From: melling@cs.psu.edu (Michael D Mellinger)
Subject: Bad NeXT Campuses^2
Organization: Penn State Computer Science
Distribution: comp
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1992 02:43:00 GMT


Here's a campus with around 350 NeXT computers where the people don't
seem to be bubbling with enthusiasm about their NeXTs.  I found this
person's comments to be quite surprising because I thought the Rose
Hulman Institute was one of NeXT's successes.

-Mike

======================================================================
Newsgroups: comp.unix.misc
From: eigenstr@nyssa.cs.rose-hulman.edu (Todd R. Eigenschink)
Subject: NeXT WP grips (was Really Misleading Subject)
Organization: Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology
Distribution: na
Date: Sun, 12 Apr 1992 18:44:37 GMT

In article <1992Apr12.180723.4076@news.rn.com> larry@news.rn.com (Larry Snyder) writes:
>peter@ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) writes:
>
>>> Word Perfect and WriteNow are
>>> decent word processors for the Unix based NeXT computer.
>
>>They ought to be. They cost enough.
>
>wait a minute -- Word Perfect for UNIX isn't much more than WP for
>DOS --  
>
>-- 
>=*= Larry Snyder, Public Access Unix Site - 219-289-0777 - 10 lines =*=
>internet: larry@gator.rn.com        uucp: uunet!trauma!larry

WordPerfect for the NeXT ISN'T, as far as I'm concerned.  Not only is
it monolithic and severely lacking in funcionality (why didn't they
port 5.1 instead of whatever they _did_ port?????), it's
SSSSSLLLLLOOOOOWWWWW!  Nothing like a 64040 box that runs WP slower
than a 8088 runs just about anything...

And WriteNow...please.  NeXT doesn't even support it anymore.  Doesn't
that tell you something?  It was/is consistent, at least--it'll crash
about every 10 minutes for me.

...and who said that the NeXT was Unix-based?  Nonononono...it runs
Mach...and Mach most definitely is NOT Unix.

(Conversation overheard between two profs, one from our school and one
from a different one:

Theirs: What do you teach your introductory courses with?
Ours: Pascal on the NeXT.
Theirs: NeXT...is that Unix?
Ours: No...it's Mach.
)

The same prof also claims (and many students agree with him) that we
have only 4 types of machines on campus:

1. A VAX running VMS and various other kinds of DEC hardware.  This
   needs no further description, does it? :-)
2. Toasters.  One lab full of Zenith 386 PeeCee's.  It's unfortunate
   that they even have to get ranked with actual computers, but...
3. Pseudo-toasters.  Somewhere in the neighborhood of 350 NeXT
   machines.  They're considered to have infested our otherwise pleasant
   campus.
4. Real computers.  A still-growing lab of Sun hardware.  Perhaps this
   classification was a bit biased, since he's a CS prof and this lab is
   run by the comp. sci. dept, but still...


Oh, yeah...and this week's issue of the school paper had a cartoon
showing a NeXT with an airbag popping out of the monitor.  The caption
said "Some said the NeXT's 'crash protection' went a bit too far."  I
wonder if one of those things would survive a drop from the top of
Moench hall?  (heh heh heh :)

--
Todd Eigenschink (eigenstr@CS.Rose-Hulman.Edu)
Assistant System Manager, News Administrator
Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, Terre Haute, IN
"G++ is to C++ as Turbo Pascal is to Pascal--it's a great compiler,
 but for a language other than C++."  -- Fred Sullivan
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.misc