From: johnsd2@jec316.its.rpi.edu.its1 (Daniel Norman Johnson)
Subject: Re: Mac multitasking?
Reply-To: johnsd2@jec316.its.rpi.edu.its1
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 20:20:29 GMT

In article 25000@athena.mit.edu, zmonster@athena.mit.edu (Eric M Hermanson) writes:
>In article <wjj2cvn@rpi.edu> johnsd2@jec330.its.rpi.edu.its1 writes:
>>In article 2257@athena.mit.edu, zmonster@athena.mit.edu (Eric M Hermanson) writes:
>>>>
>>>>Macs offer you solutions, now. To a lot of problems. NeXT may do so one
>>>>day, if they ever get accepted.
>>>>
>>>>But NeXT offer you a very nifty, internally clean os. It is just not enough,
>>>>tho.
>>>
>>>NeXT offers solutions just as well as Mac does.
>>
>>Oh?
>>
>>Incidentally, what CAD software has it got? Byte was not able to find any
>>for its (rather odd) CAD/DTP tests. a couple of months ago.
>
>The only existing package is called OpenCAD (2D and 3D).  Don't know the name
>of the company, but read comp.sys.next.software and it will probably be
>talked about in there.  By the way, Byte was not very fair to NeXT in its
>last computer comparison.  It was comparing the lowest end NeXT with the 
>minimum memory configuration to machines with much greater hardware
>configurations.  I don't trust what Byte says myself.  If you want a REAL
>review of NeXT, get the Dec. 7 edition of InfoWorld.  This review does the
>NeXT justice, and you may be able to learn some things from it.  8-)

I know the Byte article was on drugs. (notice that they gave the Quadra
1st place? Notice why? Very odd...)

Ill see if I can't pick up that InfoWorld.

>>
>>>  I am trying
>>>to get rid of the stigma that NeXT has no software available for it.. There
>>>is plenty of software at very good prices (educational users always get
>>>discounts).  If you don't believe me, call 1-800-848-NeXT and tell them
>>>you want the software and peripherals guide.
>>
>>I know it has software. It just has relatively little, and many of
>>the packages are nonstandard. They may be excellent but often mere
>>nonstandardness can kill a package. (unforunately); for many
>>companies need to stick with their standard stuff for interconnectivity
>>reasons. (or at least, that's the best excuse I've heard yet. :) )
>
>NeXT adheres to most if not all standards.  For instance, all graphics adhere
>to postscript (.ps), encapsulated post script (.eps) or tagg-file image 
>format (TIFF).  When you save a graphics file, you can print it out on
>a Mac using a Mac laser printer.  Also, NeXT's Adobe Illustrator, Frame Maker,
>Word Perfect, and Lotus Improv offer full compatability between platforms.
>Concurrence (the presentation program) is writing filters that will allow
>Power Point presentations to be read in and edited on the NeXT.

Hmmmm... no, I am rather talking about companies that have standardized
on a particular package- Excel or Lotus 1-2-3, Word (yech! But still true).
You have WordPerfect covered, tho.

Incidentally, how good are the translation facilities on the NeXT?
Can I translate Word to <insert your favorite NeXT word processor here>?

>  A company
>has written a Mac emulator that runs 19 Mac programs perfectly (among these
>are MSWord5.0, Excel, Quicken, Carmen SanDiego just to name the few that
>I can remember).

Heck, maybe they'll make it 20 soon! :)

(sorry, couldn't resist)
>  NeXT's floppy drive is able to read and write in both
>DOS and Macintosh formats if the user is running the current version of the
>operating system (3.0).

All DOS and Mac formats, or just a few? (not that it matters hugely,
but Im curious)

>  Also, NeXT understands Apple Talk, and can be 
>networked to a Mac cluster. 

Does this require additional hardware, or are the NeXTs ports
compatible.

> The Mac's think the NeXT is another Mac.  Full
>file compatibility is accomplished while transfering data through AppleTalk.

Howzzat work? Sounds like a good trick.

>NeXT's can be seemlessly hooked into Novell networks (IBM).

Hmm.. howzat work too? Macs can be too, if you want to blow rediculous
amounts of cash to do it. :(

>  In addition,
>Sybase and Oracle databases are supported by the NeXT DataBase kit.

Im not enough of a database guru to know if these are worthwhile.
(never heard of 'em)

>  Hooking
>into one of these data servers is as easy as 1-2-3. Of course, networking to
>other UNIX systems is standard, as NeXT adheres to Berkely 4.3BSD Unix.  It
>runs X-Windows X11R5 with Motif 1.3.  All X programs will run under Xwindows.

Weeeeeeelll, if you have the libraries they want and all that. You have
Motif libraries, certainly. I rather doubt you've OpenLook libraries,
if that matters. There are some x programs that wont work because of that.

>There are currently three commercial Xwindows packages, and two public domain
>packages. Back to the software,
>there is talk that a future page layout program (there are already three
>released for the NeXT) will be able to import Quark-X-Press files.  But this
>is vaporware at the moment.  Did I answer your question?

You gave me a lot to chew on... but rather tangential (argh!); this is very
handy, but I was on the subject of software and most of this isn't quite
about that; it about the availiability of "standard" packages that people
insist of having. (as a personal computer- ie for 1 person- this is not
revelant at all, of course. But I didn't think the NeXT was so oriented-
not with all its netstuff..)

So you didn't quite answer my question (well, blantant assertion actually).

>  I am sure there
>are more examples I can give, give me a scenario, and I will try to see
>I can answer you.

What do you mean by "scenario" here? Me no get it.

>
>>
>>And it also gives you a very nifty GUI on top of a slightly-
>>incompatible (From what I've heard anyway) Unix base. But the GUI
>>isn't all that nifty- it has some nice details, and some nice
>>internals, and better program-communication that other OSes but
>>beyond that.. ?
>
>Beyond that WHAT?  It's time you start supporting your foundation-less
>statments with examples.  Why in the world is the NeXT GUI "not all that
>nifty"?  What improvements do you see that it needs?

Perhaps I was unclear. It is not nifty enough to blow away the competition.
It has improvements in details but does not bring all that much to the
party, GUI wise.

I could come up with minor improvements, but they would not be very
relevant. The NeXT is rife with minor improvement anyway.

>
>>It doesn't quite seem like enough to me to counterbalance the software
>>problem, the lack of low-end machines, the general jerkyness of the
>>interface (perhaps the machines Ive tried have all had low RAM, but
>>they all seemed that jerky to me), the prodigious storage space
>>requirents and all that.
>
>The interface should not be jerky at all.  AT ALL.  I hope you were not
>using the 68030 based machines.

I don't think so... which ones are those?
I can check.

>  The 33MhZ 68040 machines offer smooth
>graphics under all conditions.

These flatly did not do so. There were brand-new machines, provided
for demo purposes.

>  The lack of low end machines will persist.

Alas.

>NeXT will not relases a low end machine due to the complexity of the OS.

I know. My complaint is that said complexity doesn't add enough actual
spifflitude to the NeXT.

>  They
>GOT RID of the 030 systems because they were too slow.

Bummer, isn't it?

>  Yes, the storage
>space requirements are high.  You need a 200MB HD if you are going to get a 
>NeXT.  But that is OK because they come standard with a 250MB drive.  You will
>most likely see more high end machines being released, with the current 
>machines being lowered in price (my speculation).  The high end machines
>will be RISC based, and offer 32bit hardware color, real time image
>and movie compression, and multi-processing capability.  Since Mach is
>a multi-processing environment, the user will be able to plug in CPU chips
>in parallel, much like extra RAM is added to machines nowadays.  You will
>most likely be able to add as many processors as you want to get up to your
>desired speed (to within certain limits, that no one will know until NeXT
>releases this "MEGA MACHINE" sometime NeXT year).  You can catch some of
>this hardware/software speculation by reading comp.sys.next.advocacy.

That sounds extremely nifty. Such a machine could change my mind about
the importance of NeXT, if it comes out soon. (ie before other people
do exactly the same thing. But nobody else is close- NT has to put up
with hardware that cant hack it, MacOS doesn't even have pre-emptive
multitasking, OS/2 has the same problem as NT, etc, etc... NeXT has a
real opportunity here)

---
			- Dan Johnson
And God said "Jeeze, this is dull"... and it *WAS* dull. Genesis 0:0

These opinions have had all identifiying marks removed, and are untraceable.
You'll never know whose they are.