mrc@Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU (Mark Crispin) (02/26/90)
I don't want to say too much, since I'm not sure what is public or
what is not (yet) public. However, to paraphrase Mark Twain, the
reports of the death of SPARC and NeXT due to the IBM RISC system 6000
are greatly exaggerated. A SPARC-killer it is not. A NeXT-killer it
is not.
On the positive side, the IBM people we spoke to took extensive notes
on what we said. They seemed to be aggressively interested in
offering a product that *would* be a SPARC-killer, so there is hope.
It just isn't there yet.
One thing that was mentioned to them is that a 6000 with NeXTStep
(that is, the application kit) without the NeXT bundled applications
is not a replacement for a NeXT. That is, in order to be compared
with a NeXT, a NeXTStep 6000 must have all the applications (modulo
perhaps a real terminal emulator instead of Shell and Terminal).
Even as an old PDP-10 fanatic (the original anti-IBM rebels), I don't
have bad feelings about IBM. I would like to see the 6000 make it as
a viable platform. I don't think they are there yet.
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