HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: jiro@shaman.com (Jiro Nakamura)
Subject: Re: Byte, Silliness, and Journalists
Organization: Shaman Consulting
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1992 15:15:10 GMT


An open offer to anyone sick of Byte or other glossy magazines with  
 
no content and nothing to do with NeXTs is to read NeXTwatch, a commercial newsletter that Skylee Press and the Shaman Group co-produce. We're small, we don't have glossy paper, don't take advertisements, we do have pretty good reviews, and we have very high standards for  
 
editorial integrity (in our own humble opinions).

For more information, send us your postal mailing address to
   <nextwatch@skylee.com>  (NeXTmail OK)
and we'll send you a complimentary copy along with subscription information.

 - Jiro Nakamura
   Tech Editor / NeXTwatch

-- 
Jiro Nakamura				jiro@shaman.com (NeXTmail)
NeXTwatch / Technical Editor		76711,542 (CIS)
The Shaman Group			+1 607 277-1440 (Voice/Fax)
From: ernest@pundit.cithep.caltech.edu (Ernest Prabhakar)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
Subject: Re: Concerns about NeXT Prices are warranted
Date: 16 Nov 1992 22:37:28 GMT
Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
Distribution: world
Reply-To: ernest@pundit.cithep.caltech.edu (Ernest Prabhakar)
NNTP-Posting-Host: pundit.cithep.caltech.edu

In article <1992Nov16.181812.25376@cbnewsl.cb.att.com> coco@cbnewsl.cb.att.com  
(felix.lugo) writes:
> You've
> got to accept the fact that the new Sun hardware is very attractive and WILL
> make potential NeXT customers think twice about which platform to support.
> NeXTSTEP is great, but it's value is transitory.  Hardware investment is
> THE primary concern involved when purchasing for a big project (and I'm not
> talking about a one time purchase by an individual).  Software for devel.
> purposes comes after that.
> 
> --Felix

Well, yes and no.  After all, Unix boxes have had far superior  
price/performance for years, but PCs are still the dominant animal.  Which is  
what NeXT is competing against, at least in the LA area (NeXTSTEP vs. Windows  
NT, which I guess is fair since they're both 'vapor').

It is certainly annoying that NeXT has such wimpy hardware, but I guess NeXT is  
still considered fast relative to the PC world.  And don't forget Pentium  
(Intel '586) is due out soon, which will have comparable performance to a  
SPARC, and NeXTSTEP '486 is already running on it in NeXT's labs...

- Ernie P.
--
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>
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: andrew@cubetech.com
Subject: Re: Concerns about NeXT Prices are warranted
Organization: Cube Technologies, Inc.
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 03:24:55 GMT

In article <1992Nov16.181812.25376@cbnewsl.cb.att.com> coco@cbnewsl.cb.att.com (felix.lugo) writes:
>got to accept the fact that the new Sun hardware is very attractive and WILL
>make potential NeXT customers think twice about which platform to support.
>NeXTSTEP is great, but it's value is transitory.  Hardware investment is
>THE primary concern involved when purchasing for a big project (and I'm not
>talking about a one time purchase by an individual).  Software for devel.
>purposes comes after that.

For people that just want a unix box, yes.  But if you want what
NeXTSTEP offers, the vast majority will turn to NS486 because of the
hardware.  That's why NeXT is doing the 486 port before a PA-RISC or
SPARC part for instance.


andrew
-- 
andrew@cubetech.com     | "Carpe Nocturn - I get more work done after
Andrew Loewenstern      |  2 a.m. than most people do all day."
Cube Technologies, Inc. |                          - Simson Garfinkel
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: ijeff@alfred.carleton.ca (Ian Jefferson)
Subject: Re: Byte Magazine pans the NeXTstation
Organization: Carleton University
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 23:46:41 GMT

Well while I have my gripes with Byte at least they wrote something
positive in the Oct 92 issue. 

PP190 NextStep: The Sleeper
blah, blah ....
"NextStep, is probably the most repected piece of software on the planet."

Not bad for a PC rag.  

Ian

-- 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ian Jefferson 	ijeff@ccs.carleton.ca No NeXT mail please!
		ijeff@computeractive.on.ca NeXT mail please!
From: nathan@laplace.biology.yale.edu (Nathan F. Janette)
Subject: Re: Really stupid Question: NS486 (WHEN??)
Reply-To: nathan@laplace.biology.yale.edu
Organization: Yale University, Department of Computer Science, New Haven, CT
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1992 19:36:23 GMT

In article <1992Nov19.133714.27637@news.columbia.edu>  
fag2@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Farul A Ghazali) writes:
> In article <1992Nov12.165309.6902@wam.umd.edu> rsrodger@next10csc.wam.umd.edu  
(Robert Stephen Rodgers) writes:
> >
> >
> >	Really dumb question.
> 
> 	[stuff deleted]
> 
> >	NS486:  When?
> 
> Another question. How much will it be? 
> 

Same answer: check out the FAQ.NeXTstep-486 in comp.sys.next.announce ;-)

--
Nathan Janette		"I'm a NeXTstep man,
Dept MB&B, Yale Univ	 I'm a NeXTcube guy"
New Haven, CT
nathan@laplace.biology.yale.edu (NeXT)
From: putzolu@toadflax.cs.ucdavis.edu (David Putzolu)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
Subject: Re: NeXT Prices: They appear too high for me!
Date: 17 Nov 92 19:51:48 GMT
Organization: Department of Computer Science, University of California, Davis

In article <1992Nov15.083616.305@utstat.uucp> philip@utstat.uucp (Philip McDunnough) writes:
>In article <178@bytepb.UUCP> ben@bytepb.UUCP (Ben Smith @ BYTE) writes:
>>Why burden the Quadra with something that belongs only on
>>responses to government POSIX requirements, i.e., AUX. If you
>>want to do a comparison like this, may as well give both machines
>>a lobotomy: make them both emulate MS-DOS and then run DOS
>>benchmarks. The idea is to evaluate a machine with its native
>>environment.
>The reason for burdening the Quadra with A/UX is that it is the one OS
>that Apple has that makes use of the Quadra's capabilities. For the vast
>majority of Mac users a Quadra is of no use. For a small minority it is.
>Then there are those that would like to have multi-user capability, 
>multitasking, etc...It's not just an issue of government bureacratic
>requirements. Your comment verges on the the ignorant. I have my NeXT at 
>home. I am linked to where I work so that mail is constantly arriving,
>students can submit their projects, my graduate students can logon, etc...and
>all this is happening while I go about my work.

So since I am running multiple programs (including Word 5 in the
background, a ftp client, a mail program, AND two telnet sessions) I 
am running A/UX? You could have fooled me, I was sure this was plain
vanilla system 7. What capabilities of the Quadra does A/UX exploit
that System 7 does not??? Many people buy the Quadra for the same
reason they buy a NST instead of a plain NS: speed. 

>Philip McDunnough
>philip@utstat.toronto.edu

"Anti-viral software? Nah, I'm careful enough"     ______-==-______
                                       ____-------=----------------=-------____
                 ________________  _ _-    --------________________--------
                (______________(_||_) _______ /
                   /_____/_____            _-
Ex-Capt David Putzolu          \__________-
U.S.S. Yamato
Senior, CS & Psych, U.C.Davis - putzolu@cs.ucdavis.edu - my opinion
From: wisdom@riemann.geom.umn.edu (Scott Wisdom)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
Subject: Re: NeXT: Giving up the dream?
Date: 18 Nov 92 16:31:04 GMT
Article-I.D.: news2.1992Nov18.163104.29019
Organization: Geometry Center, University of Minnesota

In article <1992Nov17.075722.4183@npoint.com> james@npoint.com writes:
>Interactive RenderMan is what is used for "real-time" on screen displays.
>The NeXTDimension runs a customized version of the Interactive RenderMan
>server.  It is somewhat faster, particularly for wireframe, I'm told.
You have to qualify the term 'somewhat' here. Yes, it is 'somewhat'
faster if 'somewhat' means, oh, 15-20% faster than a NeXTStation Color. The
NeXTDimension makes the images look a little nicer (24bits vs 12bits) but the
performance isn't there. We have some very old irises here (12MHz CPUs,
old graphics hardware) and they blow away the NeXTDimension several times
over as far as *graphics performance* goes. In anycase, I prefer to use a
NeXTStation Color over the NeXTDimension any day for Quick Renderman - It
has similar performance and doesn't crash the window server as often (NSC
is pretty stable, ND is not too stable). For more complex objects, the ND
feels a little faster than a NeXTStation Color.

I haven't seen QRMAN on the NSC Turbo yet, but I would bet that it
has better performance than ND. NeXT Does not have a serious 3D hardware
platform yet - ND doesn't come close. The software is there, just not the
hardware. Yet. 

- Scott Wisdom
wisdom@geom.umn.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: ricardo@chuy (Ricardo Parada)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
Subject: Re: Byte unfairness(?)
Date: 17 Nov 92 02:01:18 GMT
Organization: Pencom Software

In article <1992Nov15.042312.28016@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu>  
lmccullo@nyx.cs.du.edu (Michael McCulloch) writes:
> Ben Smith (ben@bytepb.UUCP writes:
> 
> >>   | Hey!  Watch it!  The respect I have for the NeXT has to do with 
> >>     my objectiveness in recognizing good hardware, OS, etc. at a  
decent
> >>     price... and the Amiga is great.
> >I got a good laugh from this response. We were just commenting
> >on the observation that the NeXT users were as loudly religous as
> >the Amigoids. Now I'm finding out that they are actually the same
> >people with a new god ;-)
> >-- 
> 
> Yeah, you and your magazine are ones to talk. The latest issue of Byte
> 'covers' OOP technology. Once again, Macs and PCs are 'all' that exist.
> The NeXT gets one mention in a table. NeXT doesn't even show up in the
> index. I guess Borland C++ is all there is to OOP. Who has a growing
> community of reusable objects, a fully integrated OOP environment, and
> a hardware manufacturer fully committed to OOP?
> 
> My Byte subscription will not be renewed...
> 
> Michael McCulloch

I agree.  They're missing the good OOP stuff and not fully educating the  
readers on what's out there!  I like magazines and computer publications  
that show that they know what's out there.  I'll keep reading Byte  
magazine though 'cause I think that once in a while they still have good  
articles!

o NeXTSTEP has brought ease of use to O-O technology
o NeXTSTEP has brought ease of use to IPC with distributed objects
o NeXTSTEP has a unified imaging system

---> My wish: I want NeXTSTEP to bring ease of use to multiplatform IPC by  
implementing distributed objects in other UNIX platforms.
 
--
Ricardo J. Parada
From: abell@netcom.com (Steven T. Abell)
Subject: Re: 64-bit CPUs (was DEC's alpha is "way fast")
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 01:29:59 GMT

byer@adobe.com (Scott Byer) supplies an Alpha string mover:
>Loop:
>        STQ     R3,0(R2)
>        LDA     R2,8(R2)
>        LDQ     R3,0(R1)
>        LDA     R1,8(R1)
>        CMPBGE  R31,R3,R4
>        BEQ     R4,Loop

>That's 6 instructions for 8 bytes, a win over byte-by-byte (at 16
>instructions per 8 bytes).  If the source and destination are
>mis-aligned differently, then it's and extra three instructions -
>two shifts and an or - in the inner loop (and a couple of extra
>instructions in the preamble).  And that would handle the fully
>general un-aligned move case.

>As a final note - the smart algorithm must be used on the Alpha,
>as there are no byte- or word- load instructions.  The 'dumb' C
>algorithm of 'while (*to++ = *from++);' that translates into the
>one move instruction on the 68k gets translated into a really ugly
>mess on the Alpha, with shifts and masks.  The default verion of
>Unix 'compress', for example, makes the Flamingo perform like a
>Sparc 2.

Not being familiar with the Alpha instruction set: what increments your
pointers?

It's the misaligned case that's interesting. If Alpha has no sub-width
reads or writes, I think this algorithm is much more complex than you
indicate. You'll need to hang onto the previous read to construct the
following write, or reread the previous chunk.

Also, I think the code here has a typo: the second LDA. Comments would be
helpful.

Thanks, Scott. Now we're getting somewhere.

Steve abell@netcom.com
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: jake@skatter.usask.ca
Subject: Re: Concerns about NeXT Prices are warranted
Organization: University of Saskatchewan
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 22:02:42 GMT

From article <1e97r8INNeot@gap.caltech.edu>, by ernest@pundit.cithep.caltech.edu (Ernest Prabhakar):
> In article <1992Nov16.181812.25376@cbnewsl.cb.att.com> coco@cbnewsl.cb.att.com  
> (felix.lugo) writes:

(stuff tossed)

> Well, yes and no.  After all, Unix boxes have had far superior  
> price/performance for years, but PCs are still the dominant animal.  Which is  
> what NeXT is competing against, at least in the LA area (NeXTSTEP vs. Windows  
> NT, which I guess is fair since they're both 'vapor').
> 
> It is certainly annoying that NeXT has such wimpy hardware, but I guess NeXT is  
> still considered fast relative to the PC world.  And don't forget Pentium  
> (Intel '586) is due out soon, which will have comparable performance to a  
> SPARC, and NeXTSTEP '486 is already running on it in NeXT's labs...
>

Yeah, yeah,  I heard that Nextstep is running on 370's in NeXT's labs, and
I hear it kick's JCL's butt...
 
