From: lmccullo@nyx.cs.du.edu (Michael McCulloch)
Subject: Re: NeXT should improve, not eliminate, its hardware line
Organization: University of Denver, Dept. of Math & Comp. Sci.
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 93 04:51:38 GMT

I for one am becoming more than a little frustrated with the wait 
for NeXT to improve its hardware. While other companies lower the
price for their products, NeXT keeps the same price levels and offers
no improvement in the value of their HW (they have increased the value
of their SW). I need, want, and desire SCSI-2 rates for my Fujitsu
HD. The HD can handle it, and I seem to remember someone saying that 
the SCSI-2 chipset is in the slabs--but NeXT hasn't written the 
required drivers? I don't know if that's accurate, but if it is then
someone's missing the boat.

For example, how many times have you been sitting in your office working
away, when a friend walks in. You say, "Hey, look at what I've got
working now." You click on the app icon. 5 seconds pass. Click, click,
click, goes your HD. 10 seconds. 15 seconds. You say, "Well, er, I had
all these FrameMaker docs up, it'll just take a second here." 20 seconds.
"I know it's coming up here soon." You start shuffling in the chair. "OK,
here we are." (BTW, my machine has 32 MB of RAM).

Now you tell me. That person may have liked what you showed him/her, but
they walked away with a 'perception' that the NeXT is slow. Better
swapping performance from SCSI-2 transfer rates to/from the HD could
provide a _huge_ improvement here. Give me 3-4 MB sustained transfer rates
and that worst case 25 second swap could be reduced to 5 seconds max.
Most of the time it'd probably take a second or so. Tell me, am I way
off on this?

The Jan. issue of NeXTWorld Extra had some info that made me start to
salivate. The report talked about how the Epson Progression 486's are
"the fastest all-around NeXTSTEP machines." Hmmm. A 486 DX-50 with a
local bus Wingine-based video card, an EISA backplane, a 32-bit
Ethernet card, a DPT SCSI-2 controller with lots of on-board cache,
a Sound-Blaster pro, et al. This sounds pretty good. And it may not
be much cheaper after I buy everything, but I've got something that
I could resell and it gives me an out if NeXT does fold up (I really
don't think that's gonna happen--but you never know about those things).
And I could play all those neat PC games, use NeXTSTEP-powered 
productivity apps, program in NeXTSTEP, and even have a market for
my apps! Shout, Joy, Yeah!

I know that 486s aren't PA-RISC or MIPS R4000s, but at least I can 
grow my HW instead of sitting in the mud. And I already spent that
$12,000 on the original NeXTcube (I'm lucky to get $3k for it now),
and I don't want to spend that much again on computer equipment--
unless I have my own company and need a 200 mip machine for running 
some engineering app.

I don't know, but the more I think about it, the more I want to jump
ship on NeXT HW. My opinion: NeXT should throw all they can into to
the 486 product and live up to the expectations I have for the product.
If they do, and they can get the runtime version to about $495, then
I think NeXTSTEP will become a _major_ player in the OS market. Then
everyone will beat down the door trying to get NeXT to port to their
HW--and then we'll have the best of both worlds!

I WANT NeXSTEP 486 NOW!!! 

Michael McCulloch
Huntsville, AL

P.S. Does anybody have contact/product info on those Epson Progression
486s. Price points, features, etc.?
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy