stefan@hercule.cs.concordia.ca (BUCHHOLZ stefan) (03/19/90)
Hey, I just saw and use my first NEXT machine today. The machine did not impress me. It is extremely slow (display postscript), and the floptical drive is as slow as a floppy (now that's slow!!!). VERY nice display (B/W), but as we all know: the look of a computer is the last thing to take into account. the guy had a flight simulator on it, and it moved (no joke) about as smooth as my 4.77 Mhz bridgeboard. I do hope though that Open Look is as nicely implemented as the Step seems to be. Otherwise, as most of my colleges have said: It's mostly hype. Stefy ******************************************************************************* Stefan Buchholz * Concordia University Computer Science * a.k.a Stefy LePew stefan@doyle.cs.concordia.ca > MITE AVsita Multimedia lab system support << ******************************************************************************
portuesi@tweezers.esd.sgi.com (Michael Portuesi) (03/19/90)
>>>>> On 18 Mar 90 17:41:00 GMT, stefan@hercule.cs.concordia.ca (BUCHHOLZ stefan) said: > Hey, I just saw and use my first NEXT machine today. The machine did not > impress me. I doesn't impress me much either, but that largely has something to do with the machine I'm typing this message on... > It is extremely slow (display postscript), and the floptical > drive is as slow as a floppy (now that's slow!!!). I didn't think the display postscript on the NeXT was that slow, though there are certainly faster machines out there. The floptical drive is indeed slow, but the only mistake NeXT made with the drive was assigning it to a purpose for which it was not intended -- that of being the main storage device for the system. Since then, they've added a fast hard disk to the system, which greatly speeds up normal system operation. It's a good combination of having a fast hard disk for paging and the like, and having oodles of on-line storage for images, audio, dictionaries, utilities, and the like. > VERY nice display (B/W), > but as we all know: the look of a computer is the last thing to take into > account. only if you're an engineer. To the customer, the look of the computer is one of the first things they take into account. You have to understand that simple fact if you want to sell a computer system in today's marketplace. > the guy had a flight simulator on it, and it moved (no joke) about > as smooth as my 4.77 Mhz bridgeboard. which is hardly an authoritative benchmark between systems. The graphics in the flight simulator could have been written in PostScript for all you know. > I do hope though that Open Look is as > nicely implemented as the Step seems to be. What was that you said about the look of a computer? > Otherwise, as most of my > colleges have said: It's mostly hype. Only if you consider the Amiga mostly hype as well. The NeXT machine has one big thing in common with the Amiga. Both machines were the first to integrate several important features in their respective marketplaces (Amiga in the PC market, NeXT in the workstation market). The other thing the NeXT machine has in common with the Amiga is that it failed to make a significant dent in the marketplace, even despite Steve Jobs' reputation as a "pseduo-visionary" (my term), and the amount of exposure he's received in the media. --M -- __ \/ Michael Portuesi Silicon Graphics, Inc. portuesi@sgi.com
es1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Ethan Solomita) (03/20/90)
The other important thing to note about the next is that it doesn't come with a postscript laser, just a regular 400dpi laser. All the postscript --> laser calculations are done internally. This leads to incredible slowdowns. When I was printing a page (a ps doc) I had to wait just to type into the unix CLI. The letter wouldn't appear immediately! That is SLOW! -- Ethan Ethan Solomita: es1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu Compu$erve : 70137,3271 Anyone giving away Amigas or Sharp Scanners??? "If Commodore had to market sushi they'd call it `raw cold fish'" -- The Bandito, inevitably stolen from someone else NewTek says, "if you are waiting for the toaster, get your bread ready." Well, I say my bread is now stale so they'd better be making a microwave!
jwwalden@miavx1.acs.muohio.edu (Darc Tangent) (03/21/90)
In article <1990Mar19.200738.31312@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu>, es1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Ethan Solomita) writes: > The other important thing to note about the next is that it > doesn't come with a postscript laser, just a regular 400dpi laser. All > the postscript --> laser calculations are done internally. This leads > to incredible slowdowns. When I was printing a page (a ps doc) I had > to wait just to type into the unix CLI. The letter wouldn't appear > immediately! That is SLOW! > -- Ethan Well, it does lead to slowdowns when you print, but at least you aren't wasting enormous amounts of processing power and RAM in the printer (and the printer costs much less). Wouldn't appear immediately? On what laser printer do your pages appear immediately? They all have to do the Postscript calculations which still takes time (might be faster depending on what you're doing on the NeXT though). Of course, you could have the file server do all the printing which eliminates the slowdown for the individual users. > > Ethan Solomita: es1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu > -- [][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] [] [] [] Darc Tangent d(arctan(u)) = du/(1+u^2) jwwalden@miavx1.acs.muohio.edu [] [] [] [] "I am made from the dust of the stars, the oceans flow in my veins." [] [] - RUSH, Presto [] [] [] [] "Reading legal mush can turn your brain to guacamole!" - Amiga RKM [] [] "Objective truth is a social disease." - Nietzsche [] [] [] [][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][]
evgabb@sdrc.UUCP (Rob Gabbard) (03/21/90)
In article <1164.26065e29@miavx1.acs.muohio.edu>, jwwalden@miavx1.acs.muohio.edu (Darc Tangent) writes: > Well, it does lead to slowdowns when you print, but at least you aren't > wasting enormous amounts of processing power and RAM in the printer (and > the printer costs much less). Wouldn't appear immediately? On what laser What is the printer's processing power and RAM supposed to be used for ?!!!? Considering that the printer does cost much less, I would rather have my more expensive computer free instead of doing the things that I bought a printer with processing power and RAM for !!!! >8-( -- ________ _________ _______ ________ / _______| | ____ \ | ___ \ / _______| Rob Gabbard (uunet!sdrc!evgabb) | |______ | | \ \ | | \ | | / Technical Development Engineer \_______ \ | | | | | |___/ / | | Structural Dynamics Research Corp. ______| | | |____/ / | ____ \ | \_______ #include <std/disclaimer.h> |________/ |________/ |_| |_| \________|
northrup@wpi.wpi.edu (Jim Northrup) (03/22/90)
In article <1215@sdrc.UUCP> evgabb@sdrc.UUCP (Rob Gabbard) writes: >In article <1164.26065e29@miavx1.acs.muohio.edu>, jwwalden@miavx1.acs.muohio. >> Well, it does lead to slowdowns when you print, but at least you aren't >> wasting enormous amounts of processing power and RAM in the printer (and >> the printer costs much less). Wouldn't appear immediately? On what laser >What is the printer's processing power and RAM supposed to be used for ?!!!? The premise is that the printer should not have a lot of RAM, since the printer sits idle 95+% of the time. Why not have that RAM in your computer instead, and just put up with the fact that your computer will be imposed upon by the printer 5% of the time? Much more efficient use of RAM! >Considering that the printer does cost much less, I would rather have my more >expensive computer free instead of doing the things that I bought a printer >with processing power and RAM for !!!! >8-( The __REASON__ the printer costs so much less is because it does impose on the computer's resources, rather than having dedicated resources of its own. You are advocating that the NeXT printer be more expensive. It reminds me of the early Macintosh days when it was well known that the Apple LaserWriter was a better computer than the Mac: it had the same CPU with a faster clock, and more memory too! I would rather see a cheap, idiot printer hooked up to a big, fast computer than the other way around. BTW: I too have had a chance to play with some NeXT's. I was not impressed. I'm using a DECStation now, I've had a chance to play with SparcStations, and I've used regular SUN workstations a lot. I like them all better than the NeXT, despite its Buck Rogers GUI. And of course, I like my Amiga best of all. :-) -- Jim Northrup northrup@wpi.wpi.edu Assistant Professor, Mathematical Sciences WPI, Worcester MA 01609
aozer@next.com (Ali Ozer) (03/27/90)
In article <1990Mar19.200738.31312@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> Ethan Solomita writes: > The other important thing to note about the next is that it >doesn't come with a postscript laser, just a regular 400dpi laser. All >the postscript --> laser calculations are done internally. This leads >to incredible slowdowns. When I was printing a page (a ps doc) I had >to wait just to type into the unix CLI. The letter wouldn't appear >immediately! That is SLOW! True, it slows down your system some... However you should also consider that you're effectively executing the PostScript on a 25MHz 68030 system with virtual memory --- how many PostScript printers have that kind of power? The NeXT printer executes and prints large PostScript files many times faster than the average 68000 or 68020 PostScript laser printer. Ali
davidw@telxon.UUCP (David Wright) (03/28/90)
In article <124@next.com> Ali_Ozer@NeXT.com (Ali Ozer) writes: >True, it slows down your system some... However you should also >consider that you're effectively executing the PostScript on a >25MHz 68030 system with virtual memory --- how many PostScript printers >have that kind of power? The NeXT printer executes and prints large PostScript A BIG "so what?". That sounds a little like the junky Atari ST laser printer. Basically no memory at all, so it uses the host computers memory. This is really funny, since some of these systems themselves only have 512-1 meg, and at least officially, can't be expanded. Single pages of graphics can be bigger than that. I am willing to bet that MOST people would rather have a more responsive keyboard, and less heavily loaded system than a "fast printer". After using one for a while, I have to agree that the NeXT is nothing more than an overpriced, single-user, multi-tasking system. Basically a more expensive Amiga. The OS is slower than comparable Unix systems, performance in all areas is slower than expected, and trying to run even 3 users drains the system so heavily you would think it was clocked at 4 mhz.... -- Telxon: x4350 | davewt@NCoast.ORG | Programs Plus presents: uunet!telxon!davidw | uunet!hal!ncoast!davewt | CoreWar, CRobots, Empire telxon!tts1!davidw | uunet!cwjcc!ncoast!davewt | DeVo "If ya aint got multitasking, ya aint got anything" oVeD