HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: mmelling@Trirex.com(Michael Mellinger)
Subject: Re:   NeXT's, Amiga's, PC's, MAC'S, (was Re: Question #2 "Are Macintosh Users Really Happy?")
Organization: Trirex Systems Inc.
Date: Sun, 30 Aug 1992 01:08:38 GMT

In article <dillon.0m05@overload.Berkeley.CA.US>  
dillon@overload.Berkeley.CA.US (Matthew Dillon) writes:
 >dillon@overload.Berkeley.CA.US (Matthew Dillon) writes:
>     Just a point here... there is a fine program that I run on my A3000
>     called CPUBLIT which will interleve the processor & blitter 
>      hardware.
>     The difference in performance is quite noticable.  The Amiga is 
>     hardly
>     tied to its blitter (which is still the same old 16 bit 
>     coprocessor).

Properly written programs that make the system call to use the blitter  
will work on future hardware.  However, most game skip the call and access  
the hardware directly.  Also, most games are written in 68000 assembler.   
I'm not sure about the rest of the Amiga software.  Hopefully it is better  
behaved.  At any rate, do you think Commodore has an Intel version of the  
Amiga in the works?  A RISC Amiga?  Not likely.

     graphics operations if you have only one CPU).  Even though the  
Amiga's
>     blitter isn't the fastest in the world, it runs asynchronous to the
>     rendering operations requested by any given process and quite a bit  
of
>     overhead is absorbed, which is why rendering operations on a lowly
>     68000 Amiga are quite fast and can be said to blaze on faster
>     processors.

What does asynhronous have to do with anything?  If you figure that that  
Amiga blitter is equivalent to a 68030 in processing speed (CPUBLT is  
faster on a 68030 for many blits) then you have 2x68030 is processing  
speed on an A3000.  A 68040 is 3x68030 in integer performance.  In other  
words, the 25MHz 68040 NeXT is capable of doing more work in 1 second than  
the Amiga.  If you figure that a 80586 clone running NeXTstep or 88110  
RISC NeXT will be at least 3 times faster than the current NeXTstation,  
then it looks like animation will be much nicer on the next generation of  
NeXT computers.  

I believe that if programmers could sync to the vertical retrace on the  
monitor then much better animation could be done on the current machines.   
Drawing to an off-screen window and flushing the dirty rects to the screen  
is time consuming.  You also have to consider that the NeXT has a network  
transparent window system.  You aren't making a simple function call like  
you are on the Amiga (some programmers on the Amiga don't even make the  
function call).

I think Amiga owners will appreciate the NeXT more when they see 4096  
colors on a 17" million pixel display on the 80586 and RISC NeXTs.

-Mike
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: philip@utstat.uucp (Philip McDunnough)
Subject: Re: Byte: Is Unix Dead ?
Organization: University of Toronto, Dept. of Statistics
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1992 07:32:29 GMT

In article <0666PB1w165w@bluemoon.rn.com> cmcurtin@bluemoon.rn.com (Matthew Curtin) writes:

[ ]
>
>I would completely disagree. The same friend of mine said OS/2 has more 
>bugs than a bait store (see "Tron"), and is slow, takes too much of a 
>machine to run for what you get, has trouble with DOS emulation, is not 
>really have pre-emptive multi-tasking (when he has something going in one 
>window, he can't go to another and do something else...the wait icon won't 
>make way for a mouse pointer...) From what I've been reading on the net, 
>the support from IBM is practically nonexistant.

Then I would be somewhat suspect of your friend's claims. OS/2 version 2.0
is hardly slow, not that buggy, no problems with DOS emulation and it does
have pre-emptive mutitasking. Support from IBM is fine. You might ask some
developers how it compares to Microsoft's and NeXT's new policy.

Philip McDunnough
University of Toronto
philip@utstat.toronto.edu
From: mslade@netcom.com (Michael Slade)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
Subject: Re: NeXT, DTP, and Kodak Photo CD
Date: 3 Sep 92 16:09:13 GMT
Article-I.D.: netcom.dtlnm5m.mslade
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest)

mdw@corona.att.com writes:

>Over in rec.photo, there is considerable discussion regarding the new
>Kodak Photo CD and Kodak's licensing arrangements for translating the
>stored images from their (proprietary) format to other formats.

