HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: alex@cs.umd.edu (Alex Blakemore)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy,comp.sys.next.misc
Subject: Re: Standardize NeXT
Date: 15 Dec 92 06:16:36 GMT
Followup-To: comp.sys.next.advocacy
Organization: U of Maryland, Dept. of Computer Science, Coll. Pk., MD 20742

shiva@vega.Stanford.EDU (Marcos Javier Polanco) writes:
> > > 10) DOCUMENT BASED COMPUTING
> > From what I understand, we should be expecting this sometime post-4.0.
> Post NS4.0? You are joking, right? ... If NeXTstep
> is falling behind Redmond in technologies such as these, we are hosed.

maybe I dont understand, but NeXTSTEP seems to me to be much further along
in this direction than any other system I've used - dismissing claims
of future products from all.  

NeXT has serious support for many standard formats TIFF, EPS, ASCII, RTF, snd, renderman etc
most apps work with multiple ones for free and work with other apps on the system.

The natural integration of NeXTSTEP using services, filters, cut/paste, live links,
multi tasking, standard GUI, etc has the effect of making working on documents
with multiple tools close to seamless.  Sure there are holes, and it could be better
in many ways, but for NeXT it could be an evolution of what's already there.

Archetype and the announced OODB partnership move more in the right direction.
I dont think many people/apps have really figured out how to take advantage
of what's in 3.0 now.

Again, I dont doubt things could be improved in many ways but I dont think that
what Microsoft has announced should be compared _in the same way_ to what NeXT
has shipped in its third major version.  
-- 
---------------------------------------------------
Alex Blakemore alex@cs.umd.edu   NeXT mail accepted
From: basiji@stein.u.washington.edu (David Basiji)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
Subject: Re: Danish Computerwold dec 4, 1992 : "It's Showtime again!"
Date: 12 Dec 92 01:47:29 GMT
Article-I.D.: u.1992Dec12.014729.12194
Organization: University of Washington

isbell@cats.ucsc.edu (Art Isbell) writes:


>In article <1992Dec11.115615.26502@lth.se> d89cb@efd.lth.se (Christian Brunschen) writes:
>>  And if there's one bad thing to say about Steve Jobs, then the fact
>>that he's a vegetarian.

>I take offense at this :-)  It's a very admirable trait.  Probably keeps him
>from being more aggressive :-)

;o) ;o) ;o) ;o) ;o) ;o) ;o) ;o) ;o) ;o) ;o) ;o) ;o) ;o) ;o) ;o) ;o) ;o) 

I disagree.  As an ex-vegetarian, I found that the conscious domination
of my carnivorous tendencies produced unwanted personality traits, including
increased agressiveness.
All it took was a pack of bacon to make me see the light again after
5 years of (admittedly fun, at times) vegetarianism.

There's no goin' back, though.  I married an Argentine.  She starts 
drooling at the cows in the pasture.  Her dad actually chases them.
My God, the barbeques we've had when visiting the in-laws...*sigh*

David Basiji
NeRD #3762
From: aberno@godel.questor.wimsey.bc.ca (Anthony Berno)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
Subject: Re: Standardize NeXT
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 06:35:12 GMT
Reply-To: aberno@godel.questor.wimsey.bc.ca

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?

> 10) DOCUMENT BASED COMPUTING
> 
>    This final item really couldn't be done under the MacOS.

Uh... read "Coming soon to a Mac near you". I spoke with a fellow that is  
working on this (at Apple) during a long dinner at Delilah's during the  
OOPSLA conference here in Vancouver. Obviously, he could not give any  
details; he just said that it was a "document centered application  
framework", that it would be an enhancement of System 7, and that it would  
make life easier for developers. (That's all I really care about...  :-)

I don't get the Mac newsgroups, perhaps someone could pass this rumour  
on...

-Anthony

Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: harit@kripalu.com
Subject: Re: 100 Mips Intel NeXT (moved from comp.sys.next.misc)
Reply-To: harit@kripalu.com
Organization: Kripalu Center
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 92 16:56:14 GMT

In article <1992Dec17.072402.9112@cs.tu-berlin.de> marcel@opal.cs.tu-berlin.de  
(Marcel Weiher) writes:
> harit@kripalu.com writes:
> 
> >I agree that the VM performance needs lots of work.  Try opening a 30MB  
Improv  
> >worksheet on a 20MB machine some time!  Objects have BAD locality. 
>                                          ^^^^^^^
> I disagree.  Spreadsheets tend to need to touch all of the memory to
> do a recalculate, therefore you have a working set larger than RAM.  No
> VM scheme in the world can save you there.  VM only works well if your
> working set fits into real memory.  Not that NeXTs VM scheme couldn't
> use some improvement.  (I have 40 megs and and application that uses
> <= 13 megs, freed after processing is done, yet the swapfile grows
> and grows and grows.)
> 
> Marcel

I do not question that it may need to "touch" each cell in the worksheet.  The  
problem is that to get to each cell it may need to traverse 2 or 3 objects each  
of which may be on it's own page!  If this was a conventional language the  
traversal of an array in proper order would only cause a page fault every N  
cells.  (Not that I would trade objects for performance.)  But the memory  
management systems built specifically for objects page each object into memory  
and can get MUCH better performance out of less memory.  But given that VM was  
free as part of Mach I am not surprised that NeXT focused their efforts on  
other areas.

-- 
Michael Allen Latta
Kripalu Center
harit@kripalu.com
(413)448-3288
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: byer@adobe.com (Scott Byer)
Subject: Re: More Marketing Malarkey(LONG) (Was: Mike Slade)
Reply-To: byer@adobe.com (Scott Byer)
Organization: Adobe Systems Incorporated
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 20:15:12 GMT

Michael C. Matthews writes

> Bill Gates is an engineer.

Yeah, right.
On what planet?

If you can still believe that after reading the latest Forbes
interview, then you have more faith than the entire constituency
of the Roman Catholic church...

--
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,comp.sys.next.misc
From: zmonster@athena.mit.edu (Eric M Hermanson)
Subject: 1993 NeXTWorld Expo
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 06:25:42 GMT

Was told to pass along some info.  I think you are going to like it:

Announcing the 1993....

NeXTWORLD EXPO!!!!

What it is....
The 2nd annual gathering of the world-wide NeXT community! 

        An international Developers Conference!  

                An educational Users Conference!
                        A NeXTSTEP product exposition!  
                                A global User Group Meeting! 


When it is...        

      MAY 25-27, 1993,
         

Where it is...
        THE MOSCONE CENTER, 

             SAN FRANCISCO.


More info later, as it becomes available.

Eric Hermanson
MIT NeXT Campus Consultant
From: byer@adobe.com (Scott Byer)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
Subject: Re:   100 Mips Intel NeXT (moved from comp.sys.next.misc)
Date: 17 Dec 92 17:28:45 GMT
Reply-To: byer@adobe.com (Scott Byer)
Organization: Adobe Systems Incorporated

Nathan F. Janette writes

>> NeXT needs to have a minimum of 100,000 NeXTSTEP installations (on
>> any processor) by the end of 1993 if it is going to survive in the
>> long term.  Otherwise, it'll languish as an also-ran for the rest
>> of it's life, and we'll all have to compete with the Amigoids as
>> to who has the best paperweight.

> Where do you folks get these numbers?  It seems like every poster
> in this group who is pissed at NeXT for one reason or another comes
> up with their own version of how NeXT's demise will occur if the
> company doesn't exactly follow the poster's wise advice.  Of course,
> such predictions have been occurring for years, with the same wild,
> unsubstantiated numbers gleefully thrown to and fro.  NeXT still
> seems to exist, regardless...

Actually, 100,000 is the around the threshold where some large
applications companies with recognition-name software will decide
to port.  Or at least that's what I'm told from here ;-).

NeXT isn't going away; I didn't say that.  I dont' want that.  And
I'm certainly not pissed at NeXT.  I wouldn't have a machine here
and at home if I was.   I expect NeXT to be selling at least software
5 years from now.  But it isn't *successful* yet, where successful
is being in the top 10 in terms of installed OS/GUI combinations
(and better yet, in the top 5).

Of course, if you define successfull as having produced the best
slice-and-dice combination of software, NeXT has been widly successful
since 2.0.  But it takes more than a nice GUI to light the office.

Remember - "Bill Gates is morally opposed to anyone else making
money".  He's trying to stop "Unix on the PC" (in whatever form)
with NT.  Given enough of a head start, he'll do that.

And it'll take a reasonably large number of installations on PCs
before the NeXTSTEP market becomes "interesting".

I'll know NeXT has "made it" when I can go to the cheezy computer
superstore (Fry's or CompUSA) and find a "NeXT" section of software...

--
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
Subject: Re: Insults (was: Re: standardizing NeXTSTEP)
From: feijai@endor.byu.edu (Sean Luke)
Date: 18 Dec 92 17:54:52 -0700
Reply-To: sean@digaudio.byu.edu

In article <1gt57rINN7f0@transfer.stratus.com>  writes:

>What then do you consider a good word processor.  I've used
>Word (DOS, Windows, and Mac versions), WordPerfect (DOS 4.2 and 5.1),
>WordStar, Frame (NeXT and X), WriteNow (NeXT and Mac), MacWrite,
>and others.  Word is easily the best of all them. WriteNow (Mac,
>not NeXT) is pretty close for lower end jobs...


WriteNow (for the Mac) is a very elegant program, and the new version  
should handle even relatively high-end stuff well too.  Perhaps you should  
say, "Word is the most feature-laden of all of them".  It isn't nicer to  
use than WriteNow.  And DEFINITELY not faster.

Another contender might be WordPerfect 2.0.x for the Mac.  Although it  
doesn't have quite the features of Word 5.0, it is much better-ordered and  
easier to get around in.  Its desktop publishing runs rings around Word.   
Simple things in WordPerfect are a pain to deal with in Word, like unusual  
(or even ordinary!) pagination, nice-to-deal-with columns, etc.  WP's  
support is the best in the industry.  And WordPerfect's macro  
facilities...

Well, then again, they're nothing like Nisus.  When counting power, Word  
doesn't even compare to this beast.

Word is not the "best word processor".  It is the best word processor when  
you need compatibility with Windows and the Mac.  It is not the fastest,  
smallest, best-designed (it suffers terribly from feature-itis), most  
extensible (that's Nisus), or cheapest.

It really depends on what you're doing, and who you're trading disks with.   
And if you can get Word for $80 student discount.  :)

--

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: jeffo@uiuc.edu (J.B. Nicholson-Owens)
Subject: Re: NeXTSTEP 486 delayed to Q3 - are you serious ?
Reply-To: jeffo@uiuc.edu (J.B. Nicholson-Owens)
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 00:02:30 GMT

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

And if that isn't enough to make people think again before buying NeXT  
hardware, I suggest this:  Should NS486 take off like I assume NeXT  
wants it to, I would think that NeXTSTEP support for NeXT hardware  
would drop almost to the point of their being no support at all (I have  
no inside sources on this, just thinking in terms of dollars made by  
NeXT, Inc.).  If the public purchases so many (call it X) NeXT  
machines, but they also purchase 3X IBM and IBM clone machines, why  
would NeXT stick with NeXT hardware owners?  It's not like having a DSP  
or a ED drive is that big an advantage, anyhow (since nobody uses ED  
disks, and DSPs or something with comprable computing power is  
available elsewhere for IBM hardware).

Their move to NS486 seems to me to be a going-where-the-money-is move  
and I don't hear anything to the contrary from NeXT.  Meanwhile, there  
are lots of people here supporting NS486.  Seems to me like these  
people are supporting their own obsolescence (if they own NeXT  
machines).
-- 
-- Jeff (jeffo@uiuc.edu)
-- NeXTmail welcome
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: byer@adobe.com (Scott Byer)
Subject: Re: Evolutionary VS. Revolutionary approach
Reply-To: byer@adobe.com (Scott Byer)
Organization: Adobe Systems Incorporated
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 18:27:01 GMT


Izumi Ohzawa writes 

> I am just curious.  What IMAGING MODEL does WindowsNT offer? Is it
> a unified model that can handle display/printer/fax/file like NeXT's
> DPS?

> I haven't heard anything said about this, and am curious.

MicroSoft is attempting to extend GDI into something that can be
used on printers.  There are many major problems with this, as
people will soon find out.  Not the least of which is that GDI is
*not* device independant, and even the extensions that are being
put in for printing make it only marginally closer to being so.
Device independence cannot really be tacked on - it must be designed
in from the beginning to be properly taken advantage of.

As the language is extended for printers, people will find that it
is not truly unified from the screen to the printer, and that
annoying differences will appear that void it's use for anything
beyond cheesy-looking memos.

GDI has many other weaknesses, one being that it is not a full
programming language, and as such doesn't necessarily translate
well to a client/server architecture.

Another major weakness is, of course, color models.  GDI already
exposes color tables to the interface, and will continue to have
to battle with this.  So much so, that some sort of color compromise
will have to be made on printers when a program that only knows
how to deal with color tables is speaking to it.

And, of course, these GDI printers won't talk to other machines,
most notably Macintoshes, which will have their own language
(QuickDraw GX) for talking to printers (in addition to PostScript).

There can be no real argument that the use of GDI for printing is
for the good of the consumer.  The consumer gets more confusion
and FUD in the marketplace, poorer quality output with GDI printers,
no price break, and no inter-machine compatability.

I think this is clearly an NIH move on MicroSoft's part.

--
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: thierry@seldon.fdn.org (Thierry CHARLES)
Subject: Re: 88k Dead ?
Keywords: RISC, Steve, 88110
Organization: Thierry Charles - Montpellier, France.
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 04:02:51 GMT

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.
Nevertheless, NeXT plan to release a RISC hardware product for 1993, and it  
will be great.
(no more informations about the RISC processor chosen!!!)

Some other infos:
On the hardware part:
The high end product will be evolutive: processors may be added something like  
SIMMs today.
32 bit color on motherboard.
Sony/Phillips Digital Interface (AES/EBU) for professionnal digital audio  
transfer.

On the software part:
Something like QuickTime (MacOS), but better (as Steve said).
Also, something like DVI, but better (as Steve said, of course).
There will be a software solution for images compression (both static and  
animated) that will run in real time (!!!).

NeXTSTEP 4.0 for 94, with unicode (that's really not an information!).

--
P-Mail / Slow-Mail                   NeXT-Mail / E-Mail
   Thierry CHARLES                      thierry@seldon.fdn.org (preferred)
   32 Rue de Porto - Cite Mion          tc13@calvacom.fr
   34000 Montpellier - France        NeXT Registered Developer #2138
   (33) 67 22 47 29 fax              -- Life long and prosper --
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: fischer@iesd.auc.dk (Lars Peter Fischer)
Subject: Re: Infoworld Review:  "NextStep [sic] 3.0 crosses multiple platforms"
Organization: Mathematics and Computer Science, Aalborg University
	<1992Dec8.220007.11577@cubetech.com>
Date: 17 Dec 92 03:41:38


>>>>> "andrew" == andrew  (andrew@cubetech.com)

andrew>  It said something like "Our configuration was an NeXTstation
andrew> monochrome with 8 megs of RAM" <I started to feel really sick
andrew> at this point>

I hate it. Why is it that Computer rags *must* test configurations
that no sane person would ever use? Especially with RAM, where you
time and time again see long talk about this and that hardware or
softawre and all their problems with memory, in a world where 16M
costs practically nothing.

andrew> "Even after running 10 applications simultaneously, there was
andrew> little or no perceptible slowdown" <he's lying, but it's OK I
andrew> thought...>

No, it's not OK, 'cause it's obvious to everyone that he's out of his
mind. You don't have to have tried to know that you will not get
*anywhere* with 8M.

/Lars

--
Lars Fischer, fischer@iesd.auc.dk | It takes an uncommon mind to think of
CS Dept., Aalborg Univ., DENMARK. | these things.  -- Calvin
From: athomson@otago.ac.nz (Alastair Thomson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
Subject: Re: NeXTSTEP 486 delayed to Q3 - are you serious ?
Date: 15 Dec 92 12:20:06 +1300
Organization: University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand

> 
> 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.
> 

I've just had some e-mail from an engineer at NeXT he says:
"NS 486 is still in pre beta release..."
Doesn't sound shrink wrapped to me!!


===============================================================================
                                    |
Alastair Thomson,                   | Phone +64-3-479-8347
University of Otago,                | Fax   +64-3-479-8529
Department of Computer Science,     | e-mail athomson@otago.ac.nz
P.O. Box 56                         |
Dunedin                             |
New Zealand                         |

===============================================================================
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: mdw@cbnewsg.cb.att.com (mark.d.wuest)
Subject: Re: Insults (was: Re: standardizing NeXTSTEP)
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs - Red Hill
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 17:37:17 GMT

Saying that Microsoft's admittedly "wild" success implies anything about
Bill Gates' genius, marketing *or* technical, is just plain false.

Microsoft's success is because of pure luck involving IBM's choice of
hardware and software for a product they weren't sure would even catch
on. IBM's stamp made the P.C. P.C. (Politically Correct - pun intended).

Just my $0.02.

Mark
-- 
Mark Wuest                              |     *MY* opinions, not AT&T's!!
mdw@violin.att.com (Sun Mailtool Ok)    |
mdw@cheshire.att.com (NeXT Mail)        |
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: swiet@poincare.cs.jhu.edu (Alexander Swietlicki)
Subject: Re: More Marketing Malarkey
Organization: Johns Hopkins Computer Science Department, Baltimore, MD
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 00:13:57 GMT

In article <1992Dec15.181449.17484@kong.gsfc.nasa.gov> vesper@kong.gsfc.nasa.gov writes:
>
>Gates is an incredibly shrewd and successful CEO.  He's also currently the  
>richest man in the United States, if that's any indication.
>

	Uh-oh...if Perot can run...and Gates is thrice as rich...
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
From: byer@adobe.com (Scott Byer)
Subject: Re:  100 Mips Intel NeXT (moved from comp.sys.next.misc)
Reply-To: byer@adobe.com (Scott Byer)
Organization: Adobe Systems Incorporated
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 18:29:07 GMT

Greg Vesper - RMS writes

> The Alpha's and the new HP's are pretty close with the HP's coming
> out ahead.  I've got an Alpha - fast box, nice hardware, but the
> OS is very rough around the edges.

Actually, you'd be replacing OSF/1 with the Real Thing (TM).  It
would be a tough decision whether or not to go for the full 64-bit
thing with all the work that that imples (as OSF/1 did) or to wimp
out with the compatibility mode (as VMS did).

>  Massive binaries, 8 meg for the X server - that's absurd.

Well, yeah.  The compiler is still a wee bit flakey when the
optimizers cranked up, so quite a bit of that should shrink away.
And many things just get twice as big in memory.  Structures all
have to be 64-bit aligned, so all those carefully aligned 4-byte
structures just got twice as big with a lot of empty space.  The
space expansion is just not avoidable, believe me.

It does buy quite a bit of performance in certain situations,
though.

>   HP's disk subsystem screams - hate their OS, but it least its
> fairly mature - NeXTSTEP on an HP 7X5 would be the best available
> software running on the best available hardware (Provided HP writes
> the device drivers and not NeXT).

Yeah, HP definitely needs some good software.  That would be a
killer combination.

--
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.
---------------------------------------------------------------------