, of liberty, and
> of learning." - Disraeli (House of Commons, 1873)

Up to about 1980, the University of Wisconsin met this ideal
quite well.  Since then, alas ...

-- 
[Jess Anderson <> Madison Academic Computing Center <> University of Wisconsin]
[Internet: anderson@macc.wisc.edu <-best, UUCP:{}!uwvax!macc.wisc.edu!anderson]
[Room 3130 <> 1210 West Dayton Street / Madison WI 53706 <> Phone 608/262-5888]
[---------> Discrimination, Bigotry, and Hate are not Family Values <---------]
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 10:16:21 -0500 
From: "Joseph C. Lappa" <jl8p+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Jan 25 Announcement from Next???


Hi,  

   I called up NeXT yesterday asking about what kind of platform I would
need for NS486 and I was told that if I wait till the 25th, my answers
would be officially answered.  Does this mean that NS486 will be
officially released to the public?



Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: abell@netcom.com (Steven T. Abell)
Subject: Re: A CPU on Every Desk?
Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest)
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 08:00:19 GMT

scott@nic.gac.edu (Scott Hess) writes:
>abell@netcom.com (Steven T. Abell) writes:
>>Oh, how short people's memories are!

>Don't speak so quickly ...

>>One of the biggest drawbacks of centralized service is not technical,
>>but political. It is a *real* drag to have to rely upon the guys
>>down the hall or over in the other building who support the CPUs
>>and disk drives.

>This is one of those horrid generalizations that I keep running
>across and trying to shoot down.  Just because a computer is on
>someone's desk doesn't mean it doesn't need support.  Someone has
>to install the operating system.  Someone has to install the new
>memory/disk/printer and all of the software to support it.  Someone
>has to install the word processors, spreadsheets, and other programs
>for the user to be able to get work done.  Someone has to install
>upgrades for each of these programs.  Someone has to be around to
>figure out what's gone wrong when the screen goes fuschia.  Someone
>has to run cable and connect the machine to a LAN.  Someone has to
>run and support that LAN.  Someone has to make certain that the
>desktop PCs can use the LAN effectively.

Yup. There's a lot of work in running a distributed system. Anybody's a
fool to believe the "It's all just so easy" advertising hype about them,
just as anybody's a fool to think that a centrally-managed system will
make all their problems go away. If your department uses a distributed
system, you had damn well better budget time and money to run it.

>>Distributed systems are certainly inefficient in some ways (so is
>>a market economy), but flexibility is a tremendous advantage that
>>outweighs these inefficiencies.

>Which flexibility can only be harnessed if there is a centralized
>group that understands how the pieces fit together.

But that's just the lesson of distributed systems: you *can't* harness them
and expect them to work. You *can* understand how they tend to work and
try to go with the flow.

I would put your statement in a weaker form: it helps to know your neighbors,
and to try to work with them whenever possible. It's simply in your best
interests to do so. It's *not* in your best interests to surrender your
autonomy.

>>Central systems are the ever-so-efficient Soviet Union.
>>Distributed systems are inefficient America.
>>Take your pick.

>Yes, and you can only have one.

>NOT!

>There are some things that centralized systems do very well.  There
>are other things that distributed systems do well.  Thinking that
>you can live on just one side of the equation means that you'd
>better be prepared to put a lot of work into emulating the other
>side ...

Agreed. My posting was overstated. But going back to the kinds of systems
proposed in the original postings in this thread would *not* be a good idea.
Central services have to be justified by more than a marginal difference in
capital costs. Timesharing a Cray is a good example of a viable central
service.

Steve abell@netcom.com
From: samurai@cs.mcgill.ca (Darcy BROCKBANK)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
Subject: Re: NS486 delay speculation is kind of silly!
Date: 21 Jan 93 14:02:05 GMT
Organization: SOCS - Mcgill University, Montreal, Canada

In article <1993Jan20.200853.12832@seer.demon.co.uk> paul@seer.demon.co.uk (Paul Lynch) writes:
>Now the question is, how is NS3.1 being developed? (I find the "device  
>drivers" excuse a little strained, as well as Scott).

Answer: Very carefully

And: I find Scott strained too. ;^) (Just kidding, Scott)

- db

>
>Paul
>-- 
>Paul Lynch
>P & L Systems                   (NeXTmail) paul@seer.demon.co.uk
>Tel: (0494)671501                      paull@cix.compulink.co.uk
>Fax: (0494)680228                       76711.451@compuserve.com
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: yf5990@u.cc.utah.edu (Yan Fang/Humanities)
Subject: Re: PA RISC or Power PC?
Keywords: NeXT on a Sparc clone
Organization: University of Utah Computer Center Student Mail Machine
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 93 00:36:45 GMT

In article <1k56b2INNjki@tamsun.tamu.edu> daugher@cs.tamu.edu writes:
>In article <C124My.97y@world.std.com> kaya@world.std.com (Kaya Bekiroglu)  
>writes:
>| In an effort to direct the subject from that *other* thread,
>| what's up with NeXT RISC hardware?
>| 
>| First it was the Moto 88110, it's a nice chip, but unfortunately
>| dead.  Then I heard that HP architecture would be coming into play.
>| 
>| But, since they're now talking about liscensing NeXTSTEP to HP,
>| PA RISC for NeXT's own hardware seems counterproductive.
>| 
>| So NeXT is going with PowerPC?  Is this chip line better than the
>| 88k?  I got the impression that it isn't, but I could be wrong.
>| 
>| NeXT thing you know, NeXT will be talking with CompuAdd to get
>| a SPARC clone.
>| 
>| -- 
>| Kaya Bekiroglu
>| kaya@world.std.com
>| [If you're looking for something witty and amusing here, then
>| congratulations, you've just found it]
>
>Actually that's not a bad idea, given the fear and loathing between NeXT and  
>Sun proper :-).
>--
>Walter C. Daugherity			Internet, NeXTmail: daugher@cs.tamu.edu
>Texas A & M University			uucp: uunet!cs.tamu.edu!daugher
>College Station, TX 77843-3112		BITNET: DAUGHER@TAMVENUS
>	---Not an official document of Texas A&M---

Our local Axil rep thinks that that fear and loathing could be another avenue
for Axil to compete with Sun and further differentiate their product line.
Every time he comes to visit my VAR he spends his working hours typing
reports on the NeXTstation Turbo Color sitting by my desk; the
SPARC-10 clone sits in the back, unused, gathering dust.


-- 
Yan Fang-Magnusson
Ph.D. candidate, philosophy, University of Utah
yf5990@u.cc.utah.edu
yanfang@cc.utah.edu (NeXTmail)
From: ijeff@hank.carleton.ca (Ian Jefferson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
Subject: Re: An idea for improving NeXT performance
Keywords: performance cpu processors
Date: 24 Jan 93 18:03:14 GMT
Article-I.D.: cunews.ijeff.727898594
Organization: Carleton University

Yes Yes! but make it more general Purpose than that.  I think that thread
level or even process level multiprocessing is usefull on a desktop
machine.  

I have limited understanding of multiprocessing but I beleive that this
kind of strategy was employed by Apollo on the DN10000 some years ago. 
In that case the compiler could split tasks off on a procedure by
procedure basis.  The OS scheduler would then assign these light weight
tasks on a who-is-least-loaded sort of way.

There must be some folks out there with further insight on
multiprocessing on a NeXT.  Isn't mach supposed to do this sort of
thread level MP?  Comments?



-- 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ian Jefferson 	ijeff@ccs.carleton.ca No NeXT mail please!
		ijeff@computeractive.on.ca NeXT mail please!
From: alex@cs.umd.edu (Alex Blakemore)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
Subject: Re: A CPU on Every Desk?
Date: 26 Jan 93 02:17:17 GMT
Organization: U of Maryland, Dept. of Computer Science, Coll. Pk., MD 20742

In article <1993Jan25.181229.9911@adobe.com> byer@adobe.com (Scott Byer) writes:
> there are situations in which X terminals make sense.
> A situation where business people and their assistants need only
> centralized database access, for example.
> Given this, does it still make sense to have a NeXT terminal?

> The X terminal market is extremely price-competitive, with low
> margins and high volume.  I'm just not sure that it would be worth
> NeXT's time to try and enter into such a marginal business.

but isnt this exactly one of the benefits of NS486?
Intel PCs are cheap, esp in volume and promise to keep getter
cheaper and more powerful.

486 machines running NeXTSTEP can serve as NeXT terminals and allow NeXTSTEP
to be used for applications where it previously was not cost competetive.
I cant see why NeXT or anyone else need build special terminals for this,
when a 486 with a small disk, no DSP, no extended release software could be
used en masse.

-- 
---------------------------------------------------
Alex Blakemore alex@cs.umd.edu   NeXT mail accepted
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: henry@trilithon.mpk.ca.us (Henry McGilton)
Subject: Re: Gosip in 1993(The Public Trial of Appsoft Draw - be on the Jury)
Organization: Trilithon Software
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 21:34:52 GMT

In article <C18K3K.25F@appsoft.com> randy@appsoft.com(Randy Adams) writes:
    *  In article <1993Jan22.012356.12057@wam.umd.edu> gaia@wam.umd.edu
    *  (L. Anathea Brooks) writes:
        **  The thing was that tools would NOT stay selected,
        **  which alone rendered the darn thing an enormous
        **  pain to use. It was "unusable" according to my
        **  definition (if I can't use an app to do what the
        **  app exists purportedly to do, it's not usable).

    *  Not to fan the flames, but Draw was modelled after MacDraw
    *  where the tools NEVER stay selected.  Millions of Mac users
    *  found that program "usable".

An anecdote is in order I think.  Back in the bad old days at Sun I
worked on SunDraw (and SunWrite and SunPaint).  We obtained
the engine of SunDraw from Island Graphics (which is why it's now
IslandDraw).  In SunDraw, the tools stayed selected -- you did
boxes until you wanted to do ovals, and so on.  People hated this
interface!

But wait, there's more.  The most common cry was ``make it work
like MacDraw!''.  So I did.  I made SunDraw work just like MacDraw.
And people hated the interface, INCLUDING the MacDraw-o-philes.
At this point I conducted a very quick and dirty informal survey
and discovered that about a quarter of the MacDraw proponents had
never used MacDraw.

We eventually settled on a compromise (I hate compromises) to have
a facility (similar to FrameMaker) to lock the current tool in place.

        ........  Henry
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: gaia@wam.umd.edu (L. Anathea Brooks)
Subject: Re: Draw=MacDraw (I apologize)
Organization: University of Maryland, College Park
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 17:35:58 GMT

I humbly apologize for my error in comparing Appsoft Draw to Mac
Paint and Write. Will let dead dogs lie... ; - )

Brooks


Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: peer@ccrma.stanford.edu (Peer Landa)
Subject: Re: Gosip in 1993(The Public Trial of Appsoft Draw - be on the Jury)
Organization: DSO, Stanford University
Date: Sat, 23 Jan 93 00:17:04 GMT


L. Anathea Brooks) writes:
The thing was that tools would NOT stay selected, which alone rendered the darn  
thing an enormous pain to use. It was "unusable" according to my definition (if  
I can't use an app to do what the app exists purportedly to do, it's not  
usable).

Randy Adams writes
Not to fan the flames, but Draw was modelled after MacDraw where the tools  
NEVER stay selected.  Millions of Mac users found that program "usable".  Flame  
me please so I can toast these marshmallows...

Marshmallow Flame Man . . you can indeed select the tools and they'll stay  
selected in MacDraw.  But you've to be smart if you'll be able to do this  
without first reading the manual . . . 

-- peer
From: pkron@corona.wa.com (Peter Kron)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
Subject: Re: Press Release: NeXT Profitable in Q4 '92; N. American Sales Up 36%
Date: Sat, 23 Jan 93 06:18:48 PDT
Organization: Corona Design, Inc., Seattle, WA
Reply-To: pkron@corona.wa.com

Hmm...I thought I remember around NeXTWorld 92 Jobs quoted as saying NeXT had
been profitable in 91. The comment was in response to not publishing hard
numbers...something like--NeXT was profitable, but not wildly profitable.
Let us get wildly profitable before we give numbers.
---------------
Peter Kron
Corona Design, Inc.
Peter_Kron@corona.wa.com
From: randy@appsoft.com (Randy Adams)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
Subject: Re: Gosip in 1993(The Public Trial of Appsoft Draw - be on the Jury)
Keywords: Oh No, Another Wild Flamer
Date: 22 Jan 93 03:23:43 GMT
Reply-To: randy@appsoft.com
Organization: APPSOFT

In article <1993Jan22.012356.12057@wam.umd.edu> gaia@wam.umd.edu (L. Anathea  
Brooks) writes:
> The thing was that tools would NOT stay selected, which alone
> rendered the darn thing an enormous pain to use. It was "unusable"
> according to my definition (if I can't use an app to do what
> the app exists purportedly to do, it's not usable).
> 

Not to fan the flames, but Draw was modelled after MacDraw where the tools  
NEVER stay selected.  Millions of Mac users found that program "usable". 


Randy Adams
 
----------------------------------------------------
Flame me please so I can toast these marshmallows...
From: tbrown@cis.ohio-state.edu (ted croft brown)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
Subject: Re: What I don't understand...(WAS: THE ONLY CHOICE)
Date: 27 Jan 1993 00:50:52 -0500
Organization: The Ohio State University Dept. of Computer and Info. Science
NNTP-Posting-Host: tortoise.cis.ohio-state.edu

In article <26JAN199320564151@aardvark.ucs.uoknor.edu> mwelch@aardvark.ucs.uoknor.edu (WELCH,MICHAEL) writes:
>
>Please be kind, I'm new at this.
>
>  Why doesn't Steve poke his head in over at Silicon Graphics? They
>haven't spurned him in any way have they? I'd personally like to
>see a NeXT/Pixar/Adobe/Silicon Graphics team. 
>
>But, then again, what I want is not important.
>
>Michael W.

I agree.  Steve has actually be *praised* by SGI! (I remember some quote 
about how it's nice to see some other company being innovative.).  The SGI
Hardware is really hot, and their employees seem pretty friendly
when they come over this way and chat.

Didn't one of those SGI techies say something about how SGI wanted a NeXTSTEP
port but got a cold reception from NeXT?  Maybe NeXT would be more receptive
now??  Come to think of it...those SGI guys don't show up around here that
often anymore.  Maybe they were showing up here in premonition of some
deal and left when it fell through.  Shame though.  It's nice to get an
informed opinion from someone on the outside once in awhile.

Of course this really has no immediate effect upon me as I'm too poor to
buy a NeXT anyway!  (Someone an take that as a hint and send me one in the
mail.  No?  Well it's worth asking....)
-- 
Ted Brown		tbrown@cis.ohio-state.edu
			tbrown@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu
From: jefferis@manas.engr.widener.edu (Raymond P Jefferis)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
Subject: Re: A CPU on Every Desk?
Date: 22 Jan 1993 15:26:14 GMT
Organization: A poorly-installed InterNetNews site
NNTP-Posting-Host: engr.widener.edu

In article <1993Jan21.160050.4997@tse.uucp> markt@tse.uucp (Mark Turner)  
asks:
> Is it possible to hang X terminals off a NeXT server and use the native  
> NeXT desktop from the terminals?
> Comments .... ?
What is a "NeXT server?
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: kaya@world.std.com (Kaya Bekiroglu)
Subject: Re: Jan 25 Announcement from Next???
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
Date: Sat, 23 Jan 1993 01:12:34 GMT

In article <8fM0z5O00YUo0TwSQW@andrew.cmu.edu> "Joseph C. Lappa" <jl8p+@andrew.cmu.edu> writes:
>
>Hi,  
>
>   I called up NeXT yesterday asking about what kind of platform I would
>need for NS486 and I was told that if I wait till the 25th, my answers
>would be officially answered.  Does this mean that NS486 will be
>officially released to the public?
>
>
>


-- 
Kaya Bekiroglu - "Don't mind him, he's just crazy"
kaya@world.std.com
[If you're looking for something witty and amusing here, then
congratulations, you've just found it]
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: rsrodger@wam.umd.edu (Yamanari)
Subject: Re: A CPU on Every Desk?
Organization: University of Maryland, College Park
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 03:10:21 GMT

In article <63709@mimsy.umd.edu> alex@cs.umd.edu (Alex Blakemore) writes:
>In article <1993Jan25.181229.9911@adobe.com> byer@adobe.com (Scott Byer) writes:
>> there are situations in which X terminals make sense.
>> A situation where business people and their assistants need only
>> centralized database access, for example.
>> Given this, does it still make sense to have a NeXT terminal?
>
>> The X terminal market is extremely price-competitive, with low
>> margins and high volume.  I'm just not sure that it would be worth
>> NeXT's time to try and enter into such a marginal business.
>
>but isnt this exactly one of the benefits of NS486?
>Intel PCs are cheap, esp in volume and promise to keep getter
>cheaper and more powerful.
>
>486 machines running NeXTSTEP can serve as NeXT terminals and allow NeXTSTEP
>to be used for applications where it previously was not cost competetive.
>I cant see why NeXT or anyone else need build special terminals for this,
>when a 486 with a small disk, no DSP, no extended release software could be
>used en masse.


	It seems that not even pricing NS486 into oblivion will be a strategy
	that NeXT can use to save their hardware line.  The latest edition
	of the Post business section (Mondays insert) shows that a number
	of local companies are selling local bus 486 systems for 
	prices that, literally, make me gasp.  DX2-66 LB systems
	(albeit, 8meg/211 meg systems with non-accellerated LB video--
	but I sat down and calc'd it--add $500 to any price and you're
	there) for ~$1800 to $1900.  DX-50 (_not_ DX2) LB systems for
	not much more.

	Geesh.  The only expensive thing is the monitor.

	Surely no one believes that the current crop of slabs, even
	at education prices, can compete?

	<with power getting this cheap, the only thing that can
	keep NS486 from being a success is NeXT's pricing strategy.>


-- 
Attempts to lessen the burden of proof in rape | Why not put me in your kill
trials are violent assaults on civil rights.   | file?  add: "/: rsrodger/h :j"
  =====boycott=is=coercion=is=censorship=is=closed minded=is=cowardice=====
	Pyramid schemes are illegal unless you're the US government.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy