pchris@ucbarpa.Berkeley.EDU (Chris Perleberg) (10/15/88)
It seems that the NeXT machine may have a few problems: 1) Outdated Processor Technology: NeXT just missed the wave of fast RISC processors. The 5 MIPS 68030 is completely out performed by the currently available RISC chips (Motorola, MIPS, Sparc) that run at approximately 20 VAX (they claim) MIPS. In a year or two, ECL versions of some of these RISC chips will be running at 40 to 50 MIPS. 2) Non-Standard NuBus Implementation: A small company like NeXT can't hope to create a competitive 3rd party board market for a non-standard bus. 3) Non-Standard Software: What software company would develop software for the special features of just one computer (NeXT Step)? How many copies of this software can they possibly sell? 4) Slow Optical Drive: In the past, optical drives have been significantly slower (seek times) than magnetic drives. What is the advantage of the optical drive? Cost must be less than that of the larger 330Mbyte $2K magnetic drive. But NeXT will be hurt once benchmarks come out for its i/o performance (using the optical drive). 5) Software Not Ready: The 9 month delay (optimistically) until solid software exists could kill NeXT, as Sun & Apple prepare competitive systems. Sun will probably keep to open systems and set some new standards, while Apple will probably stay proprietary. 6) Sun (I have heard) has sold 15,000 workstations to universitys. How many can NeXT expect to sell with its slow processor, non-standard bus/software, slow drive, and late software? Solutions to the above problems: What NeXT should do. 1) Develop a RISC based NeXT implementation as soon as possible. The advantage of Unix (Mach) is its idea of source level portability, rather than binary level compatibility. 2) Make "stub" boards that convert standard NuBus boards to the NeXT version of NuBus. These "stubs" would be placed between the NeXT slots and the standard NuBus boards. Longer Term Goal: Make the NeXT NuBus an international standard, much as Apple made its version of NuBus a standard. Possible Solution: Change the bus NOW to a standard, provide board converters for computers with the current bus. 3) Make NeXT proprietary software into standards, and beat Sun at its own game before Sun beats NeXT. This may mean making NeXT Step an overlay on X windows. The important thing is to develop a standard that can be (and is) used by all computers. 4) Give users the option of scrapping the optical drive and replacing it with the 330 Mbyte winchester. 5) Work like hell. Adopt standard software where ever possible. Distribute work to 3rd parties. Standardize where ever possible to beat Sun at its own game and to make the users happy. Allow Apple to be proprietary and dig its own grave. 6) Standardize and Speed-Up -> Increase sales. Chris Perleberg pchris@ucbarpa.berkeley.edu
relph@presto.ig.com (John M. Relph) (10/15/88)
In article <26435@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> pchris@ucbarpa.Berkeley.EDU (Chris Perleberg) writes: > >It seems that the NeXT machine may have a few problems: > >2) Non-Standard NuBus Implementation: A small company like NeXT can't hope to > create a competitive 3rd party board market for a non-standard bus. True. However, they have developed a NUBUS controller chip which they will be selling to 3rd party developers for ~$25. This implementation of NUBUS is compatible with the standard in all but clock rate (25 MHz). >3) Non-Standard Software: What software company would develop software for > the special features of just one computer (NeXT Step)? How many copies of > this software can they possibly sell? NeXT Step is the development environment for the NeXT computer. This entire environment has been licensed to IBM. IBM has also licensed PostScript from Adobe. They will probably use it on their machines running AIX. You should have seen this announcement by now. >4) Slow Optical Drive: In the past, optical drives have been significantly > slower (seek times) than magnetic drives. What is the advantage of the > optical drive? Cost must be less than that of the larger 330Mbyte $2K > magnetic drive. But NeXT will be hurt once benchmarks come out for its > i/o performance (using the optical drive). >4) Give users the option of scrapping the optical drive and replacing it with > the 330 Mbyte winchester. Unfortunately, you can't just eject a Winchester and pop it in your pocket. The optical disk is the size of a CD, so you can pocket- switch to another machine or mail it very easily. That is the major advantage to an optical disk. You can probably fit most of your stuff on one disk and have it all with you whereever you go, on whatever NeXT machine you're using. It's also cheaper to distribute software on a $50 optical disk than a Winchester. >5) Software Not Ready: The 9 month delay (optimistically) until solid software > exists could kill NeXT, as Sun & Apple prepare competitive systems. Sun > will probably keep to open systems and set some new standards, while Apple > will probably stay proprietary. Existing 4.3 BSD applications should work almost immediately on the NeXT machine, with little or no modifications. The folks who did the port of WriteNow say that a well-designed Mac application should probably port over quite easily. >6) Sun (I have heard) has sold 15,000 workstations to universitys. How many > can NeXT expect to sell with its slow processor, non-standard bus/software, > slow drive, and late software? Bad analysis. Consider how many of those 15,000 workstations are actually running the 68030 and below. Consider how few of those 15,000 workstations run faster than the NeXT machines. Consider also the price/speed price difference between the NeXT machines and the fast Suns. Our fast Suns don't even have displays; they are being used as compute servers running jobs on ttys. Also, my Sun 3/50 looks like shit compared to the NeXT. -- John ---- John M. Relph IntelliGenetics, Inc. Internet: relph@presto.ig.com
richard@gryphon.CTS.COM (Richard Sexton) (10/15/88)
In article <26435@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> pchris@ucbarpa.Berkeley.EDU (Chris Perleberg) writes: > >It seems that the NeXT machine may have a few problems: > >4) Slow Optical Drive: In the past, optical drives have been significantly > slower (seek times) than magnetic drives. What is the advantage of the > optical drive? Cost must be less than that of the larger 330Mbyte $2K > magnetic drive. But NeXT will be hurt once benchmarks come out for its > i/o performance (using the optical drive). What makes these drives so slow ? Surely it's not the actuator technology... A more cynical view would have it that there's nothing in a NeXT box that you could'nt put in an amiga (slot). What seems to set it apart is the software. Just like a Mac is different from an AT&T unix PC. -- What on Earth did Walt Disney have against cats ? richard@gryphon.CTS.COM {backbone...err, well connected site}!gryphon!richard
chari@juniper.uucp (Christopher Michael Whatley) (10/15/88)
I agree with most of what you say. But here are a few things I have picked up. In article <26435@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> pchris@ucbarpa.Berkeley.EDU (Chris Perleberg) writes: > >It seems that the NeXT machine may have a few problems: > >1) Outdated Processor Technology: NeXT just missed the wave of fast RISC > processors. The 5 MIPS 68030 is completely out performed by the currently > available RISC chips (Motorola, MIPS, Sparc) that run at approximately > 20 VAX (they claim) MIPS. In a year or two, ECL versions of some of these > RISC chips will be running at 40 to 50 MIPS. They are supposedly developing their own RISC chip that is compatible with the 030. I don't know any more than that. I read this in a rumour column. (Grain-o-salt) Doesn't 20 RISC MIPS equal about 5 CISC MIPS? >3) Non-Standard Software: What software company would develop software for > the special features of just one computer (NeXT Step)? How many copies of > this software can they possibly sell? IBM has licensed NeXTStep for use with AIX on the PS/2 and RT PC. If that becomes an alternative to OS/2 then the software, which supposedly could be ported very easily, would reach a very wide market. I don't really have any idea how many RTs there are though. > >4) Slow Optical Drive: In the past, optical drives have been significantly > slower (seek times) than magnetic drives. What is the advantage of the > optical drive? Cost must be less than that of the larger 330Mbyte $2K > magnetic drive. But NeXT will be hurt once benchmarks come out for its > i/o performance (using the optical drive). I have wondered about this myself. It would be ridiculous to use this media for software distribution unless it was an OS update or something. I think it would be ridiculous to sell WriteNow on a 300mb disk. One of the infoworld reporters said that NeXT was considering using the modem for distribution. Ha! Chris -- $---------------$--------------------------------$-------------------------$ | Chris Whatley | mail chari@juniper.uucp | "Ever seen the chicken | | 512/453-4238 | chari@killer.dallas.tx.us | walk?" -Jeffrey | $---------------$--------------------------------$-------------------------$
dorn@fabscal.UUCP (Alan Dorn Hetzel) (10/15/88)
In article <26435@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> pchris@ucbarpa.Berkeley.EDU (Chris Perleberg) writes: > >It seems that the NeXT machine may have a few problems: > >1) Outdated Processor Technology: NeXT just missed the wave of fast RISC > processors. The 5 MIPS 68030 is completely out performed by the currently > available RISC chips (Motorola, MIPS, Sparc) that run at approximately > 20 VAX (they claim) MIPS. In a year or two, ECL versions of some of these > RISC chips will be running at 40 to 50 MIPS. > On this point, I'm not yet convinced that RISC machines are the only way to go. They will have their uses, but don't expect to see the death of CISC processors anytime soon. RISC places some significant additional strain on memory bandwidth for instruction fetch, and while in some programs this can be offset by instruction caches, in other programs it cannot... Also, Motorola and the other purveyors of 68xxx family products can be expected to keep improving their line as well (68040, higher clock rates, etc.) There is also the fact that the NeXT is a passive backplane system, with the CPU on a removable, (and therefore replaceable) board. Mach also supports multiple processors. While not exactly related, the system also contains a 56001 DSP processor, which will aid GREATLY in some types of processing which micros haven't been much good at previously. >2) Non-Standard NuBus Implementation: A small company like NeXT can't hope to > create a competitive 3rd party board market for a non-standard bus. > "a small company like NeXT" ... backed by H. Ross Perot. (Also, a small company like Apple has started a couple of busses itself) >3) Non-Standard Software: What software company would develop software for > the special features of just one computer (NeXT Step)? How many copies of > this software can they possibly sell? > Well, Mach is unix like enough to make portation of significant quantities of unix software not too onerous a task. As far as NeXT Step, I imagine it will do OK, considering the fact that IBM (yes, Big Blue) has licensed it to use on some of their systems as a user interface. I figure they might sell a FEW copies. >4) Slow Optical Drive: In the past, optical drives have been significantly > slower (seek times) than magnetic drives. What is the advantage of the > optical drive? Cost must be less than that of the larger 330Mbyte $2K > magnetic drive. But NeXT will be hurt once benchmarks come out for its > i/o performance (using the optical drive). > a) It may not be as slow as you think, electro-optical drives are near the leading edge of the optical pack in speed. b) one (1) advantage of the optical drive is that it is a 256Mb REMOVABLE disk subsystem. More blank disks cost about $50 each. c) Yes, costs will be MUCH less than the 330Mb magnetic disk, which still takes multiple platters and heads; The optical disk uses one platter. b) Even assuming their benchmarks will be dismal (and I don't think they will), purchase decisions are not made by benchmarks alone. >5) Software Not Ready: The 9 month delay (optimistically) until solid software > exists could kill NeXT, as Sun & Apple prepare competitive systems. Sun > will probably keep to open systems and set some new standards, while Apple > will probably stay proprietary. > Late software hurts, but they appear to have waited long enough with the introduction of the system itself that their software timetable can be met. >6) Sun (I have heard) has sold 15,000 workstations to universitys. How many > can NeXT expect to sell with its slow processor, non-standard bus/software, > slow drive, and late software? > > We will have to wait and see, but considering the fact that NeXT is going to concentrate exclusively on universities as a market, they may do pretty well. (A footnote, one local university here has already ordered 100 of them) >Solutions to the above problems: What NeXT should do. > > >1) Develop a RISC based NeXT implementation as soon as possible. The advantage > of Unix (Mach) is its idea of source level portability, rather than binary > level compatibility. > Oh, pish, you have RISC on the brain. A second (or third) processor board can always be added if warranted. You were talking about lack of software, well, there is a lot less software for RISC than for the 68xxx family. You complain the software will be late, but here you want to make it later..! >2) Make "stub" boards that convert standard NuBus boards to the NeXT version of > NuBus. These "stubs" would be placed between the NeXT slots and the > standard NuBus boards. Longer Term Goal: Make the NeXT NuBus an > international standard, much as Apple made its version of NuBus a standard. > Possible Solution: Change the bus NOW to a standard, provide board > converters for computers with the current bus. > I'm not sure there is any difference between their bus and the NuBus except clock rate. If that's the case, the 68000 is pretty tolerant of slower than expected devices, so maybe slower boards will work. If not, consider that IBM got away with introducing another bus, and now there are cards for it. Also, given the SCSI port for disks, the wide array of goodies already on board, and the substantial amount of memory in the base system, many users may be able to "limp" along with the basic system for quite some time. >3) Make NeXT proprietary software into standards, and beat Sun at its own game > before Sun beats NeXT. This may mean making NeXT Step an overlay on X > windows. The important thing is to develop a standard that can be (and is) > used by all computers. > Given the nature of the display hardware, X-Windows won't be any big deal to port. Also, display postscript (even though i'm not that fond of it myself), has good potential for becoming a display standard interface (at the lower level). And at the risk of becoming repetitive, NeXT Step will get a big boost towards becoming a standard by IBM's licensing of it. >4) Give users the option of scrapping the optical drive and replacing it with > the 330 Mbyte winchester. > The optical disk drive is, among other things, the software distribution media for the system (no more swapping a zillion floppies to install your favorite LARGE software package). Economies of scale attained by placing one as the "floppy" of each system make it quite inexpensive. I suspect many users will want two of them. Their winchester prices are a little on the high side (hell, quite a bit), but given the SCSI interface, I see strong third party availability of mass storage and tape backup and such. >5) Work like hell. Adopt standard software where ever possible. Distribute > work to 3rd parties. Standardize where ever possible to beat Sun at its > own game and to make the users happy. Allow Apple to be proprietary and > dig its own grave. > Given the nature of workaholics like Jobs and Perot, I expect they have been working like hell and then some since they started this thing. The deal with IBM demonstrates their intent to standardize. As far as universities go, Mach is a pretty reasonable choice for an OpSys standard, given its multiple processor support and ongoing development at CMU. >6) Standardize and Speed-Up -> Increase sales. > > Hey, if they could control the sales numbers, they would have it made for sure. Since they can only sell so many at a time and still support them well (they have to grow), I applaud their decision to go for the university market first. (Stepping down of my soapbox, I remain) Dorn gatech.edu!fabscal!dorn
mash@mips.COM (John Mashey) (10/16/88)
In article <5498@juniper.uucp> chari@juniper.UUCP (Christopher Michael Whatley) writes: ... >>1) Outdated Processor Technology: NeXT just missed the wave of fast RISC >> processors. The 5 MIPS 68030 is completely out performed by the currently >> available RISC chips (Motorola, MIPS, Sparc) that run at approximately >> 20 VAX (they claim) MIPS. In a year or two, ECL versions of some of these >> RISC chips will be running at 40 to 50 MIPS. > >They are supposedly developing their own RISC chip that is compatible with the >030. I don't know any more than that. I read this in a rumour column. This defies all logic. a) If it's compatible with an 030, it's not a RISC. If it's a design that makes the 68K architecture go faster (quite possible), it's still CISC, but maybe it's called a 68040. Do you think that NeXT thinks they can do that better than Moto? b) Building high-performance RISCs is harder than people thought. Even large companies with huge resources often prefer to buy rather than build. Why would a startup do this when their value-add is clearly in other areas, like user interface, software, and system integration? DON'T BELIEVE RUMOR COLUMNS THAT PRINT TRASH LIKE THIS! >(Grain-o-salt) Doesn't 20 RISC MIPS equal about 5 CISC MIPS? Depends on whose RISC MIPS and CISC MIPS they are, although that's at the edge of the distribution. I know our 20-MIPS M/2000s are 20X VAX-11/780 [i.e., spread over 15X-25X on real programs, versus VAX/VMS compilers] because I've benchmarked them. It certainly will be good to start seeing 68030s so one can benchmark them and figure out what they really are. Finally, ECL RISC chips will indeed be 40-50MIPS (or more) in next few years, but that's rather irrelevant to a NeXT discussion. I'd be amazed to see straight ECL chips in a desktop workstation, especially one aimed to be cheap. ECL chips are suitable for bigger machines, but they'r not cheap, they burn power, and they're HOT: a desktop would probably be an above-the-desktop, as it hovers on its fans. More seriously, you're much more likely to find ECL in servers than workstations. -- -john mashey DISCLAIMER: <generic disclaimer, I speak for me only, etc> UUCP: {ames,decwrl,prls,pyramid}!mips!mash OR mash@mips.com DDD: 408-991-0253 or 408-720-1700, x253 USPS: MIPS Computer Systems, 930 E. Arques, Sunnyvale, CA 94086
james@bigtex.cactus.org (James Van Artsdalen) (10/16/88)
In <7774@gryphon.CTS.COM>, richard@gryphon.CTS.COM (Richard Sexton) wrote:
> What makes these drives so slow ? Surely it's not the actuator technology...
It's the mass of the head. Really fast "conventional" hard disks such
as the CDC Wren-III use a rotary voice coil: the arm turns somewhat
akin to a record player. The inertia of the head is therefore
critical. Exiting magentic heads are very lightweight and getting
lighter. Optics are apparently still very much more massive and could
well remain so indefinitely. If NeXT has both magnetic and optical
components on the head, it's not clear how they'll ever get the mass
of the head down as low as conventional disks.
As an aside, one interesting idea for linear voice coil drives is to
place several heads along the arm, dramatically cutting the maximum
seek distance. But it's not clear to me that maximum seek distance is
nearly as important as minimum track-to-track seek time: only stupid
operating systems place data completely at random across a drive (did
someone say AT&T unix? - even MS-DOS does better!).
--
James R. Van Artsdalen james@bigtex.cactus.org "Live Free or Die"
Home: 512-346-2444 Work: 338-8789 9505 Arboretum Blvd Austin TX 78759henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) (10/16/88)
In article <5498@juniper.uucp> chari@juniper.UUCP (Christopher Michael Whatley) writes: >They are supposedly developing their own RISC chip that is compatible with the >030.... Sigh. Isn't it sad: even in comp.arch, people have forgotten what "RISC" means. That's like trying to build a Concorde that's compatible with a donkey cart. >... One of the infoworld >reporters said that NeXT was considering using the modem for distribution. Ha! Why the "Ha!"? It's not a ridiculous idea. The AT&T Software Toolchest works pretty well. And it is cheaper to get X11 from UUNET via modem than from MIT via tape, not to mention faster... It also has the enormous advantage that it largely eliminates the very expensive human operations needed in conventional software distribution. If you ask the Software Toolchest people to send you a tape instead, they will say "forget it, we haven't the manpower". -- The meek can have the Earth; | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology the rest of us have other plans.|uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu
bzs@xenna (Barry Shein) (10/16/88)
It does seem obvious that the main advantage of the removeable optical disk in the University environment is with University purchased clusters of machines. A student comes in with his/her disk, sits down at a machine (any machine on campus), plugs it in and boots. Other software etc can be gotten from NFS file servers which would mount on boot. Doesn't really matter which NFS server, any one on the local net will do (a little PARC-like clearinghouse software to broadcast for an appropriate server would take care of that "will the NeXT binaries server please mount itself on my /usr/local partition!") So, you can work near your next (NeXT?) class, then go over to the library and work some more etc. Not sure how mail would work in that scheme although post-office protocols should suffice (contact your mail server machine and fork a background job to suck over all your new mail as you get started, doesn't have to be awfully fast, going thru gateways would be fine, unlike NFS where it would be something to be avoided, the local server could figure out where your mail is for you easily enough.) Thus, the optical disk needs only the basic operating system (even a lot of the utilities could be mounted read-only via NFS, no need to have things like emacs on the local disk etc.) With swap I'll guess you'll use around 100MB or a little less for overhead. That leaves around 150MB for user space, not too bad, especially when compared with your average student's disk quota on a time-sharer (what? A very few MB usually.) The economics are that it shifts the cost of disk space to the student. At a University with 5,000 student users at $50/disk I come up with (scritch scritch) $250,000 in costs now shifted to the students (well, that's a funny number, per-semester? per-year? per-matriculation? also students are getting a lot more disk, but about $50 is probably what their current few MB is worth right now.) Assuming more read/write storage can then be had on the NFS systems, even temporarily, then things can be shuffled about by copying off a removeable disk, putting in a fresh one and rebooting and copying it all back. Pretty gross, but a student's time is pretty cheap (ie. you're also shifting that work to the student.) Given all that backups become stranger, unless there's some way to get one's disk backed up while on-line as a service by the University (doubtful.) Optical disks aren't horribly fragile, but they can get destroyed (eg. sat on in a back pocket, dropped in a bookbag) or lost. I suppose one could grab two machines off-hours and do a disk copy, at worst. Setting up lockers for students to store disks in might be a good idea (living in Boston makes me wonder how these disks respond to large temperature changes, having lived in other places makes me wonder how much they like beach sand.) The laser printer is even stranger, perhaps it was an afterthought. What you really want in that environment is a scheme to send printout to a high-speed printer which is shared (perhaps one located in the university copy-center where a cost accounting system is set up to pay as you go, there might be small satellites set up near each workroom.) Conclusion: In it's current configuration it seems to not be a "student" machine per se but a Computing Center machine, something designed for their model of providing computing (rooms full of machines, let the students buy and manage all the disk space, no need for [much] operations etc.) Not too dumb, quite possibly very clever, not sure where it leaves a certain trend towards owning the machine, working from a dorm room etc. If that were the interest it would have an ISDN connector. -Barry Shein, ||Encore||
henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) (10/16/88)
In article <9287@bigtex.cactus.org> james@bigtex.cactus.org (James Van Artsdalen) writes: >As an aside, one interesting idea for linear voice coil drives is to >place several heads along the arm, dramatically cutting the maximum >seek distance... Uh, Jim, you may not be aware of this, but the Fujitsu Eagle has two heads per surface on its linear actuator. Not a new idea. -- The meek can have the Earth; | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology the rest of us have other plans.|uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu
ns@cat.cmu.edu (Nicholas Spies) (10/16/88)
In article <9287@bigtex.cactus.org> james@bigtex.cactus.org (James Van Artsdalen) writes: ... >lighter. Optics are apparently still very much more massive and could >well remain so indefinitely. ... It's not too difficult to imagine that the optics of a WORM drive read/write head could be reduced to a slender optical fiber leading to a stationary laser. Another approach might be to use holographic optics... :-) -- Nicholas Spies ns@cat.cmu.edu.arpa Center for Design of Educational Computing Carnegie Mellon University
csimmons@hqpyr1.oracle.UUCP (Charles Simmons) (10/16/88)
In article <26435@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> pchris@ucbarpa.Berkeley.EDU (Chris Perleberg) writes: > >It seems that the NeXT machine may have a few problems: > >3) Non-Standard Software: What software company would develop software for > the special features of just one computer (NeXT Step)? How many copies of > this software can they possibly sell? Oops... Note that IBM has licensed NeXT Step and plans to port it to run on top of AIX. Potentially, OSF will go with AIX as its operating system, and this would suggest that NeXT Step would be likely to appear in any OSF offering. In any event, with IBM backing the NeXT software, NeXT doesn't have to worry about this little item. >4) Slow Optical Drive: In the past, optical drives have been significantly > slower (seek times) than magnetic drives. What is the advantage of the > optical drive? Cost must be less than that of the larger 330Mbyte $2K > magnetic drive. But NeXT will be hurt once benchmarks come out for its > i/o performance (using the optical drive). Something to factor into your price performance picture: I believe another article pointed out that the optical drive was under $1500 dollars. So, for $1550, I get 256MB of disk storage. For $1600 I get 512MB of disk storage. For $1700 I get 1 Gigabyte of disk storage. Admittedly, my seek time gets a little bit long (2 to 3 seconds) when I have to swap disks... For the 330 MB winchester, I'm fairly certain that you can't pop the disk in and out of the machine. To get massive amounts of storage, you'ld have to attach a tape drive or floppy disk drive. 256 MB of floppy disk storage, in volume, should cost you around $250. For the tape drive, your seek time is probably somewhat worse than 2 to 3 seconds. So, the advantage of the optical drive is the ability to make available massive amounts of storage at low cost and reasonable accessibility. >6) Sun (I have heard) has sold 15,000 workstations to universitys. How many > can NeXT expect to sell with its slow processor, non-standard bus/software, > slow drive, and late software? My understanding is that NeXT needs to sell 10,000 machines over the next two years. >2) Make "stub" boards that convert standard NuBus boards to the NeXT version of > NuBus. These "stubs" would be placed between the NeXT slots and the > standard NuBus boards. Longer Term Goal: Make the NeXT NuBus an > international standard, much as Apple made its version of NuBus a standard. > Possible Solution: Change the bus NOW to a standard, provide board > converters for computers with the current bus. To some extent, this may have been done. As Barry Lustig points out, NeXT well be making available a chip that implements a NuBus interface. Cost of the chip: about $25. It would be interesting to hear how easy this chip makes it to build boards for the NeXT NuBus, or to convert a board from 10MhZ to 25Mhz. >3) Make NeXT proprietary software into standards, and beat Sun at its own game > before Sun beats NeXT. This may mean making NeXT Step an overlay on X > windows. The important thing is to develop a standard that can be (and is) > used by all computers. As I mentioned above, IBM has already made NeXT proprietary software into a standard. Also, since NeXT runs a Unix-based operating system, it' going to be real easy for companies to port their product from their current Unix based machines to the NeXT machine. The User Interface provided by the machine is supposed to be real real nice in that it makes it extremely simple for programmers to put together a user interface on top of their existing application. > Chris Perleberg
chari@juniper.uucp (Christopher Michael Whatley) (10/16/88)
In article <1988Oct16.022032.29382@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes: >In article <5498@juniper.uucp> chari@juniper.UUCP (Christopher Michael Whatley) writes: >>[Cisc comatible risc (ok it did sound dumb)] > >Sigh. Isn't it sad: even in comp.arch, people have forgotten what "RISC" >means. That's like trying to build a Concorde that's compatible with a >donkey cart. Excuse me for not being precise enough. To quote.... "It's a sort of RISC/CISC hybrid [which is] pin-compatible with the 68030. [It] supports the motorola instruction set at between 1 and 2 instructions per cycle..." > >>... One of the infoworld >>reporters said that NeXT was considering using the modem for distribution. Ha! > >Why the "Ha!"? It's not a ridiculous idea. The AT&T Software Toolchest... Ok, it's not such a ridiculous idea. However, your average student (me), does not want to call up uunet and sit ther for an hour watching the retry count go up long distance. If the university could have the software available by modem that would be great. You could go into the computer store at school pay your money and get a special password and login-name. That wouldn't be too hard to manage I suppose. Chris (Gee I miss Toronto, I went to U of T last year) -- $---------------$--------------------------------$-------------------------$ | Chris Whatley | mail chari@juniper.uucp | "Ever seen the chicken | | 512/453-4238 | chari@killer.dallas.tx.us | walk?" -Jeffrey | $---------------$--------------------------------$-------------------------$
crum@lipari.usc.edu (Gary L. Crum) (10/17/88)
In article <3884@encore.UUCP> bzs@xenna (Barry Shein) writes: > >The laser printer is even stranger, perhaps it was an afterthought. >What you really want in that environment is a scheme to send printout >to a high-speed printer which is shared (perhaps one located in the >university copy-center where a cost accounting system is set up to pay >as you go, there might be small satellites set up near each workroom.) > BYTE mentions "you could use a cube with a NeXT laser printer to act as a print server on a network" and "The cube can print to non-NeXT PostScript printers using its serial ports and Unix printer drivers." I think the Berkeley lpd (with /etc/printcap) system is used, so really, the shared printer could be a NeXT laser printer connected to a staff-maintained machine, a LaserWriter IINTX connected to any other UNIX system with lpd, or something complete esoteric such as the DEC LPS-40 fast PostScript printer connected to a VAX running VMS but still accessible from all Suns here at USC. The possibilities are endless. With a localtalk/ethernet gateway such as the Kinetics KFPS-4 and the free Columbia Appletalk Package (CAP) for UNIX, even AppleTalk printers could be used. Actually, CAP's Printer Access Protocol (PAP) implementation is quite fun. A program called "tlw" lets any UNIX user interatively talk to the PostScript interpreter (executive) of any LaserWriter on accessible AppleTalk networks. That leads to my next paragraph... Barry's environment where students boot cubes off their own platters poses many interesting security problems! In such an environment, cubes cannot "trust" each other because users have their own system disks and hence all users are superusers for their respective machines. In existing Sun installations that I have seen, it is technically possible for users to boot of their own disk or tape, but such practice is not intended and is detected by otherwise unexplained machine dowtime. Perhaps the environment where users are allowed to boot NeXT cubes off their own software is analogous to existing environments with PCs on ethernet running TCP/IP protocols including NFS, but in the NeXT case the security issues are more apparent because the user has control over a larger and more mature system of software. I sure hope that this free, boot-it-yourself environment becomes the norm, but mixing UNIX and personal computing ideologies sure produces fireworks. I ran MACH on a Sun-3/60C last summer, albeit without NFS. It is interesting that rsh/rlogin and their daemons were absent from the distribution. Furthermore, compiling the source to those programs from 4.3BSD did not result in working services right off because MACH changes the function of ruserok() and other things. The MACH I used even ran most SunOS (pre-4.0) binaries, with notable exceptions being those that used SunView libraries. The brilliant engineers at NeXT and their group of advisors from academia undoubtedly have plans for cube cluster configurations as well thought out as the NeXT system itself, but until we all learn what those plans are, it sure is fun to speculate and "publish" our ideas. Perhaps we could use this forum for the exchange of ideas for application programs that the NeXT machine makes possible, especially those which would be less practical without such a capable, well-packaged computer system. (Keep in mind that readers working for software developers might use ideas, or maybe just chuckle because they are working on such things or better things. The proposal is for the reader in academia like myself, in a position to share ideas.) For example, how about (don't laugh!): * if not already provided, a program to convert Mathematica output to publication-quality PostScript description. This might be easiest with the source code to Mathematica (or rather, easiest for Stephen Wolfram to do). * given the above, a WSYWIG editor extended to keep Mathematical formulas in some Mathematica-readable format but displayed in pretty format. So, papers with mathematics in them could be constructed using cut-and-paste between Mathematica and the editor. Papers could be send over email as ASCII and MacWrite documents are now, and the receiver could cut equations out of documents and "experiment" with them, using Mathematica on his/her system. I guess I would ultimately like to see a standard format for the communication of mathematical proof (logic) without the free use of natural language, but that is too ambitious. * a multi-user interactive sketchpad, primarily for use to convey graphical information while connected by conventional phone. Or, perhaps packets of voice could be exchanged rapidly enough over ethernet along with the graphical information to replace the use of phone for some communication. Scott Dyer of the Ohio Supercomputer Center mentioned something like this multi-user interactive graphical sketchpad in his talk at the HP Graphics Symposium last July. It ran under suntools -- this clearly requires only networked computers. I won't post for a while after this, I promise. Please, somebody let me know if my choice or amount of material was not appropriate. Yay Trojans!
james@bigtex.cactus.org (James Van Artsdalen) (10/17/88)
In <3311@pt.cs.cmu.edu>, ns@cat.cmu.edu (Nicholas Spies) wrote: > In article <9287@bigtex.cactus.org> I wrote: | [...] lighter. Optics are apparently still very much more massive and could | well remain so indefinitely. > It's not too difficult to imagine that the optics of a WORM drive > read/write head could be reduced to a slender optical fiber leading to > a stationary laser. [...] Well, at this point we need to find a drive designer to clear this up. But I assume a fiber optic strand would be heavier than a conducting metal wire. Indeed, I wonder if the laser is a diode on the head instead of a fiber stretching the length of the arm. I should point out that I think the removable optical R/W drive is a very good idea. I don't see it being used much as the primary disk drive. I suspect is the machine is intended for networked environments, and that you are expected to use NFS quite a bit. Most students will easily fit all of their files into 256Mbytes. Machines that aren't networked presumably will have a large SCSI drive attached. -- James R. Van Artsdalen james@bigtex.cactus.org "Live Free or Die" Home: 512-346-2444 Work: 338-8789 9505 Arboretum Blvd Austin TX 78759
rfarris@serene.CTS.COM (Rick Farris) (10/17/88)
In article <1988Oct16.054306.1884@utzoo.uucp> (Henry Spencer) writes: >In article <9287@bigtex.cactus.org> (James Van Artsdalen) writes: >>As an aside, one interesting idea for linear voice coil drives is to >>place several heads along the arm, dramatically cutting the maximum >>seek distance... > >Uh, Jim, you may not be aware of this, but the Fujitsu Eagle has two >heads per surface on its linear actuator. Not a new idea. (Darn, I wish I had the balls to say "Uh, Henry,"...) Actually, mulitiple heads per surface is an old idea. It used to be quite common to have "head-per-track" drives. Of course these were generally single platter machines. I believe the reason for shifting to a multiple platter "head-per-surface" scheme was cost. Actually, there are still a few applications where head-per-track drives are still used. I believe Univac (err, Sperry, errr, Unisys) makes one for military aircraft. 100 MB as I remember. The problem with placing multiple heads on a *moving* actuator is that each head adds mass. It may not have to move as far, but it's slower getting started (for a given servo system) and slower stopping. Any physicists want to talk about the tradeoffs between moving a large mass a short distance, and moving a small mass a long distance? Rick Farris rfarris@serene.cts.com voice (619) 259-6793 POB M KCBIW public access 259-7757 Del Mar CA 92014 ...!uunet!serene!rfarris serene.uucp 259-3704
mash@mips.COM (John Mashey) (10/17/88)
In article <5549@juniper.uucp> chari@juniper.UUCP (Christopher Michael Whatley) writes: >In article <1988Oct16.022032.29382@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes: >>In article <5498@juniper.uucp> chari@juniper.UUCP (Christopher Michael Whatley) writes: >>>[Cisc comatible risc (ok it did sound dumb)] >> >>Sigh. Isn't it sad: even in comp.arch, people have forgotten what "RISC" >>means. That's like trying to build a Concorde that's compatible with a >>donkey cart. > >Excuse me for not being precise enough. To quote.... "It's a sort of RISC/CISC >hybrid [which is] pin-compatible with the 68030. [It] supports the motorola >instruction set at between 1 and 2 instructions per cycle..." 1) The 68030 is "RISCier" than the 68020. Specifically, it went from 3 cycle bus access to 2 cycle access, and cycle counts were pared down elsewhere, I believe. Note that, as we've said before, you can always make CISC go faster by heavier pipelining+parallelism, but usually at a cost in hardware complexity and gate-count. The NeXT box does use a 68030. 2) "between 1 and 2 instructions per cycle": I think this is backwards. I might believe 3-4 cycles/instruction. Lots of people are talking about dual-issue micros, which is what you need to get 1-2 instrs/cycle, but I can't think of any that are yet on the market, and making CISCs do that will be truly exciting. -- -john mashey DISCLAIMER: <generic disclaimer, I speak for me only, etc> UUCP: {ames,decwrl,prls,pyramid}!mips!mash OR mash@mips.com DDD: 408-991-0253 or 408-720-1700, x253 USPS: MIPS Computer Systems, 930 E. Arques, Sunnyvale, CA 94086
ajdenner@athena.mit.edu (Alexander J Denner) (10/17/88)
In article <452@oracle.UUCP> csimmons@oracle.UUCP (Charles Simmons) writes: >Oops... Note that IBM has licensed NeXT Step and plans to port it to >run on top of AIX. Potentially, OSF will go with AIX as its >operating system, and this would suggest that NeXT Step would be >likely to appear in any OSF offering. In any event, with IBM backing >the NeXT software, NeXT doesn't have to worry about this little item. > >As I mentioned above, IBM has already made NeXT proprietary software >into a standard. > >Also, since NeXT runs a Unix-based operating system, it' going to be >real easy for companies to port their product from their current >Unix based machines to the NeXT machine. IBM may use NeXT Step, but I would not count on it. IBM has a history of licensing and/or buying any technology or software they may someday think about using. For OSF, IBM has licensed or considered using: Next, Presentation Manager (what!), X Windows, HP (whatever they call their new windowing system), and others. To my knowledge, none of them have been given any special attention. In fact, chances are IBM may not even accept any of the systems above and write or contract a new one. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Alexander J. Denner ajdenner@athena.mit.edu 234 Baker House, 342 Memorial Drive mit-eddie!mit-athena!ajdenner Cambridge, MA 02139
jkrueger@daitc.daitc.mil (Jonathan Krueger) (10/17/88)
In article <452@oracle.UUCP> csimmons@oracle.UUCP (Charles Simmons) writes: >Something to factor into your price performance picture: I believe another >article pointed out that the optical drive was under $1500 dollars. So, >for $1550, I get 256MB of disk storage. For $1600 I get 512MB of disk >storage. For $1700 I get 1 Gigabyte of disk storage. Admittedly, my >seek time gets a little bit long (2 to 3 seconds) when I have to swap disks... Jukebox. I hear a voice saying, "the NeXT jukebox...for when you need the NeXT disk". I also hear a voice saying "backup" and also "our 400 disk box stores 100 gigabytes." Opens up whole new horizons in optimizing allocation of disk resources. Such things exist today, but tend to be expensive and highly vendor-specific, and don't offer rewrite/erase capabilities as far as I know. -- Jon
mende@athos.rutgers.edu (Bob Mende Pie) (10/17/88)
In article <5549@juniper.uucp> chari@juniper.uucp (Christopher Michael Whatley) writes about the subject of getting updates via modem. > Ok, it's not such a ridiculous idea. However, your average student (me), > does not want to call up uunet and sit ther for an hour watching the > retry count go up long distance. If the university could have the > software available by modem that would be great. You could go into the > computer store at school pay your money and get a special password and > login-name. That wouldn't be too hard to manage I suppose. There are a couple of things that may make this useful... We must remember that NeXT plans to make a university responsible for distribution and I will assume to some extent maintence/support of NeXT machines. The $50 cost of a optical disk is *not* unreasonable if you only have to send out one disk to a university. The university could allow people to get the updated software via modem or by use of a two drive machine. While I think that the optical disk is good, NeXT *SHOULD* adopt a standard format for both 3.5" floppys and 5.25" floppys. I would think the MS-DOS format for floppys, no flames, is a standard (a number of them) that would allow file transfer to those who only have a IBMish machine. I can imagine a box that hangs off your SCSI port, that has a 5.25" 1.44Meg floppy on it as well as plugs to hang more floppys off of. This way vendors could offer their software on 1.44 meg floppys as well as optical disks. /Bob... -- {...}!rutgers!mende mende@aramis.rutgers.edu mende@zodiac.bitnet Hi there! This is just a note from me, to you, to tell you, the person reading this note, that since my operation I have not had a strange thought, well except the one about the MAMBA is a BLUE SUIT.
mende@athos.rutgers.edu (Bob Mende Pie) (10/17/88)
In article <12844@oberon.USC.EDU> crum@lipari.usc.edu (Gary L. Crum) writes: > For example, how about (don't laugh!): > * if not already provided, a program to convert Mathematica output to > publication-quality PostScript description. This might be easiest with the > source code to Mathematica (or rather, easiest for Stephen Wolfram to do). > * given the above, a WSYWIG editor extended to keep Mathematical formulas > in some Mathematica-readable format but displayed in pretty format. So, > papers with mathematics in them could be constructed using cut-and-paste > between Mathematica and the editor. Papers could be send over email > as ASCII and MacWrite documents are now, and the receiver could cut > equations out of documents and "experiment" with them, using Mathematica > on his/her system. I guess I would ultimately like to see a standard format > for the communication of mathematical proof (logic) without the free use > of natural language, but that is too ambitious. You are thinking in a far to specific. First of all, I have seen Mathematica for the Sun, and *ALL* it's output is in postscript. This is perfect for "the cube". Mathematica also can output formulas in ascii, text, LaTeX, and numerous other formats. What I hope that the WordProcessor has is a ability to insert arbitrary PostPcript into a document. Since I assume that all programs that work on the NeXT machine will output postscript (a save assumption), you could insert anything into a paper. I also beleve that there weill be a desktop publishing system before long, since desktop publishing is BIG at universities. /Bob... -- {...}!rutgers!mende mende@aramis.rutgers.edu mende@zodiac.bitnet Hi there! This is just a note from me, to you, to tell you, the person reading this note, that since my operation I have not had a strange thought, well except the one about the MAMBA is a BLUE SUIT.
daveh@cbmvax.UUCP (Dave Haynie) (10/19/88)
in article <521@fabscal.UUCP>, dorn@fabscal.UUCP (Alan Dorn Hetzel) says: >>It seems that the NeXT machine may have a few problems: >> >>1) Outdated Processor Technology: NeXT just missed the wave of fast RISC >> processors. The 5 MIPS 68030 is completely out performed by the currently >> available RISC chips (Motorola, MIPS, Sparc) that run at approximately >> 20 VAX (they claim) MIPS. In a year or two, ECL versions of some of these >> RISC chips will be running at 40 to 50 MIPS. Priced the ~8 MIPS Sun 4 lately? Or the ~14 MIPS 88K chipset. How about an Apollo 10K? RISC machines are starting to get fast, and they're even starting to get down in price, but these two directions haven't met yet. >>6) Sun (I have heard) has sold 15,000 workstations to universitys. How many >> can NeXT expect to sell with its slow processor, non-standard bus/software, >> slow drive, and late software? Since the VAST majority of Suns sold to universities are Sun 3s (68020 based) and below (believe it or not, folks STILL use Sun 2s here and there), I don't think a 68030 based system, even NeXT's, which isn't an especially fast 68030 system (they're running it's memory at about 1/2 the possible speed), will have no trouble competing with the installed 68020 systems. Or a $25,000-$50,000 RISC based workstation. There certainly may be other reasons why a university would by a Sun or Apollo or even Apple rather than a NeXT, but I really don't think it'll be based on CPU speed. > I'm not sure there is any difference between their bus and the NuBus except > clock rate. It's also based on CMOS levels. > If that's the case, the 68000 is pretty tolerant of slower than expected devices, > so maybe slower boards will work. 680x0 CPUs can easily run asynchronously. The NuBus, however, is defined as being synchronous, with a 10MHz clock (with something like a 75/25 duty cycle). Even considering the fast clock alone, it would amazing if any existing NuBus board worked in this bus. It might not be much trouble to redesign existing NuBus boards to work in this bus, probably just change around some state machines to take into account the faster clock rate (probably does add more states, though). > If not, consider that IBM got away with introducing another bus, and now there > are cards for it. It may not even matter. It'll be quite some time before it makes any sense for 3rd party groups to build NeXTBus cards. But it may make lots of sense for NeXT to do so, and they've at least not locked themselves into something as slow as true NuBus. > Dorn > gatech.edu!fabscal!dorn -- Dave Haynie "The 32 Bit Guy" Commodore-Amiga "The Crew That Never Rests" {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: D-DAVE H BIX: hazy "I can't relax, 'cause I'm a Boinger!"
tim@crackle.amd.com (Tim Olson) (10/19/88)
In article <5024@cbmvax.UUCP> daveh@cbmvax.UUCP (Dave Haynie) writes: | >>1) Outdated Processor Technology: NeXT just missed the wave of fast RISC | >> processors. The 5 MIPS 68030 is completely out performed by the currently | >> available RISC chips (Motorola, MIPS, Sparc) that run at approximately | >> 20 VAX (they claim) MIPS. In a year or two, ECL versions of some of these | >> RISC chips will be running at 40 to 50 MIPS. | | Priced the ~8 MIPS Sun 4 lately? Or the ~14 MIPS 88K chipset. How about | an Apollo 10K? RISC machines are starting to get fast, and they're even | starting to get down in price, but these two directions haven't met yet. It seems to me that most RISC processors are less expensive then their CISC counterparts. The Am29000 pricing for 100 piece quantities is 16MHz $174 20MHz $230 25MHz $349 I'm sure that LSI Logic could also show you very low prices on their RISC chips. Last I heard, the 68030 was in the $300+ price range. -- Tim Olson Advanced Micro Devices (tim@crackle.amd.com)
die@cpoint.UUCP (David I. Emery) (10/19/88)
Most previously announced erasable optical media (such as Tandy's)
allow only a limited number of write erase cycles before the media
deteriorates enough to signficantly effect error rates. I beleive the
Tandy product was qouted as only supporting around 10 write erase cycles.