> - Ernie P.
> --
> 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>

jake

--
Jason C. Breckenridge 				jake@skatter.usask.ca

Sometimes the world is a mighty fine place to be dead to.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: wilcoxt@cuug.ab.ca (Terrance Wilcox 260-8100)
Subject: Re: Byte Magazine pans the NeXTstation
Organization: Calgary UNIX Users' Group
Date: Sun, 15 Nov 1992 16:55:46 GMT

In article <179@bytepb.UUCP> ben@bytepb.UUCP (Ben Smith @ BYTE) writes:
>paragraph. Putting that aside, yes, I can send and receive E-mail
>and Usenet news with NeXT users. But as some of you have stated,
>you prefer to receive NeXTmail because it is the default data
>format. Though richer, it is not MIME. Will it move over to MIME
>when that has been well defined? Probably not. You will just have
>install yet another user agent like everyone else on the net.
>-ben

I prefer NeXTmail because it's more versatile. It's certainly not
my default format.

I see you have that 'will be a standard' mentality.
This is typical of people that believe Windows NT is already a 
standard (seemingly the entire Byte staff).

I can get a MIME compliant mail program, but nobody I know
uses MIME. Even some Mac users I know can use NeXTmail.

Terry Wilcox
From: cs4w+@andrew.cmu.edu (Charles William Swiger)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
Subject: Re: DEC's alpha is "way fast" according to WSJournal
Date: 18 Nov 92 07:46:05 GMT
Article-I.D.: andrew.8f2c5Ra00VoiA=mVAi
	<1992Nov18.005510.14144@access.usask.ca>
Organization: Senior, Chemistry, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA

Excerpts from netnews.comp.sys.next.advocacy: 18-Nov-92 Re: DEC's alpha
is "way fas.. jake@skatter.usask.ca (746)

>The way it seems to work, is you build a machine, and somebody
>brings it to its knees. Over and over again.
>
>jake

Yep.  If I get a 200+ MIPS machine that rocks at math, I'm gonna be
doing some real-time rendering from hell with it.  And I'm gonna be
smiling at that poor CPU as it moans from the numbers it's grinding
:-)....

-Chuck

+------------------------------------------+ "Foosh.  Aaughh!!"
| Charles William Swiger -- CMU...crunch!  | "Foosh.  Aauuggghh!!"
| AMS & normal mail: cs4w+@andrew.cmu.edu  | "Cold spray deodorant...."
| NeXTmail: chuck@mon.slip.andrew.cmu.edu  |
+------------------------------------------+   -- Opus, Bloom County [RIP]
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: wilcoxt@cuug.ab.ca (Terrance Wilcox 260-8100)
Subject: Re: Byte silliness.
Organization: Calgary UNIX Users' Group
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 00:39:17 GMT

The more I look at that Byte article, the stranger it gets. Check out the
other ports line. Where did the NeXT's audio ports go?

Why did the tests use 8 bit color? I realize the Indigo is limited to
8 bits, but the other machines aren't. Was it to give the Indigo a level
playing field?

I thought the Mac Quadra 950 had built-in video. Why did they buy a video
card?

The Dec had a slower version of the R3000A than the Indigo, but it kicked
the Indigo's butt in FrameMaker. How come they say that the DEC lacks dazzle
but the Indigo is outstanding. The DEC is faster with a slower chip!

They make a big deal out of being able to double click documents to 
launch the app and open the document on the Indigo. The same thing
happens on the NeXT but they don't mention it.

They say the NeXT ran at speeds comparable to the DEC, but generally
behind the pack so they can't recommend it. The Indigo is slower, but
it's fast enough to be outstanding!

Let's face it. I just don't understand the criteria.

Terry Wilcox

Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: byer@adobe.com (Scott Byer)
Subject: Re: NeXTSTEP on DEC Alpha?  Rumor in Digital News & Review
Reply-To: byer@adobe.com (Scott Byer)
Organization: Adobe Systems Incorporated
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 1992 00:02:04 GMT

Geoff Brunkhorst writes

> NeXTSTEP API on an Alpha/OSF platform?  That would be an interesting
> twist...

It would also be a good hunk of work, what with OSF/1 running full
64 bits and all...

But worth it, most definitely worth it.

--
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.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: marcel@opal.cs.tu-berlin.de (Marcel Weiher)
Subject: Re: Need For Automated Programming? (Re: I Take It Back)
Keywords: Automated Programming
Organization: Techn. University of Berlin, Germany
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1992 08:19:22 GMT

hlam@bnr.ca (Hayward Lam) writes:

>A subsidary of my company is called ObjecTime. Their product is also called ObjecTime. The program allows you to focus on the design aspect and lets you test the design before coding (like IB, but this is down to implementation level). After the design is verified, it automatically generates C++ code. If the design is more at the conceptual level, you have to write more C++ code. But if your design is down to the very detail, there is basically no code needs to be written. 
>If ObjecTime can produce Objective C code and can be incorporated in IB, it would be a great design tool!! 

People stil don't get it.  The point about IB is that it doesn't generate
code, it generates objects.  As you're working in IB, you're working with
the same objects you'll have when your application is running.  It also
means that nibs can act as templates and be read multiple times, generated
as the app is running and read back in etc.

Marcel
From: drm@esl.com (Don McGregor)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
Subject: Re: Byte Magazine pans the NeXTstation
Date: 18 Nov 92 01:39:31 GMT
Reply-To: drm@esl.com

In article <1992Nov17.215414.12562@das.harvard.edu>  
charuhas@virtual4.harvard.edu (Thomas Charuhas) writes:
> I don't understand why everyone is so surprised. I was an avid Byte
> reader before it became a useless PC rag. ( > 5 years ago)
>My world would be turned upside down if a trash magazine liketoday's Byte
> actually said something good about the NeXT. 

Byte has had one or two positive mentions of NeXTen.  NeXT isn't a  
high-volume machine, so they're not going to get mentioned in every issue.  

At one time Byte aspired to be driven by the underlying technology of  
small systems rather than by specific platforms.  Looks like that's no  
longer the case to the same extent; doing an issue on objects without  
mentioning NeXT was foolish.  It doesn't _matter_ in that case that NeXT  
is small volume.  The technology was worth examining on its own merits,  
since the same types of things will be showing up on other platforms in a  
few years.  And comparing an 8/105 mono station to a loaded color RS/6000  
on image processing tasks was pretty silly.

--
Don McGregor | Life is like high school, only with money and guns.
drm@esl.com  |
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: shiva@vega.Stanford.EDU (Marcos Javier Polanco)
Subject: Does anybody want to build an xbase system for the NeXT?
Organization: DSO, Stanford University
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 92 05:29:50 GMT



Every other category is covered. If we are going to sell NeXTs en-masse

we are going to need a dBase compatible (xBase) environment. With their

purchase of Fox, Microsoft has virtually assured the future viability of

the xbase language. And there exists no "medium" database for the NeXT

of any repute: the options seem to be Dataphile or Sybase. Any takers?

-Marcos J. Polanco
-shiva@vega.stanford.edu
-415-691-2255
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: gvh@metrosoft.com (Gordon Van Huizen)
Subject: Re: Where are they now?
Reply-To: gvh@metrosoft.com (Gordon Van Huizen)
Organization: Metrosoft
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 01:23:11 GMT

In article <1992Nov17.094233.60912@cc.usu.edu> slhw4@cc.usu.edu (Jason  
Hunsaker) writes:
> What ever happened to Steve Wozinak (sp?) co-founder of Apple?
> 

He's in a PowerBook ad with his kid.
-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------
Gordon Van Huizen           vox: 619.488.9411  fax: 619.488.3045
Metrosoft                   gvh@metrosoft.com [NeXTmail welcome]
----------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: chuck@nighthawk.jhuapl.edu (Chuck (Non-Peon) Waltrip)
Subject: NeXTSTEP on DEC Alpha?  Rumor in Digital News & Review
Keywords: NeXTSTEP, Alpha, DEC, Mach, VMS
Organization: JHU/Applied Physics Laboratory
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 23:49:42 GMT

The "Rumor Roundup" column in the November 12th Digital News & Review mag.  
reports a rumor that DEC is going ahead with a project to put the Mach  
microkernel on Alpha and that it will then be possible to run VMS, OSF/1  
and NeXTSTEP (yup, that's what he said) concurrently (similar, I guess, to  
the way that NT supports Windows and Posix, etc).

The column also reports that Carnegie-Mellon has already booted Mach on  
the Alpha (I seem to re-call someone from CMU posting to that effect also  
on one of the comp.sys.next.* groups).

Another rumor is that DEC is trying to sell Alpha to, among others, NeXT.

This would be interesting, especially in view of DEC's Alpha PC which is  
"expected" to sell for less than $3K.  But the real market for the Alpha  
PC is expected to be NT so I find myself repeating my previously posted  
notion that the really exciting port of NeXTSTEP will be to NT.  Maybe DEC  
would be willing to do it as a possible competitive advantage making their  
NT richer than an Intel or MIPS version.

c.f.waltrip

Opinions expressed are my own.

email:	chuck@nighthawk.jhuapl.edu	(NeXTmail accepted.)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy