HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: lemson@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (David Lemson)
Subject: Re: 100 Mips Intel NeXT (moved from comp.sys.next.misc)
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 17:49:04 GMT

dillon@overload.Berkeley.CA.US (Matthew Dillon) writes:

>    Dell Dimension 486DX2/50	$2700
>	8MB ram (64KB cache)
>	212MB 15ms HD
If this is an EISA machine, tell me and I'll buy one.

>    Lets try another configuration:  page 143

>    Hyundai 433S	price:	    $2000
>	486SX/33
I can't believe you are saying that any 486SX is reasonably close to
the same speed as an 040 at 33 MHz.

>    type of market that promotes competition.  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

I would not say that even a little bit.  A great deal of effort is
being expended in Redwood City from what I hear to make sure that NS
486 is a killer product that will blow OS/2 and Win NT out of the
water. (as if there existed a useable NT to blow out of the water
right now)
-- 
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.advocacy
From: thomsen@spf.trw.com (Mark Thomsen)
Subject: Re: More Marketing Malarkey(LONG) (Was: Mike Slade)
Organization: TRW Inc., Redondo Beach, CA
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 92 20:25:17 GMT

Michael C. Matthews writes
> Steve Jobs is a marketer.  Bill Gates is an engineer.

I don't consider Gates an engineer from everything I have read and seen. He is  
organized and has a great memory - both qualities that help with computer  
software. He is obviously very intelligent. He has an interest in computers  
(CLEARLY!). But I think his skills are in management (organization and  
strategy), technology assessment (what is truely useful as hindsight), legal  
(his family background), and marketing. He is a businessman who keeps up on  
techie enough to impress non-technical people. He also knows a lot from reading  
and exposure.

I admire Gates for what he is, but he is no engineer - IMNSHO. (For the record,  
I think if he wanted to be he could have become an engineer, but he is so good  
at what he does it would have been a shame to be "just another engineer").

Steve Jobs is a businessman, though less driven by the basic stuff of business  
(money, legal, market strategy). He has vision - the ability to assess new  
technology and support innovation. I don't get a pulse of excitement from  
Microsoft in the technical sense - just that they are a well run company,  
perhaps even a model that more American business should copy parts of. I do get  
a pulse of excitement from NeXT - and I hope they will be better run as a  
business to sustain that pulse.

Perhaps that is the difference between the two men that is most expressed in  
the differences in their companies. The striking similarity they share is they  
are two of the most competitive SOBs on the planet.

Mark R. Thomsen
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: rbc!al (Al Davis)
Subject: Re: Insults (was: Re: standardizing NeXTSTEP)
Reply-To: davis@ee.rochester.edu
Organization: Huh?
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 23:17:10 GMT

In article <1992Dec17.225741.477@cbfsb.cb.att.com> mdw@cbnewsg.cb.att.com  
(mark.d.wuest) writes:
> everyone wanted was a shrewd decision? Remember who wrote TRS-DOS?

I think it was Randy Cook.



Anyway it was not Bill Gates!

It had hashed directories, support of overlays, password protection
and a bunch of other features.  It worked on a machine with 4k ram
and one 70k floppy.  The OS itself took about 2k of ram, but the 
overlays made it so there could be lots more code.  It had to swap
overlays about 3 times to load a file and still did it faster than
MSDOS version 1.

Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: scheurer@lithnext.epfl.ch (Marco Scheurer)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
Subject: Re: Insults (was: Re: standardizing NeXTSTEP)
Date: 18 Dec 92 09:31:13 GMT
Reply-To: scheurer@lithnext.epfl.ch

In article <1gq9cjINN5cc@transfer.stratus.com> jmann@vineland.pubs.stratus.com  
(Jim Mann) writes:
> ...
> Why?  Word is one of the best (perhaps the best) word processor on
> the market, and Excel is THE best spreadsheet on the market. In
> fact, for a long time, nobody was even close to Excel, ...
> --
> Jim Mann

Microsoft Word is the BASIC of word processors.
I don t know about Excel.
---
Marco Scheurer	scheurer@lithnext.epfl.ch (NeXTMail)
Laboratoire d'Informatique Theorique
Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne
IN-Ecublens
CH-1015 Lausanne (Switzerland)
(+41) 21 693-2589
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: yikes@netcom.com (Michael Brill)
Subject: Re: NeXTSTEP 486 delayed to Q3 - are you serious ?
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 04:17:19 GMT

>NS 486 is already completely debugged and ready to go.  Its the ultimate OS
>which delivers even more than it promises.  Little shrink-wrapped boxes
>are sitting RIGHT NOW in NeXT warehouses.

The Q1 OEM release of NS486 is based on 3.0.  The shrinkwrap release of NS486
will be based upon 3.1.  Since 3.1 won't be finished until ~Q2/93, the 
shrinkwrapped NS486 can't be released until the end (or so) of Q2.


...Michael Brill

-- 
----
From: wln@cs.columbia.edu (William Lee Nussbaum)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
Subject: Re: Standardize NeXT
Date: 15 Dec 92 15:30:02 GMT
Organization: Columbia University Department of Computer Science

In article <1992Dec15.063512.11002@godel.questor.wimsey.bc.ca> aberno@godel.questor.wimsey.bc.ca writes:
>In article <1992Dec14.045109.5780@athena.mit.edu> zmonster@athena.mit.edu  
>(Eric M Hermanson) writes:
>> I was reading an article on comp.sys.mac.advocacy relating to flaws of  
>the
>> Macintosh, and someone posted some really neat ideas.  I think the  
>following
>> ideas would be great to implement on the NeXT:
>> 9) STANDARD WORD-PROCESSING FILE
>> 
>>    Some type of standard word-processing file needs to be
>>    created.  
>
>Not RTF(D), I presume. What about the Archetype document engine?
>
RTF(D) could be fine if someone bothered to fully implement the
viewing end, at least, of the spec as documented by Microsoft.  Yes,
many of the operators therein are page-oriented, and the current text
object is not set up for paging, but I'd imagine that a PagedText view
would be less-than-phenomenally-difficult to build, and that of the
'new' features, wrapping around objects would be the most difficult to
implement.

	- Lee
-- 
Lee Nussbaum                    | wln@cs.columbia.edu
NeXTmail, MIME welcomed.        |                       B0/4 w dc gv k? s- p+
PGP Key Available on Request    | For WELL, MindVox, aol, CI$: Mail or Finger
..please await further notice before attempting to extract meaning from sig...
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: greg@afs.com (Gregory H. Anderson)
Subject: Re: NeXTSTEP 486 delayed to Q3 - are you serious ?
Reply-To: greg@afs.com
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 19:34:37 GMT

In article <1992Dec14.032004.21028@noose.ecn.purdue.edu>  
helz@ecn.purdue.edu (Randall A Helzerman) writes:

> How's this for a theory?  
> NS 486 is already completely debugged and ready to go.
> However, the hardware guys think that NS 486 is _too_ good.
> I think NeXT is just scared that their $10 million factory will be idled
> forever once NS 486 is released.

Your theory rates an F. The problems are drivers and NS3.1 conflicts. The  
first pre-release in January will support only a few configurations of 486  
machines, because of the limited set of device drivers. NeXT has decided  
to sell NS486 shrink-wrapped to the world from the get-go, and this has  
obvious implications for delivery times. This represents a change in  
thinking for NeXT, which originally expected to sell NS486 primarily on an  
OEM basis through hardware vendors who would write the drivers themselves.

As to NS3.1 conflicts, anyone who has written software knows how hard it  
is to keep two parallel projects synchronized, objects or not.

--
Gregory H. Anderson          | Thus spake the master programmer: 
Master Programmer / Manager  | "Let the programmers be many and  
Anderson Financial Systems   | the managers few; then all will be 
greg@afs.com  (Nextmail OK)  | productive." -- Tao of Programming
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: hal@niftyneato.com(Hal Fox-Palmer)
Subject: Re: 486 Machine from NeXT
Organization: Hal's phony Co.
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 04:08:00 GMT

In article <BzA6Ev.3Ln@babbage.ece.uc.edu>  writes:
> As a prospective future NeXT buyer, I called 1-800-TRY-NeXT in response
> to their $11.00 video offer (A couple of issues back in InfoWorld).
> After ordering the videos, the telephone operator asked me if I wanted
> information about NeXT's new 486 system.  I said yes, but haven't
> received the videos, nor the information.
> 
> My guess is a cheap 486 system with the introduction of NeXTSTEP 486
> (after the bugs in 3.0 are ironed out) followed by a multiprocessor
> Pentium model that hopefully kicks some silicon butt and puts the  
hardware
> issue to rest.
> 
> Anybody else order the videos?
> 
> Dallas J. Marks
> 

I ordered the videos, 3 sets even (to give to friends). Well that was  
about 3 weeks ago. So I called today, and it seems they know there are  
problems (database crash ??) but said they would send them right out.

Hal

hal@niftyneato.com
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
Subject: Re:	100 Mips Intel NeXT (moved from comp.sys.next.misc)
From: feijai@endor.byu.edu (Sean Luke)
Date: 18 Dec 92 14:52:50 -0700
Reply-To: sean@digaudio.byu.edu
Distribution: world

In article <dillon.0t0c@overload.Berkeley.CA.US>  writes:

>    The only thing that's happenning on the bus, in fact, is I/O, and
>    considering the fact that the NeXT is generally memory-bound I/O is  
not
>    really a problem.  


This is not true.  NeXT's system is *extremely* I/O-intensive.  This is  
exactly why the PC's old I/O subsystem (namely, graphics) is proving such  
a problem for NS/486, and why NeXT demands Localbus for color.



>    I am not debating how slow the display is, that isn't the point...  
the
>    point is, it is "fast enough" for most consumers and most business.


This reminds me of the PC users who said a text screen was "enough" for  
most consumers and businesses, when the Mac first came out.


>    Most consumers will not care about networking, therefore ethernet is
>    optional.  Besides, ethernet cards are about $100 for the PC  
(presuming
>    NeXT had drivers for them)


Believe me, NeXT does.  My prediction:  people who do not need networking  
will not buy NS/486.  NeXTSTEP and UNIX really shines on the network.   
Standalone NeXT machines are less...glamorous.


[concerning the PC]

>    That system is plenty usable as is... perhaps you or I would expand  
the
>    system, but it's fine for joe average consumer and joe average  
business


But that's the whole point.  Joe average consumer/business will not buy  
NS/486.  Why should they need it?  They can run WP just fine.

NeXTSTEP is very nice, but it's only useful to people who need it (just  
like everything).  You seem to have this idea that NS/486 is aimed at the  
SoundBlaster crowd, and your arguments, examples, and suggestions show  
this.


>    But most people aren't you.  Most consumers and small business will  
be
>    perfectly happy with somewhat slower machines, somewhat smaller
>    monitors, 

See above.


--

Sean Luke
Brigham Young University                   MILK:  It Comes From Cows
sean@digaudio.byu.edu  
NeXTmail and nifty Mac stuff welcome
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: nathan@laplace.csb.yale.edu (Nathan F. Janette)
Subject: Re: 100 Mips Intel NeXT (moved from comp.sys.next.misc)
Reply-To: nathan@laplace.csb.yale.edu (Nathan F. Janette)
Organization: Yale University, Department of Computer Science, New Haven, CT
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1992 05:28:49 GMT

In article <dillon.0t1z@overload.Berkeley.CA.US> 

> If NeXTStep is only useful to 'special' people then NeXT has already
> lost.  I don't know where you got the idea that I might think NS/486 is
> aimed at one particular crowd, my whole point is that NS486 must be
> aimed at EVERYONE.	If anything, the restrictions on NS486 make that
> impossible.

Please support this oft repeated thesis of yours.  It
seems to be at odds with the historical pattern of success
in the computer industry as I understand it.  My
impression is that many computer companies have been
wildly successful selling to selected markets. One of
NeXT's biggest rivals, Sun, comes to mind, and Sun didn't
make it big by selling $99 copies of Windoze to the average
low-end computer user. 

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

Please reply to: nathan@laplace.csb.yale.edu (NeXT)

Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: andersen@reality.glv.com (Robert Andersen)
Subject: Re:  100 Mips Intel NeXT (moved from comp.sys.next.misc)
Organization: Encompass
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 14:21:54 GMT

In article <1992Dec14.180303.20755@adobe.com> byer@adobe.com (Scott Byer)  
writes:
> Matthew Dillon writes
> 
> >     Why spend major kilobucks on color NeXTStation hardware when
> >     I can spend a quarter of the money on a 486 box with equivalent
> >     capabilities?
> 
> You couldn't get anywhere near the ColorStation's capabilities for
> 1/4 the price.  Or even half.  You'd be hard pressed to match it
> dollar for dollar, though it could be done if you love fiddling
> with the gazillion primitive dip switches that are always present
> on PC hardware to remind you how out of date their architectures
> are.  

  So you know for a fact how well NS486 runs, I would like to know the  
configuration of the machine you used to base your comparison on and where you  
got a copy of NX486 from.

--
Robert John Andersen           
(919) 380-6523 (v,w)
andersen%reality@glv.com - NeXT mail!

Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend.
Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: cowboy@trans.csuohio.edu (Joe Rosenfeld)
Subject: Re: NeXTSTEP 486 delayed to Q3 - are you serious ?
Organization: Cleveland State University
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL8]
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 11:19:04 GMT

Randall A Helzerman (helz@ecn.purdue.edu) wrote:
: In article <1992Dec8.204643.14091@bernina.ethz.ch>, flog@open.ch (Florian Gutzwiller) writes:
: |> Is it true, that NeXT has officially stated, that NeXTSTEP 486 will be delayed  
: |> to Q3 1993 ?

: How's this for a theory?  
: NS 486 is already completely debugged and ready to go.  Its the ultimate OS
: which delivers even more than it promises.  Little shrink-wrapped boxes
: are sitting RIGHT NOW in NeXT warehouses.

: However, the hardware guys think that NS 486 is _too_ good.  You could just buy
: NS 486 today and have a way faster system than anything NeXT is going to 
: manufacture until...... Q3 1993????

: I think NeXT is just scared that their $10 million factory will be idled
: forever once NS 486 is released.

Well, interesting ... but if NS 486 is ready now, why has the BETA test
been delayed until Q1 1993?

Cowboy

Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: songer@lexmark.com (Christopher Songer)
Subject: Re: 100 Mips Intel NeXT (moved from comp.sys.next.misc)
X-Disclaimer: These views are the poster's and not necessarily those of Lexmark
Organization: Lexington, KY
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 22:56:33 GMT

In article <BzD5I6.GG@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> lemson@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (David Lemson) writes:
>
>I would not say that even a little bit.  A great deal of effort is
>being expended in Redwood City from what I hear to make sure that NS
>486 is a killer product that will blow OS/2 and Win NT out of the
>water. (as if there existed a useable NT to blow out of the water
>right now)
>

Gee, What a shame it is going to cost $500 more than NT and $800 more
than OS/2. Also note the rumors of a GDI printer data stream in the
works from Microsoft and HP. NeXT may not be the only company with
a consistent imaging model soon, and while PS is cool there is some question
as to the need for looping constructs, etc in a page descirption language.
After all, what's the first thing to do to improve performance? Get your
stuff out of PS and into C.

Next had best rethink its pricing structures (hardware and software)
soon or even I may change over! I've always been a fan of Next, but they
are swiftly losing their competitive advantages for the "normal" computer 
user. I use a Sun at work. It's so much faster than my Nexts at home,
I would not change over if I could. I use the 486 laptop Lexmark 
purchased me more than the NeXT's at home. Why? it has the applications
I need and they didn't cost an arm and a leg.

Sure, you can whip an app together faster on the Next than on anything
else but that's about it. C'est La'Vie. Next was great when I was in
college -- playing around and doing custom code for simulations / class
projects etc. Now that I'm out though, Sun is better for the development
work I do due to the speed and a PC is better for the "project management"
work I do due to the plethora of software available.

NS486 needs to be cheap to get lots of developers on the Next platform 
otherwise Next is in serious trouble.


-Chris 


PS: I suppose I'm just peeved at Next for having such a good product which
due to lack of speed, high cost, slow hardware and low volumes is 
practically unusable for anything outside custom development.
From: fxg@bolgolam.informatik.rwth-aachen.de (Felix Gatzemeier)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
Subject: Re: GO LOW/MID END I SAY
Date: 17 Dec 92 09:51:55 GMT
Organization: Rechnerbetrieb Informatik - RWTH Aachen
NNTP-Posting-Host: bolgolam.informatik.rwth-aachen.de

ijeff@hank.carleton.ca (Ian Jefferson) writes:

>In <RFANTA.92Dec1122057@newport.cea.berkeley.edu> rfanta@cea.berkeley.edu (Richard Fanta) writes:

>>In article <1992Dec1.172944.13954@kakwa.ucs.ualberta.ca> dave@nakiska.ucs.ualberta.ca (David Ross) writes:

>stuff deleted ....

>>Ditto for NeXTStep '486.  If NeXTStep 3.0 is as slow as I'm told it
>>is, I'm also worried about these big corporate accounts getting
>>disgruntled when they try to run it on slower, non-custom hardware.
>     ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

>NeXT 3.0 is NOT slow!  I am running it OK on my 030 cube with 24 Mb RAM
>and it's fine there even though it's not recommended for the 68030!  This
>machine even acts as an NFS server for my PC!  

>I wish my SUN IPC would perform as swiftly!

>NOT SLOW

Taking IconBuilder as a part of NS 3.0, make the following test:

1) quit as much apps as you can.
2) Run IconBuilder on some resonable image (loginwindow-format, e.g.)
3) get the obese bits window
4) enlargen it o it covers some interesting portion (about one of the blank spaces)
5) try to move parts of it with the block tool.

On my 040/25/8 station, performance dropped to sub-zero. No disk activity and still
20 sec. response time for mouse clicks. Call that NOT SLOW. Hey, I had a ZX Spectrum
in the old days that zorched compared to that, doing the same thing!

>>Rick Fanta
>>(rfanta@cea.berkeley.edu)
>>Software Engineer
>>Center for EUV Astrophysics
>>--
>>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>Rick Fanta			e-mail: rfanta@cea.berkeley.edu
>>Center EUV Astrophysics		
>-- 
>---------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Ian Jefferson 	ijeff@ccs.carleton.ca No NeXT mail please!
>		ijeff@computeractive.on.ca NeXT mail please!
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: rsrodger@wam.umd.edu (Yamanari)
Subject: Re: 88k Dead ?
Keywords: RISC, Steve, 88110
Organization: University of Maryland, College Park
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 17:42:42 GMT

In article <1992Dec14.040251.2079@seldon.fdn.org> thierry@seldon.fdn.org (Thierry CHARLES) writes:
>In a visit in Paris (Palais des Congres), the 12/4/92 (big presentation event  
>to the top 150 business companies of France) Steve answered to the question  
>about the 88110:
>NeXT abandoned the future release of a 88110-RISC based product.
                    ^^^^^^              ^^^^^

	Funny the way these two sit in the same sentence like that.

	88k--first generation, bugs.
	88k--second generation, almost two years late.
 


-- 
	"If you can't eat sand, why the hell are you living in a desert?"


	Nuclear redevelopment for a better world!
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: jefferis@manas.engr.widener.edu (Raymond P Jefferis)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
Subject: NeXTstep vs ...
Date: 12 Dec 1992 19:25:10 GMT
Organization: A poorly-installed InterNetNews site
NNTP-Posting-Host: engr.widener.edu
Keywords: GUI, NeXTstep

Computer Design, Vol. 31, No. 12 (December, 1992), pp85-89 features a  
comparative discussion of WindowsNT, OS-2, and NeXTstep.  NeXTstep is  
treated rather favorably.
  
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: vesper@kong.gsfc.nasa.gov (Greg Vesper - RMS)
Subject: Re: Sparc port??  (was Re: 88k Dead ? Maybe Not ...)
Reply-To: vesper@kong.gsfc.nasa.gov
Organization: Goddard Space Flight Center
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 92 19:25:34 GMT

In article <RFANTA.92Dec9095744@newport.cea> rfanta@cea (Richard Fanta) writes:
> 
> This is the killer question, and could be about as important as
> NeXTSTEP 486.  Sun runs the risk of alienating a bunch of users with
> the upcoming shift to Solaris. 
> 

Solaris will undoubtedly alienate some traditional SUN developers and even more  
SUN system administrators.  This will be a significant issue for SUN and a  
SPARC port of NeXTSTEP would allow NeXT to take advantage of this transition.

--
Gregory W. Vesper, SEWP BOWL, Goddard Space Flight Center
                   email: vesper@sewp.nasa.gov
                   Phone: 301-286-1478
                   FAX:   301-286-4627
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy,comp.sys.next.misc