>They offer software for PeeCees and Mack's for a nominal fee, but the
>only Unix box they are looking at is Sun.  I know PhotoShop can read
>these CD's (again, I believe, with some nominally priced add-on).  Does
>anyone know of plans for any of the NeXT products (e.g.: Image) to be
>able to read Kodak Photo CD's?  Is the NeXT going to be left out in
>the cold?  Will Wilbur ever get rid of that dumb parachute?  Are Batman
>and Robin DOOMED?
The Kodak people I've talked to mentioned something about a Unix
tool kit coming along by and by.  Maybe this would be Sun only - it was
unclear from talking to them.
The first question I have is - can the NeXT cdrom drive read Photo CD's?
A Photo CD can have multiple recording sessions and only some of the
newest CD-ROM drives can read sessions after the first one.  Can NeXT's
even read the first session?

-- Michael Slade, Datavision Technologies
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: anwar+@cs.cmu.edu (Anwar Mohammed)
Subject: Re: Byte: Is Unix Dead ?
Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1992 18:49:20 GMT


Just wanted to add my voice to the discussion of the stability of 
software releases.  In my limited experience with both Windows 3.0/3.1
and NeXTStep 3.0 Pre-release 2, I've found this beta version of Nextstep 
3.0 to be more stable and usable than the final releases of Windows 
3.0/3.1. Obviously this doesn't speak very well for Windows.  (Granted,
I haven't seen NT at all.)

-anwar
-- 
Anwar Mohammed                           Graduate Student
anwar+@cs.cmu.edu  (NeXTmail welcome)    School of Computer Science
Voice: +1 412 268 3043                   Carnegie-Mellon University
Fax:   +1 412 681 5739                   Pittsburgh, PA  15213-3890
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: waltrip@capd.jhuapl.edu
Subject: Re:  NextStep 486 and misc. (was Re: Stability of Next...)
Organization: CAPVAX, JHU/APL
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1992 16:48:45 GMT

In article <dillon.0miu@overload.Berkeley.CA.US>, 
dillon@overload.Berkeley.CA.US (Matthew Dillon) writes:
	[...material deleted...]
> 
>     Well, I don't know about his beef, but I can tell you my beef:
> 
	[...lots of good points omitted...]

	The problems you have listed are probably results of trying to do
	too much on top of DOS.  NT, a true multi-tasking OS, is long 
	overdue.

	It's not entirely MicroSoft's fault.  IBM made the market and
	they chose the Intel architecture which, for a long time, was
	not suited to a real OS.  MicroSoft felt the need to remain
	compatible with the old architecture (same sort of pressure
	NeXT is getting now) and old applications and, as you say, that
	has grown to lists of problems/workarounds that is thousands of
	lines long.  Well, NT is a more elegant approach to addressing
	these problems.  And while the GUI portion, Windows NT, retains
	the Windows 3.x look-and-feel, it avoids most of their pitfalls.
	And a more object-oriented GUI is in the wings.

	PCs started out as standalone systems.  Integrating them into a
	system has presented enormous problems when compared with OSs
	such as VAX/VMS or UNIX.  System management is also nicely
	addressed in NT.

	But I am no apologist for MicroSoft.  Bill Gates has a dangerous
	stranglehold on the market.  He furnishes the OS and the
	applications.  He will win the GUI wars by default if Apple and
	NeXT refuse to play on his OS (he may even win by having a
	superior GUI if his object-oriented GUI pans out--yet another
	case where his internal application developers will have it
	before the outside developers?).

	The real point is, I suggest, that it doesn't matter how bad
	MicroSoft has been in the past nor how good they are about to
	be.  Even if they are great, would you want them to be the
	only supplier of OSs and GUIs?  Now that would really be
	something to beef about.

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From: mikes@velo.ucr.edu (Mike Shebanek)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
Subject: Re: Release 3.0 is shipping, as of Aug 24th. (?)
Date: 31 Aug 92 15:28:23 GMT

In article <1992Aug28.210040.303@cs.sfu.ca> oneill@cs.sfu.ca (Richard O'Neill)  
writes:
> Since no-one on Usenet seemed all that sure, I thought I'd call NeXT and
> ask when we might expect 3.0 to appear. I was told that it started 'shipping'
> on Monday, August 28th, and to expect my copy within a couple of weeks.
> 
> This could just be bullshit to appease customers, but it's what they say.

NS 3.0 has been shipped on new NeXT computers since August 14, 1992.  Since  
distribution of the NS 3.0 upgrade kits is not being handled by NeXT (they've  
given the task to a professional distribution company), we should see the  
upgrade kits around the second week of September.

The wait is finally over... Almost

Mike Shebanek
Computing and Communications
University of California, Riverside
Riverside, CA.  92521
Organization: Penn State University
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1992 12:43:51 EDT
From: <MKK2@psuvm.psu.edu>
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
Subject: Re: Open Letter: Don't get rid of UNIX
 <1992Sep01.135303.144682@lexmark.com>

I was thinking about what the top level Class for a NeXTstep OOFS would
look like.  Pretty clearly it would be a Unix file.  That is, the most
general model of a file is a sequence of bytes, and it would offer methods
like getc(), getchar(), putc(), lseek(), creat(), unlink() and so on.

It should be possible to build an OOFS on top of Unix, or at least one
that offers all of the regular Unix system calls.  Therefore, programs
like csh, sh, and all the shell/filter/pipe model programs will continue
to work.
From: SXMRP@orca.alaska.edu (Michael R. Platzke)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
Subject: Re: Byte: Is Unix Dead ?
Date: 26 Aug 92 21:23:48 GMT
Organization: University of Alaska Computer Network

In article <BtLtM9.B8F.2@cs.cmu.edu> anwar+@cs.cmu.edu (Anwar Mohammed) writes:
>From: anwar+@cs.cmu.edu (Anwar Mohammed)
>Subject: Re: Byte: Is Unix Dead ?
>Date: 26 Aug 92 18:49:20 GMT


>Just wanted to add my voice to the discussion of the stability of 
>software releases.  In my limited experience with both Windows 3.0/3.1
>and NeXTStep 3.0 Pre-release 2, I've found this beta version of Nextstep 
>3.0 to be more stable and usable than the final releases of Windows 
>3.0/3.1. Obviously this doesn't speak very well for Windows.  (Granted,
>I haven't seen NT at all.)

>-anwar
>-- 
>Anwar Mohammed                           Graduate Student
>anwar+@cs.cmu.edu  (NeXTmail welcome)    School of Computer Science
>Voice: +1 412 268 3043                   Carnegie-Mellon University
>Fax:   +1 412 681 5739                   Pittsburgh, PA  15213-3890

A couple of points.  First, Windows 3.0/3.1 is above all, a kludge.  I think
that it is remarkably stable considering that it is a 32 bit OS (or, if you
must, OE) sitting on top of 16-bit, non-mulitasking MS-DOS.  Windows NT will
avoid this by: a) being a completly rewritten OS (which also introduces bugs)
and not using DOS (although you can run DOS) and b)being able to use memory
protection of 386/486.  Secondly, the chief architect of NT is Dave Cutler.
Cutler was also one of the chief architects for VMS.  I have not have had
personal knowledge of early VMS or Dave Cutler's ablities, but I have heard
excellent reports from various people.  It seems that Mr. Cutler is highly
respected for his OS experience and it is possible that this will have a
trickle down effect on NT.  Early reports on the NT SDK is that the stability
of the Win 32 section is excellent, especially considering that the SDK is
still pre-beta software.  The beta period (now expected to begin in late
sept) should do nothing but improve the stability.  Note, however, that the
Win 16 and DOS sections of NT were really tested in the SDK and were fairly
unstable.

As for the stability of 3.0/3.1, I have been using 3.1 for months now and 
only have problems when I try to acess two lan programs at the same time,
which is a problem with my packet driver, not windows.  NT's integrated
networking should take care of this and bring it up to par with Unix.

-Michael R. Platzke (sxmrp@orca.alaska.edu)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: kocks@jessica.stanford.edu (Peter Kocks)
Subject: Re: Byte: Is Unix Dead ?
Organization: Academic Information Resources
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 92 15:35:20 GMT


In case it is not obvious.  Windows NT will be very buggy when it
first comes out to the general public.  Anyone who does not believe
this has not watched the development of OSs over the last decade.
While Windows NT offers a lot of great things and promises even more,
we are talking at least 2 years before people actually start using it
on a large scale (AT LEAST).  I bet that 99% of the potential Windows
NT users will stick with Windows 3.x for a long time.  Us net heads
may want Windows NT, but most users don't want a 16Meg RAM PC using
windows NT, they want a 4 Meg Windows 3.x station.

All of this plays to NeXT's advantage.  NeXT is, and will be for some
time, more stable than Windows NT.  The same can be said for OS 2.0;
altough, I'm not sure I would characterize OS 2 as stable yet (much
better than before though).  

NeXT better come out with 3.0 soon and a RISC machine or this lead
time will be lost.

--Peter Kocks
  kocks@chemistry.stanford.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: shiva@vega.Stanford.EDU (Marcos Javier Polanco)
Subject: Re: Open Letter: Don't get rid of UNIX
Organization: DSO, Stanford University
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 92 16:41:48 GMT


In article <1992Sep1.000341.23514@leland.Stanford.EDU> you write:
>In article <870@rtbrain.rightbrain.com> glenn@rightbrain.com (Glenn Reid)  
>writes:
>
>>Without the hundreds of UNIX utility programs lurking in /usr/bin, the  
>>computer is not a development environment at all, but a few clever toys  
>>like InterfaceBuilder. If you can make my shell scripts work with an  
>>object-oriented database instead of a file system, then I won't care, of  
>>course, but don't underestimate the power of being able to write things  
>>like release scripts or use standard UNIX tools like 'awk' and 'sort'.
>
>Yes. Lurking is the word for it. It is precisely programs like awk and  
sed  
>that scare the hell out of most people and keep them away from UNIX  
boxes.  
>IMHO what NeXT should so is provide an exorcised, Unix-less NeXTstep. If  
>we want the Unix, fine. NeXT can provide a Unix shell, a BSD server, and  
a  
>filesystem mapping of the ObjectStore. That would satisfy the weenies  
>(myself included) yet not scare Joe-average.
>
>If we want NeXTstep to succeed, then the community must be willing to  
>accept some commercial realities. Being able to ftp the Unix source code  
>will NOT help us in the battle with Windoze!
>
>-Marcos J. Polanco
>-shiva@vega.stanford.edu

I agree with Marco here.  But I think it is a case of apples and oranges.   
"Joe-average",
or as we refer to him: end-user, doesn't need UNIX the way we do.  That's  
why Sculley's
Frankenstein(Gates)will go after this segment of the market, the desktop.   
The fact is,
the end-user side of things will create a battle royale, and Gates will  
hardly come close
to the dominant market share he now enjoys.

Remember, no matter what the Intel/Gates crew has in mind, those crazy  
Russians McNealy
has working are going to kick the biggest butt in a year or two when  
WISC(Wide Instruction
Set Com.) debuts.  Fact is, Unix will always be the boss when it comes to:
	1. Development
	2. Engines

Jobs has admirably created the development environment, but his boxes will  
never drive
industrial strength apps. Unix will have a hard time going head to head on  
the desktop
but that's not to say Jobs and McNealy won'y cut into Gates' marketshare.

One other thing, isn't it interesting how Byte goes out on a linb with  
such hyperbole,
Is Unix Dead, and yet can't deliver.  The article had nothing to do with  
the death of
Unix, it even trumpeted a healthy growth curb.  Unfortunately, it had more  
to do with
Byte's need for increased advertising revenues from Microsoft.   

-- 
Charlie Tarzian			|	email: ct@east.hudtech.com
Hudson Technology Organization	|	Phone: (908)232.2725
7 Elm Street
Westfield, N.J. 07090
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: songer@lexmark.com (Christopher Songer)
Subject: Re: Open Letter: Don't get rid of UNIX
X-Disclaimer: These views are the poster's and not necessarily those of Lexmark
Organization: Lexington, KY
Date: Fri, 04 Sep 1992 20:40:19 GMT

In article <jbone.715620959@splat> jbone@splat.dell.com (Jeff Bone) writes:
...
>NT has borrowed
>many concepts and features from UNIX for this reason.  Now --- how about
>one good reason why people who feature set X from UNIX will buy NT to get
>that feature set rather than buying UNIX?  Your argument is flawed.
...

    NT is a clean slate. UNIX has the baggage of it's past to carry along.
UNIX has alot of good ideas and NT has taken many of them. Never-the-less
since NT is new, it can both solve the problems of UNIX incompatibilties
and it can throw out the old UNIX baggage. 

    For example, UNIX command line options are a nightmare. There is absolutely
no consistency, yet no one wants to change it for "historical" reasons. (ie
for backward compatibility reasons.) It carries the baggage of it's history
and can never be rid of it.

    It also carries old, out dated utilities. Consider cu, and tip.
Both accomplish basically the same purpose, yet both must be retained
in the OS.

    Finally, NT need not suffer from diverging enchancements. Consider
threads. These were not included in the early UNIX and hence various
camps have arrived at different solutions to the same problem. Solutions
from Sun's light weight processes to NeXT's use of cthreads all provide
basically the same functionality with different interface. NT threads will
be NT threads without the various implementations.

    So I think NT has great room for improvement over UNIX while only 
marginally enhancing the functionality. If NT can take the best of UNIX, 
remove the redundancy and inconsistencies then MicroSoft has produced a superior
product -- A product people might choose over UNIX.

