cory@three.MV.COM (Cory Kempf) (06/07/90)
The pricing of A/UX is in line with what it would cost to buy a unix for a DOS box... unfortunately, the pricing of the hardware tends to make A/UX non-competitive with other unix systems. On top of paying for A/UX, you must also pay for MacOS... About the only people who will ever use A/UX are people like me, who are concerned about security; people who need unix, and happen to have a spare mac laying around, or people who see A/UX as an intermediate step to porting Mac Applications from MacOS to Unix and X windows. It seems that this is also how Apple is positioning the product: high price, X not included, support is expensive, etc. A very nice vehical to move Mac software into the Unix Market. If Apple wanted A/UX to be considered as a viable unix system, they really should (at the VERY LEAST) provide X/Motif as part of the system, and cut the price of the system as well (after all, people who are using A/UX are not using MacOS -- Why should they have to pay for it?) +C -- Cory Kempf I do speak for the company (sometimes). Three Letter Company 603 883 2474 email: cory@three.mv.com, harvard!zinn!three!cory
cory@three.MV.COM (Cory Kempf) (06/10/90)
mwilkins@jarthur.Claremont.EDU (Mark Wilkins) writes: > Large-scale distributed computing networks, yes. Compatibility with >existing protocols, including some popular ones used by UNIX systems, yes. >UNIX on the home users' desktop, no. Why not? Given things such as Motif, and various SysAdmin scripts, there is no good reason why Unix can not be made user friendly, and no require a full blown Systems Administrator. Look at OS/2... more or less the same level of complexity, almost the same functionality (in a broad sense), but FAR FAR less robust (and zilch security -- critical to success / user frienliness in a hostile computing environment) > There's just no reason to use UNIX as a basis for a home computer. It's >quite obviously meant for a centrally administered system serving multiple >users. Err... How many home systems are used by multiple users? (Mom, Dad, Brother, Sister, Phydaux, et al) Have you ever needed to get a file that you left on your home system? Wouldn't you love to be able to dial in a grab it? Or better yet -- tell your computer to dial in and grab it? But, If you can dial in and grab it, what is to prevent everyone else out there from doing the same thing? Do you leave your house/apartment unlocked? Do you give away your credit card numbers? Your ATM password? With a few shell scripts and a bit of UI, this system "quite obviously meant for a centrally administered system serving multiple users" could fit the job requirements real well... and adding such things is well within the original design of Unix. > That doesn't mean I don't like A/UX 2.0, but UNIX will rarely be used >by someone who doesn't have access to a local system manager and it will >never be standard for a turnkey personal computer system, meaning one aimed >at the home market. Home users do not, in general, want turnkey solutions. They want to use their computers for many things: word processing, spreadsheets, simple databases, etc. A turnkey solution would imply that you had a dedicated word processor, a dedicated spreadsheet, and a dedicated database. As those of us who USE a mac know, next to useless. Besides, consider programming in the next 10 years -- would you rather spend it programming on DOS, OS/2, or a version of Unix that has the good points of the Mac incroperated? +C -- Cory Kempf I do speak for the company (sometimes). Three Letter Company 603 883 2474 email: cory@three.mv.com, harvard!zinn!three!cory