hs0l+@andrew.cmu.edu (Hugh Brinkley Sprunt) (02/06/88)
Here is a brief summary of the responses to my question about
the workstation from NeXT:
Two workstations will be offered. One has a gray-scale graphics
system, 4Meg RAM, 40Meg disk, and a price of $5000 (discounted
to $3000 for educational institutions). The other has color
graphics, 8Meg RAM, 200Meg disk, and a price of $9000 ($6000
discount). Both displays are 1280x960. The workstation box
is rumored to be black. An inhouse-developed DislpayPostscript
will be available. The bus is a proprietary bus. Other items
include a 1.44Meg 3.5 inch floppy, a fax modem, ethernet, scsi
port with DMA, serial and parallel ports, a stereo sound
processor (a DSP chip from Motorola), a midi port, a Un*x O/S
with many Mac-style extensions, and an optional Pixar graphics
coprocessor. These workstations are due to be released 1st
quarter 1988.
I also heard that Sun is working on a "NeXT-KILLER".
It looks like reasonably-priced (i.e. about the cost of a fully-
loaded PC), high-performance, Unix-based workstations are almost
here.
Note that I have no "official" source for any of this
information and NONE of it may actually be true.
Thanks to all who responded.
Brinkmoreno@CS.UCLA.EDU (02/09/88)
This is for a friend who can't get his machine to post!! Please reply to him. In article <oW2U3Xy00UidYUw0HP@andrew.cmu.edu> hs0l+@andrew.cmu.edu (Hugh Brinkley Sprunt) writes: > > Two workstations will be offered. One has a gray-scale graphics > system, 4Meg RAM, 40Meg disk, and a price of $5000 (discounted > to $3000 for educational institutions). The other has color > graphics, 8Meg RAM, 200Meg disk, and a price of $9000 ($6000 > discount). Both displays are 1280x960. The workstation box > is rumored to be black. An inhouse-developed DislpayPostscript > will be available. The bus is a proprietary bus. Other items > include a 1.44Meg 3.5 inch floppy, a fax modem, ethernet, scsi > port with DMA, serial and parallel ports, a stereo sound > processor (a DSP chip from Motorola), a midi port, a Un*x O/S > with many Mac-style extensions, and an optional Pixar graphics > coprocessor. These workstations are due to be released 1st > quarter 1988. > That does not say much about the performance of both machines. Here are a few questions that you may have an answer to: -What kind of processor do they use (running at ? MHz)? -I assume that they use a cache, if so what's its size and speed (any wait states?). -Any performance numbers? MIPS, benchmarks? -Can you add a floating point coprocessor? Marc Tremblay marc@CS.UCLA.EDU ...!(ihnp4,ucbvax)!ucla-cs!marc Computer Science Department, UCLA
daveh@cbmvax.UUCP (Dave Haynie) (02/10/88)
in article <oW2U3Xy00UidYUw0HP@andrew.cmu.edu>, hs0l+@andrew.cmu.edu (Hugh Brinkley Sprunt) says: > These workstations are due to be released 1st quarter 1988. Anyone maybe happen to notice what quarter it is, 1988. Sure they don't mean 1Q89? -- Dave Haynie "The B2000 Guy" Commodore-Amiga "The Crew That Never Rests" {ihnp4|uunet|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: D-DAVE H BIX: hazy "I can't relax, 'cause I'm a Boinger!"
mdr@reed.UUCP (Mike Rutenberg) (02/11/88)
My understanding is that the machine does have a DSP in it. Julius Smith, with a Standford computer music background, works at NeXT and I think is in charge of the sound stuff (YEA!!! for that I do think). My understanding is that the DSP in machine can be used for a variety of things. Once you have it there, you can program it to do music, to do scientific calculations (fast!), and to be a modem for dialing up to other systems or connecting to FAX machines. I am really kindof looking forward to the machine. While I don't know if it will be all that much faster than the rest of the world when it is actually delivered, NeXT has no established base requiring compatibility with earlier machines, and I think it is going to be a (gasp) FUN machine. I would really like one (or so I think now). Mike
henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) (02/19/88)
> > These workstations are due to be released 1st quarter 1988. > > Anyone maybe happen to notice what quarter it is, 1988... Oh, come now. Surely anyone who has been reading this group for any length of time knows that "1Q88" means "4:55 PM 31 March 1988", at the earliest! -- Those who do not understand Unix are | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology condemned to reinvent it, poorly. | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry