From: byer@adobe.com (Scott Byer)
Subject: Re:   100 Mips Intel NeXT (moved from comp.sys.next.misc)
Reply-To: byer@adobe.com (Scott Byer)
Organization: Adobe Systems Incorporated
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 22:59:20 GMT

Matthew Dillon writes

>     It's plenty good enough for many people and that is
>     the whole point of the exercise, to get NS486 running on as
>     many boxes as possible and let the consumer deside on upgrading
>     the hardware, not to force the consumer to purchase high priced
>     crap because the OS designer doesn't want to get his hands
>     dirty writing drivers, or fixing problems with the OS (like
>     the byte ordering requirements for NeXTStep... dumb!).

Framebuffers aren't crap, and in quantity will end up being cheaper
than SVGA.  SVGA, that's crap.  It's not a matter of getting your
hands dirty - it's that a video driver for a register-based 8-bit
color table only display that needs to display alpha-based graphics
is damn near impossible to write.  Someday it should be done, but
the release shouldn't be delayed for it.  If NS486 is going to get
in the hands of as many people as possible (which is more important
than, though related to, the number of machines it can possibly
run on) it *must* be out within three months of NT, preferably
before.  Or it's dead.  You've got to take a feature cut *somewhere*,
or you could be writing PC drivers until you rot.  SVGA is a bad
enough video non-standard that the amount of pain required to write
a driver that uses all the variations of SVGA to a reasonably full
degree would severely delay NS486's first release.

>     I am not a defender of the PC architecture but your response
>     is indicative of a person with blinders on.  If a 66MHz Dell
>     486 box is significantly faster running NS486 then a Next Turbo,
>     the something is obviously being done right.  The point is to
>     make it work on low end 486 boxes as well as high end 486 boxes,
>     not to skip the low end boxes (thus locking out half your market
>     and getting people mad at you) because you don't like their
>     video or memory architectures.

It's only worth it if they don't cost any schedule delays.

>     Furthermore, The EISA bus specification has no problem with
>     all elements required for a workstation... DMA, vectored
>     interrupts, etc...  Since I'm not familar with how much of the
>     specification has been implemented, I can't remark on existing
>     EISA machines, but I don't see the problem with EISA.  (ISA,
>     on the otherhand, has huge problems with DMA).

Current EISA cards tend not to be able to run at the speeds required.
Also, the 16bit wide bus limitation is pretty severe.  (Are there
32 bit versions available yet?)

>     Dell Dimension 486DX2/50    $2700
> 	...
>     SVGA Total price:    ----------> $3200 <----

Good price, slow display.  How much more for the Dell with DGX?
Ethernet is a requirement for most of the sites where NS486 will
go.

>     Hyundai 433S	price:	    $2000
> 	486SX/33

486SX won't do.  Things will choke without the full DX floating
point support.

>     Accel local-bus winstation      $1800 (486SX/25)  $2100 for
>     486DX/33)
> 	15" SVGA non-interlaced color monitor 
>       32 bit VESA Standard local-bus video 
>       211MB HD, IDE 256K cache 8MB main memory
> 	1.2/1.4MB floppy

> 	  ----------------> $2350 (486DX2/66) <------ (damn fast)

With another 8Meg memory, and ethernet card, and a bigger monitor,
this machine would actually be useable.  (a 33MHz/486 isn't even
as fast as an old ColorStation's 040.)

Though still not comprable to a NeXT ColorStation.  How much do
these prices go up when I get a decent keyboard (another $140
about?) a good mouse (about $100) and a good Sony tube monitor
(haven't priced 'em recently).

Since the price comparison was for something as capable as the NeXT
ColorStation, you'd need a Dell DGX with a 50MHz 486, ethernet,
1028x768x16 local video, and a 32 bit 25MHz bus of some kind, SCSI,
and a good 19" monitor.

>     NeXT is making one mistake after another... initial press
>     releases about NS486 looked promising, but they've slowly
>     destroyed their advantage (and cut their potential market
>     massively) by restricting the types of 486 machine configurations
>     NS486 can run on.

>     I love NeXTStep, but sometimes I wonder.  NS486 is the future
>     of the company and they do not seem to care.  I can't see how
>     they will ever do better then they currently are if they do
>     not break into the PC consumer market.

>     I want to see NS486 work on *any* 486 box with an intel processor
>     in it and I truely believe that it is the only thing that will
>     save NeXT.

Restricting the configurations is necessary to get the thing out
the door in 93.  It's already dangerously late.  Every month delayed
is another month deeper in the shadows of MicroSoft's NT marketing
juggernaut.  It doesn't make much sense to make NS486 run on
everything if by the time you do your potential number of sales
has dropped to near zero.

NeXT needs to have a minimum of 100,000 NeXTSTEP installations (on
any processor) by the end of 1993 if it is going to survive in the
long term.  Otherwise, it'll languish as an also-ran for the rest
of it's life, and we'll all have to compete with the Amigoids as
to who has the best paperweight.

The other reason NeXT should stay a hardware company is that without
their own hardware it's very hard to get in the door.  OEMing even
superior software is extremely hard, and doing an unfriendly port
takes about three times as much resources.  Unfriendly ports only
begin to make sense when the potential market is large.

Unfortunately, NeXT's potential 486 market is highly time-dependant,
and the window will close unbelievably rapidly once NT is out.
Somethings got to be at least twice as good for someone to switch,
and while NeXTSTEP is easily twice as good as everything else on
the PC right now, it isn't (arguably, of course) twice as good as
UnixWare, Solaris, or NT.  UnixWare and Solaris will take time to
build their bases, but NT will "fall" onto machines under threat
of death (or blackballing by MicroSoft, whichever is worse).

Yeah, I want NS486 out on as many 486s as possible.  But I take
possible to mean sales, not availability.

--
Scott Byer                             NeXTMail: byer@mv.us.adobe.com
Adobe Systems Incorporated               These are *my* opinions, and  
1585 Charleston Road, P.O. Box 7900        do not necessarily reflect
Mountain View, CA 94039-7900             the opinions of my employer.
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