caromero@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (C. Antonio Romero) (10/17/88)
In article <4489@polya.Stanford.EDU> shap@polya.Stanford.EDU (Jonathan S. Shapiro) writes: >Can anyone present a cogent theory as to why they elected to go with a >CD disk over standard magnetic media. It would seem to me, for >example, that using a Wren IV or any of a number of other drives would >almost undoubtedly be considerably cheaper than the laser drive, Well, for one thing, it's in character for Steve Jobs to try to do things differently. Witness the Mac's disks-- not quite unique at the time, but damn close. Optical drives are the coming thing, so Steve had to throw one in. For another thing, do drives like the Wren IV have removable platters? Can they offer the same capacity at the same price per blank disk (something like $50 each...)? I'll believe a cheaper magnetic drive with a fixed disk, but removable... that sounds a little optimistic. Followups to comp.misc. -Antonio Romero romero@confidence.princeton.edu
mercer@ncrcce.StPaul.NCR.COM (Dan Mercer) (10/17/88)
I think most of the discussions I have read about the NeXT have missed the point. The NeXT is not being aimed at techies, nor at an eventual business workstation market. Everything about it screams that it is aimed at the general college population, not at computer science students. After all, the competition for computer science machines is enormous, with VAX and SUN holding big edges. But virtually no one has addressed the computing needs of Liberal Arts majors, business majors, and others. Why optical storage - because that way one machine can easily support the needs of dozens of students - without the complexities of network servers and file management and allotment. Any student can carry around as much space as needed, for only $50 /256mb. The way I envision the machines being used, is with system software on SCSI, and banks of floptical libraries carrying reference works, course demonstrations, library cataloques, bibliographies. Sending out the complete works of Shakespeare is a demonstration of the new capabilities the machine will bring. That's why no X - do that on a VAX. NeXTSTeP (?) is designed so that non-programmers can put together applications cheaply and easily. Actually, I bet techies hate the machine. The programming environment will not be challenging enough (not nearly as much fun as X), it won't be fast enough by their standards (though any law student who gets to Shepardize on one will be plenty impressed by the speed, as will someone writing a paper on Hemingway who has access, online, not only to all the works of Hemingway, but also all the criticism). As NeXT infiltrates the academic community, i expect it will generate some new ways of thinking. Mostly, I think it will generate Jobs more millions and yet another spot in the history books. Dan Mercer NCR Comten