HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: songer@lexmark.com (Christopher Songer)
Subject: Re: NeXTstep 3.0
X-Disclaimer: These views are the poster's and not necessarily those of Lexmark
Organization: Lexington, KY
Date: Tue, 25 Aug 1992 14:29:08 GMT

In article <1992Aug21.194103.10163@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> tgingric@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Tyler S Gingrich) writes:
>
>I'd have to completely disagree with the "assumption" that 3.0 is likely
>to be pretty unstable.  
>
>I consider 3.0 to be "Pretty Stable" -- the upgrade process is easy & the 
>new stuff is just too cool!
>

     Well, this certainly did generate more response than I intended. :)
I suppose the comments I would make are: I have great respect for NeXT's
ability to put out a good release, but in anybody's X.0 release, there
are more likely to be problems than the previous OS level. Even if 5%
of the NeXT community Beta tests for 6 months, they still won't get 
the testing coverage that 50% of the community will in 2 months.

     The bugs are out there -- everyone knows that -- everyone expects
it. The issue is are they critical. Before that can be determined
they must be found. Surely everyone remembers some of the serious problems
with 2.0.

     It's simply my opinion that prudence is warranted with respect to
anyone's X.0 release. NeXT's is probably more solid than anyone elses 
X.0 release, but that doesn't imply there are no glaring faults. I
find it best to wait on a major release until it has been out for a while
and people have had a chance to use it for some time. 


-Chris


Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.misc
From: nevin@dtint.dtint.com
Subject: FOR SALE: PLI Infinity 44 MB Removable Cartridge drive,
Organization: Digital Technology, International
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 92 02:57:30 GMT

Reply-To: nevin@dtint.dtint.com

FOR SALE: PLI Infinity 44 MB Removable Cartridge drive,
plus 2 cartridges. Purchased about a year ago from
NeXTConnection.

I originally bought this drive so that I would have
some method of giving large files to my Service Bureau
for high-resolution Linotronic output.  At that time,
all of the Service Bureau's in the Salt Lake City, UT
area were using the 44 MB cartridges-- they had not yet
upgraded to the newer 88 MB cartridges.  At this time,
most of them have upgraded, so I will too.

WARNING: All 44 MB Removable Cartridge drives have a
known problem getting along with either of two Maxtor
hard drives--the 8380S (330 MB), and the 8760S (660 MB).
Note that these particular two models are the very ones
that NeXT shipped with their early cubes (most of the
stations have Quantum drives-- if you turn VERBOSE boot
mode on, it will tell you what drive you have during
boot-up).  I don't know if the problem is Maxtor's fault,
or PLI's (Syquest).  Just remember that if you happen to
have either of those two Maxtor drives, you don't want
to buy my PLI drive.

This drive works great (with the exception noted above),
and is black.  Unfortunately, it has scratches that
occured from sliding it out from under my CD-ROM drive
and 2.88 MB floppy drive.

Pricing starts at $450.00 (I pay freight and all C.O.D.
and/or charge card fees).  Price will be reduced $2.00
per day after 9/4/92 until sold.  I can take VISA or
MASTERCARD, as well as ship C.O.D.

Other than this $2.00 per day automatic price reduction,
the price is non-negotiable (I'm sure it will sell
eventually).


--
NeXTmail preferred!
-- 
---
root	                               root@dtint.dtint.com
Digital Technology Int.                (801)226-2984	
500 W. 1200 South, Orem UT, 84057      FAX (801) 226-8438
From: cs4w+@andrew.cmu.edu (Charles William Swiger)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.misc
Subject: Re: SCCS for NeXT
Date: 4 Sep 92 16:57:51 GMT
Organization: Senior, Chemistry, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA

Excerpts from netnews.comp.sys.next.misc: 3-Sep-92 SCCS for NeXT Mike
Matthews@oberon.umd (395)

>Does anyone out there have - or knows where to get - SCCS for the NeXT?
>Archie turned up loads of front-end stuff, but not the real thing.
>
>Reply-To set to looms@ectds.com, he's the one who asked me to post this.
>
>Thanks.
>------
>Mike Matthews, matthews@oberon.umd.edu (NeXTmail accepted)

Get RCS (Revision Control System) from prep.ai.mit.edu.  RCS is (IMHO)
much better, and it will convert SCCS-maintained files into
RCS-maintained files.

The files you'll need are in /pub/gnu.  For the NeXT, you'll need to get:
(RCS *really* wants a fairly new version of diff.)

-rw-r--r--  1 14910      134910 Jan  6  1991 diff-1.15.tar.Z
-rw-r--r--  1 14910      349203 Dec  6  1991 rcs-5.6.tar.Z

I have not seen what versions of software are shipped with NS 3.0. 
Hopefully, NeXT has included more recent versions of the various UNIX
utilities.

Examples of older software shipped include emacs (now at 18.58 vs
18.55), cc [gcc] (now at 2.2 vs 1.36), diff (old BSD), the nroff macros
(old BSD), and others.

Sometime soon I'll post a set of diffs (and some needed header-type
files) that'll allow people to recompile the newer version of emacs. 
The other things seem to compile without any great problems, except gcc
2.2.2.  I've got a working version of gcc 2.2.2 up, but I'd be
interested in talking to anyone else out there who's built the sucker on
the NeXT, and compare notes.

-Chuck
+---------------------------------------------+
|  Charles William Swiger -- a victim of CMU  | All the world's a stage,
|   AMS & normal mail: cs4w+@andrew.cmu.edu   | And we are merely players,
|    NeXTmail: <temporarily out of order>     | Performers and portrayers....
+---------------------------------------------+          -- RUSH, "Limelight"
From: eronald@cnam.cnam.fr (Edmund Ronald)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.misc
Subject: Prices on c.s.n.announce
Date: 29 Aug 92 13:41:24 GMT

Todd, the csna moderator has again been in touch with me, very politely
asking me to call off my campaign for a vote on the question of prices
in the forum he feeds and cares for.

I have recieved lots of messages in support of a vote, heavily in favour 
of having pricing info, ie. not taking it out. Some of this mail comes
from europe, where I too happen to live, and this makes me want to point out
that software prices here are often inflated, around 180% of US list.
Knowing the (low) US prices allows us to order direct, purchasing things
we could never afford at local rates!

Also, people in europe cannot call 800 numbers, and find long distance 
a bit expensive to use on a day to day basis! Thus USENET acts as a
window on the US market for us, and we resent anyone putting "curtains"
across that window to prevent us from seeing those "obscene, commercial" :-)
prices of those "nice, sexy" :-) products.

I remain in favor of a vote on the issue of prices on csna, and would
request todd to deal publicly with the issue here. A flame war seems
unlikely as we have all been (I believe) talking politely, and fairly
rationnally.

Edmund.
From: dillon@overload.Berkeley.CA.US (Matthew Dillon)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.misc
Subject: Re:  stripping (was Ramdisk coming for NeXT)
Distribution: world
Date: 26 Aug 92 07:23:19 PST
Organization: Not an Organization

>In article <1992Aug25.152745.21635@menudo.uh.edu> sears@tree.egr.uh.edu (Paul S. Sears) writes:
>Actually, in 3.0, the swapfile is compressed on the fly automagically...
>Helps to slow the growth of the swapfile...

    Sounds like one huge bandaid to me.... compressed????  Are they out of
    their mind?  It's *already* too slow!

					-Matt

>--
>Paul S. Sears		      *  sears@uh.edu (NeXT Mail OK)
>The University of Houston    *  suggestions@tree.egr.uh.edu (NeXT
>Engineering Computing Center *  comments, complaints, questions)
>NeXT System Administration   *  DoD#1967 '83 NightHawk 650SC
>	   >>> SSI Diving Certification #755020059 <<<
>"Programming is like sex: One mistake and you support it a lifetime."

--

    Matthew Dillon	    dillon@Overload.Berkeley.CA.US
    891 Regal Rd.	    uunet.uu.net!overload!dillon
    Berkeley, Ca. 94708     ham: KC6LVW (no mail drop)
    USA
From: ernest@pundit.cithep.caltech.edu (Ernest Prabhakar)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.misc
Subject: Re: Music & NS3.0
Date: 26 Aug 92 18:52:43 GMT
Reply-To: ernest@pundit.cithep.caltech.edu (Ernest Prabhakar)
Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena

In article <1992Aug25.130029.27151@ppgfr.uucp> wolpert@mars (Florian Wolpert)  
writes:
> Hi 3.0ers,
> 
> I've just intstalled NS3.0 (PR2) and now missing ScorePlayer
> and Ensemble. Why they are gone ? No more support of the 
> Score-File-Format ?

Pick up the Presto beta-application.  It does everything ScorePlayer and  
Ensemble did, and it is way cooler.  The only problem is that, with the demo,  
you cannot save files.  But it is useful for playing tunes.
And they do have a pretty nifty Edu discount.  

Be sure to pay attention to the 3.0 installation instructions.

-Ernie P.
an impressed demo-user of Presto, no other affiliation

--
Ernest N. Prabhakar                  Caltech High Energy Physics
Member, League for Programming Freedom (league@prep.ai.mit.edu)
CaJUN President        NeXTMail:ernest@pundit.cithep.caltech.edu
"...and ourselves, your servants for Jesus sake." - II Cor 4:5b
#import <std/disclaimer.h>
From: matthews@oberon.umd.edu (Mike Matthews)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.misc
Subject: Re: Mail sounds?
Date: 30 Aug 92 14:39:28 GMT
Organization: /etc/organization

In article <17ot6gINNks0@agate.berkeley.edu> william@moica.berkeley.edu (William E. Grosso) writes:
>How is this significantly different from using a .forward file 
>to play a sound when mail arrives ?

3.0's NeXTmail has one sound which plays only once when it sucks up new mail
from the mail spool directory.

.forward files can be totally customized.

>Bill Grosso
------
Mike Matthews, matthews@oberon.umd.edu (NeXTmail accepted)
------
A computer, to print out a fact,
Will divide, multiply, and subtract.
	But this output can be
	No more than debris,
If the input was short of exact.
		-- Gigo
From: zeke@esosun.UUCP (James Dehnert)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.misc
Subject: NASA image viewer
Date: 31 Aug 92 18:34:40 GMT
Reply-To: zeke@esosun.css.gov.UUCP ()
Organization: Science Applications International Corp., San Diego


  On pioneer.unm.edu there are a number of NASA images from the voyager
space crafts.  These images are in a compressed raw format that dosen't
seem to be readable by any of the software on my system.  Does anyone
know of a program that can uncompress and display these images?
  There is source code on the system to do this, but the C code seems to
be writen for PC's, and I am not what one would call a "really good"
programer.  I'll take a crack at porting the code if nothing exists, but
I don't know if I'll ever have the time, and my skill level may not be
up to par.

  So, is there some existing software to view these images?

  Zeke
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.misc
From: nevin@dtint.dtint.com
Subject: Re: Hmmm... LOTS of NeXTs for sale in misc.forsale{.computers}
Reply-To: nevin@dtint.dtint.com
Organization: Digital Technology, International
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 92 15:10:53 GMT

In article <1992Aug27.225746.26061@news.media.mit.edu> wave@media.mit.edu  
(Michael B. Johnson) writes:
> In article <1992Aug27.175511.13018@socrates.umd.edu>  
ice@socrates.umd.edu (Fredrik Nyman) writes:
> >>I've been seeing *lots* of NeXTs for sale in the misc.forsale
> >>newsgroups the last couple of months.  Has anyone else noticed this?
> >>
> >>I wonder why so many NeXTs are being offered for sale... 
> >>Lack of software?  The recession?  The NRW is about to be released?
> >>
> >>Yours for random speculation
> 

I have seen the 'misc.forsale' items also, and I can say that many of the  
posted prices are for more money than an authorized NeXT VAR can purchase  
them new for.

This really shouldn't bother anybody either.  If a NeXT reseller offers a  
standard 15% discount, don't you think the reseller is still making a  
profit, and is entitled to make a profit?  And if a 'demo' model is  
offered for say, 30% off, do you suppose that this price might still be a  
little above cost?

And, occassionally NeXT will offer even higher percentages off than their  
standard discount to an authorized VAR or reseller for specific models  
and/or configurations.  When one wants to move a higher volume of a  
particular model (be it cars, computers, or bicycles), it is a common  
strategy everwhere to offer "extra incentives" for those models.

The interesting thing is that many times an increase in 3rd party  
advertising will exactly coincide with an extra incentive offer from the  
factory, again whether it's cars, computers, or bicycles.

The lesson to be learned here is: an up-surge of 'for-sale' postings for  
anything (be it cars, computers, or bicycles) could be indicative of extra  
factory incentives.  And, extra factory incentives are usually offered  
just prior to a new "model year".

Of course, this won't apply to EVERY 'for-sale' posting, but it's some  
speculation to think about.  I DO believe that NeXT cares about it's  
customers, and we are going to be pleasantly surprised in the near future,  
whether you buy now or later.

--
NeXTmail preferred!
-- 
---
root	                               root@dtint.dtint.com
Digital Technology Int.                (801)226-2984	
500 W. 1200 South, Orem UT, 84057      FAX (801) 226-8438
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.misc
From: gaston@cpsc.ucalgary.ca (Gaston Groisman)
Subject: Using NeXT's CD under SoftPC?
Organization: University of Calgary Computer Science
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1992 00:52:43 GMT


I just got a CD-ROM encyclopedia and it has a PC program to do the
searching.  When I run it it asks for the CD driver.  How do I
install a CD-ROM driver under SoftPC?  Can it be done?

Thank you, 

-- 
 Gaston Groisman          +-------------------------------------+
 Computer Science Dep.    |      gaston@cpsc.ucalgary.ca        |
 University of Calgary    +-------------------------------------+
 Alberta, CANADA                    NeXTmail accepted!
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.misc
From: a74k110@titan.ucc.umass.edu (Chris Lloyd)
Subject: Re:   stripping (was Ramdisk coming for NeXT)
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Date: Sat, 29 Aug 1992 14:57:19 GMT

In article <dillon.0mmg@overload.Berkeley.CA.US> dillon@overload.Berkeley.CA.US (Matthew Dillon) writes:
>In article <15175@umd5.umd.edu> matthews@oberon.umd.edu (Mike Matthews) writes:
>>In article <dillon.0mci@overload.Berkeley.CA.US> dillon@overload.Berkeley.CA.US (Matthew Dillon) writes:
>>>    Sounds like one huge bandaid to me.... compressed????  Are they out of
>>>    their mind?  It's *already* too slow!
>>
>>Compare the speed of the '040 in compressing to the speed of a typical hard
>>disk.
[...]
>    So we are going from maybe 5% processor overhead to 30% procesor
>    overhead per page (total guesses on my part).
>
>    That is NOT acceptable!  NeXT should *FIX* the stupid paging problem,
>    not add a cold compress (:-)) to an open sore!

Uh, I *REALLY* Don't think compress=lzw/packbits/etc.  That would be totally
retarded, not to mention totally unuseable on an '030 and damn near it on an
'040.  I would gather compressed = compacted in that the holes in the swapfile
are reused more wisely and the paging system tries to keep the swapfile
to a minimum ... 

This growing rumor is totally unfounded and technically silly IMNSHO.

la la la,
-- 
::   Christopher Lloyd  ::  a74k110@titan.ucc.umass.edu  ::  Yrrid, Inc.    ::
::"He said he'd make me elite for $5...I think he wanted a sub or somethin'"::
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.misc,comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: gad@eclipse.its.rpi.edu (Garance A. Drosehn)
Subject: Re: BackSpace/NextWorld
Followup-To: comp.sys.next.advocacy
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1992 22:40:11 GMT


maurices@spock.dis.cccd.edu (Maurice Shihadi) writes:
> nweaver@ocf.berkeley.edu (Nicholas Weaver) writes:
> > The result was that NeXT requested the removal of BackSpace, and
> > the author, Samuel G. Strepper, complied.  Actually, BackSpace
> > shouldn't have been released in the first place, upon afterthought,

For the specific case of Backspace, I most heartily disagree with the above  
sentiment.  Screen-saving is something that should be left to some common  
format, instead of the Pyro/After-Dark/Dark-Side-of-the-Mac scenerio.  No  
one will buy a NeXT to run the screen saver, and yet everyone who does buy a  
NeXT will need a screen saver (not the tame little screen dimmer stuff).

> > and all PD/Shareware releases by NeXT employees need to now be
> > cleared by NeXT before doing so.  Just common sense.  NeXT
> > employees should not undercut developers needlessly.

However, I'd agree that this is probably a good thing.  There are not many  
catagories where I'd feel comfortable about NeXT employees competing with  
NeXT developers...

> Now let me get this straight;  what this policy means is that NeXT 
> employees will now have to release public domain stuff under "pen 
> names" unnafiliated with NeXT?

It doesn't *have* to mean that, but on the other hand what do you find  
objectionable about the above?  If all you want is good code to share, then  
you should not care if it comes from a NeXT employee or from  
John_Doe@anonymous.com.  And, on the flip side, developers don't have to  
worry that some product will have an unfair advantage simply because it has  
the word "NeXT" loosely associated with it.

> Isn't the whole idea of object oriented programming for all of us 
> to be able to share code?

Last I checked, NeXT ships systems which include examples of object oriented  
programming.  This should be good enough to get us sharing code.  If we  
don't, then it's our fault.  We can't expect NeXT to write every bit of code  
that we need for every possible application.

And now, for the most important line of this article:

 	 	 Followups to csn.advocacy...

--
Garance Alistair Drosehn     =     gad@eclipse.its.rpi.edu
ITS Systems Programmer            (handles NeXT-type mail)
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute;           Troy NY    USA
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.misc
From: lemson@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (David Lemson)
Subject: Re: Placing NeXTstation Slab on its Side
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Sun, 30 Aug 1992 17:39:43 GMT

tagreen@lothario.cica.indiana.edu (Todd A Green) writes:

>I've always heard though, that the disk should be formatted in the
>orientation that it will resting. (Though, this could just be
>folklore). 
I have, too.. but I heard that the drive should be low-level
formatted in that position.  However, my PC drive (an IDE) has been
working for over a year on its side with no problems, and I
certainly didn't low-level format it! (most people can't format IDE
drives)

>Also I'd be more worried about air flow though the slab if you turned
>it on it side.  Anyone know if the slab will still be properly cooled?
That was the comment from someone at NeXT last time we had this
discussion, that the cooling might be affected.
-- 
David Lemson                                                 (217) 244-1205
University of Illinois NeXT Campus Consultant  / CCSO NeXT Lab System Admin
Internet : lemson@uiuc.edu                 UUCP :...!uiucuxc!uiucux1!lemson 
NeXTMail accepted                                   BITNET : LEMSON@UIUCVMD
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.misc
From: jeffo@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (J.B. Nicholson-Owens)
Subject: When in September will 3.0 ship?
Summary: When in September will 3.0 ship?
Reply-To: jeffo@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1992 19:57:29 GMT

The subject line just about says it all...I figure that shipping for
last week in August is not going to happen...perhaps middle to late
September?

-- 
-- Jeff (jeffo@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu)
-- No NeXTmail please
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.misc
From: philip@utstat.uucp (Philip McDunnough)
Subject: Re: Prices on c.s.n.announce
Organization: University of Toronto, Dept. of Statistics
Date: Sat, 29 Aug 1992 09:10:57 GMT

In article <1992Aug28.230103.2854@ifi.unizh.ch> lytras@avalon.physik.unizh.ch (Lytras Apostolos) writes:

[More re the net and prices...]
>
>I disagree strongly. This is not what Usenet is about, we *certainly*
>don't look like fools if we respect Usenet tradition, and it is *not* a
>ridiculous thing to (as you put it) "censor" (I'd rather say "moderate")
>these postings. If you read news.answers from time to time, you can find
>more info on what Usenet is, and what it isn't. I am quoting Gene
>Spafford's "What is Usenet?" article here:

Ok, thank's for the quote. The net does have a long tradition along a very
non-commercial line. It has changed over the years however and the NeXT
group is pretty well the only one that engages in the $xx.xx approach. Quite
frankly it is far more annoying to d/l a product which is a demo (and that
is often made clear) only to find it run for 2 minutes.

[Quotes "What is Usenet"-> which is, in my opinion, no longer the case...]
>
>Why should c.s.n.a overrule a widely accepted rule like this? This just
>is not the place to put pricing information. If the demand for such
>information is really big, then one should rather think of making the
>un"censored" articles available on an archive server. So people who want
>it, can get it, but people who object to commercializing Usenet to this
>point won't be offended. This discussion is not ridiculous, but rather
>annoying, because the rules are there, they're widely respected and
>accepted, and there has not been *one* good reason for changing them in
>this discussion, so far (IMHO, of course, you may perceive things
>differently).

Well you have stated the case which has been made for years. It is out of
date and noone follows it except for some diehard Unix purists. I quite
understand their position, but the world and the net have both changed.
Incidentally, given its roots in academia and research centres, don't you
find the alt groups somewhat deviating from that tradition? What about the
for sale signs all over the place?
 
Anyway, I would prefer to see the numbers in. But it's not the end of the 
world if they remain "censured".
 
Philip McDunnough
University of Toronto
philip@utstat.toronto.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.misc
Subject: Re: Release 3.0 is shipping, as of Aug 24th. (?)
From: zazula@pri.com (Ralph Zazula)
Date: 1 Sep 92 07:10:47 MST
Reply-To: zazula@pri.com
Distribution: world,local

In article <2042@ltb.ltb.bso.nl>  writes:
> 
> The first preinstalled 3.0 NeXT was put in its box last week, if I recall
> correctly it was thursday.
> 

Just received one yesterday :-) x 100!

Ralph