-Chris
From: pcp1@quads.uchicago.edu (patrick carnahan phillips)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
Subject: PasteUp (was RE: NeXT, WordPerfect ...)
Date: 26 Aug 92 13:41:24 GMT
Reply-To: pcp1@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations

In article <1992Aug25.172016.21686@adobe.com> byer@adobe.com (Scott Byer) writes :
>They're called RightBrain, and their upcoming product,
>PasteUp, is a lightning quick page layout / word
>processing program.  The unique interface features and
>excellent typographical controls make it great for the
>beginner as well as the expert.  It's my first choice
>from one-pagers to long documents.

Is PasteUp really a word processor, or more of a page layout
program with some word processing capabilities (I got the
impression that it is the latter).  Can those in the know give
us some more details.  I've just received my NeXT, and this
word processor situation is a much bigger drag than I anticipated
(I've started using TeX, but it really feels like the dark (nroff)
ages.  I know it gives you total control, but typing a letter with
it is overkill).

Patrick Phillips
pcp1@midway.uchicago.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: modman@liveware.com
Subject: Re: Open Letter: Don't get rid of UNIX
Keywords: UNIX broken NeXT hacked
Reply-To: modman@liveware.com
Organization: Liveware Corporation   Fort Collins, CO.  USA.
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1992 13:52:17 GMT

In article <1992Aug31.233925.593@parsec.mixcom.com> alberto@parsec.mixcom.com  
(Manuel Alberto Ricart) writes:
> In article <870@rtbrain.rightbrain.com> glenn@rightbrain.com writes:
> >
> >This is an open letter to NeXT that will hopefully engender a bit of
> >discussion (this is the .advocacy group, after all).

[ munch munch munch ]

> If it ain't broken, DON'T FIX IT - find something that really needs work
> other than that!

Well, some would argue rather successfully that indeed NeXT's
version of BSD UNIX is broken.

Todd

> 
> -- 
> Manuel Alberto Ricart
> alberto@parsec.mixcom.com <NeXTMail Welcome>
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: 10667547@eng2.eng.monash.edu.au (JIMMY FANG)
Subject: Re:   NeXT's, Amiga's, PC's, MAC'S, (was Re: Question #2 "Are Macintosh Users Really Happy?")
Organization: Faculty of Engineering, Monash University 
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1992 05:13:11 GMT

In article <1992Aug30.010838.9118@Trirex.COM> mmelling@Trirex.com(Michael Mellinger) writes:
>From: mmelling@Trirex.com(Michael Mellinger)
>Subject: Re:   NeXT's, Amiga's, PC's, MAC'S, (was Re: Question #2 "Are Macintosh Users Really Happy?")
>Date: Sun, 30 Aug 1992 01:08:38 GMT

>What does asynhronous have to do with anything?  If you figure that that  
>Amiga blitter is equivalent to a 68030 in processing speed (CPUBLT is  
>faster on a 68030 for many blits) then you have 2x68030 is processing  
>speed on an A3000.  A 68040 is 3x68030 in integer performance.  In other  
>words, the 25MHz 68040 NeXT is capable of doing more work in 1 second than  
>the Amiga.  If you figure that a 80586 clone running NeXTstep or 88110  
>RISC NeXT will be at least 3 times faster than the current NeXTstation,  
>then it looks like animation will be much nicer on the next generation of  
>NeXT computers.  

I think you missed the point on asynchronous.  It means both at once.
Blitters and CPU's are totally separate things.  Some Amiga's (such as the 
A3000 might have a redundant 68030 chip in it and a 68040 card acting as 
the main processor).  Having two processors doesn't necessarily mean they 
work both at once, such as parallel processing or multi-processing.

The CPU can be doing something while the blitter works independently.  Those 
high-end gee-whiz bang graphic workstations (I think SGI is an example) are 
stacked full of blitters and co-processors.  DMA is another example of 
asynchronous.  What's the point huh?

Using your logic, a 25mhz 68040 Amiga would perform better than your NeXT 
platform.


>
>I think Amiga owners will appreciate the NeXT more when they see 4096  
>colors on a 17" million pixel display on the 80586 and RISC NeXTs.
>
>-Mike

Yeah, and I think NeXT owners would appreciate a 2000*1000, 256 colour work-
bench screen.  (Although you'll need a mighty big monitor to be able to read 
anything.)  You can do this running the GVP EGS chip set with a 68030 or 
68040 card.  120 fps with full 24bit depth screens!  Cool!  Any program that 
works on the WB screen will work just fine on this graphics board.
But of course this costs big $$$.  Then again, NeXT's cost big $$$ over here 
as well.

Also, I've read posting from Commodore Engineers talking about 68040, 68060 
processors and beyond...  Perhaps risc?  Perhaps not?


Jim


Jim Fang - Bachelor of Economics (3) / B.E (3) .-_|\        Snail Mail
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