Does the NeXT/(Cannon?) media have any limit on the number of write
erase cycles allowed ? It appears to be erased by thermal techniques
(heating above the Curie point), how many heating/cooling cycles can
the material undergo without changes in crystal structure that effect
data SNR (annealing effects perhaps) ?
Does this mean that the NeXT optical floppies have the possibility of
wearing out in spots ? Doe the file system do anything to compensate.
Can the disks be erased by modest high temperatures (such as leaving
one in a hot car (160-180 F) or bright sun ?
David I. Emery Clearpoint Research Corp.
99 South Street, Hopkinton Ma. 01748 1-508-435-2000
{decvax, cybvax0, mirror}!frog!cpoint!die
--
David I. Emery Clearpoint Research Corp.
99 South Street, Hopkinton Ma. 01748 1-508-435-2000
{decvax, cybvax0, mirror}!frog!cpoint!die rsexton@uceng.UC.EDU (robert sexton) (10/19/88)
While RISC may be cheaper(smaller design, less silicon) what you are really doing is shifting the cost burden onto the rest of the system. The high memory bandwidth of the RISC design means more high speed memory, bigger high-speed caches. With a CISC design, you put all of the high speed silicon on one chip, lowering the cost of all the support circuitry and memory. -- Robert Sexton, University of Cincinnati rsexton@uceng.uc.edu tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!uccba!uceng!rsexton Box Full O' Transputers... The Breakfast with MIPS I do not speak for UC, They don't speak for me.
mark@cygnet.CYGNETSYSTEMS (Mark Quattrocchi) (10/20/88)
In article <9353@bigtex.cactus.org> james@bigtex.cactus.org (James Van Artsdalen) writes: >In <3311@pt.cs.cmu.edu>, ns@cat.cmu.edu (Nicholas Spies) wrote: > >> In article <9287@bigtex.cactus.org> I wrote: >| [...] lighter. Optics are apparently still very much more massive and could >| well remain so indefinitely. > >> It's not too difficult to imagine that the optics of a WORM drive >> read/write head could be reduced to a slender optical fiber leading to >> a stationary laser. [...] > >Well, at this point we need to find a drive designer to clear this up. >But I assume a fiber optic strand would be heavier than a conducting >metal wire. Indeed, I wonder if the laser is a diode on the head >instead of a fiber stretching the length of the arm. The biggest weight factor in optical heads is not the laser but the focusing mechanism. Some manufacturers in the 12 inch arena even control the pitch of the head (for those really warped platters). I have noticed in the past few years that the heads are getting much smaller which in turn gives a much faster seek time. Since most optical vendors have now doubled capacity in the past year, I suspect that seek times will be the next big jump to come. The company I work for makes jukeboxes for both 12 and 5 1/4 inch optical disk drives and there are currently about 30 manufacters for 5 1/4r. I believe after the initial falling out we will see optical drives coming very close to approaching current hard disk access times.
daveh@cbmvax.UUCP (Dave Haynie) (10/20/88)
in article <23298@amdcad.AMD.COM>, tim@crackle.amd.com (Tim Olson) says: > | Priced the ~8 MIPS Sun 4 lately? Or the ~14 MIPS 88K chipset. How about > | an Apollo 10K? RISC machines are starting to get fast, and they're even > | starting to get down in price, but these two directions haven't met yet. > It seems to me that most RISC processors are less expensive then their > CISC counterparts. The Am29000 pricing for 100 piece quantities is > 16MHz $174 > 20MHz $230 > 25MHz $349 > I'm sure that LSI Logic could also show you very low prices on their > RISC chips. Last I heard, the 68030 was in the $300+ price range. Alot of it depends on quantity. I'm sure NeXT and Apple are buying their 68030s more that 100 at a time. Many of the ASIC houses making RISCs are output limited. And with most of the RISC designs, once you pay the additional cost of caches and MMUs, you're way out of the 68030 league, cost wise. Complete systems I've seen with both MIPS and 88k put you at around $1000 for the CPU subsystem. > -- Tim Olson > Advanced Micro Devices > (tim@crackle.amd.com) -- Dave Haynie "The 32 Bit Guy" Commodore-Amiga "The Crew That Never Rests" {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: D-DAVE H BIX: hazy "I can't relax, 'cause I'm a Boinger!"
desnoyer@Apple.COM (Peter Desnoyers) (10/20/88)
In article <12844@oberon.USC.EDU> crum@lipari.usc.edu (Gary L. Crum) writes: > >Barry's environment where students boot cubes off their own platters >poses many interesting security problems! In such an environment, cubes >cannot "trust" each other because users have their own system disks >and hence all users are superusers for their respective machines. > In the MIT Athena system you walk up to a workstation, log in, and get connected to your files, as well as the system, over the network. If you screw up the workstation, I think you can look up the root password in the documentation. Since any files of consequence (your files, system files) are non-local although locally cached, root can't screw many things up. root@<workstation> obviously isn't a trusted account in this environment. In other words, these proposed clusters are a solved problem, as well as being a good idea. Peter Desnoyers
ronc@fai.UUCP (Ronald O. Christian) (10/20/88)
In article <5498@juniper.uucp> chari@juniper.UUCP (Christopher Michael Whatley) writes: >IBM has licensed NeXTStep for use with AIX on the PS/2 and RT PC. If that >becomes an alternative to OS/2 then the software, which supposedly could be >ported very easily, would reach a very wide market. A thought just occurred to me. Could this be why Microsoft is so p***ed off at Jobs? Ron -- Ronald O. Christian (Fujitsu America Inc., San Jose, Calif.) {amdahl, pyramid, sun, unisoft, uunet}!fai!ronc -or- ronc@fai.com Calling all Fujitsu Usenet sites! Contact fai!ronc or ronc@fai.com to establish uucp connection.
whh@pbhya.PacBell.COM (Wilson Heydt) (10/20/88)
In article <Oct.17.00.51.55.1988.10300@athos.rutgers.edu>, mende@athos.rutgers.edu (Bob Mende Pie) writes: > > I would think the MS-DOS format for > floppys, no flames, is a standard (a number of them) that would allow file > transfer to those who only have a IBMish machine. I can imagine a box that > hangs off your SCSI port, that has a 5.25" 1.44Meg floppy on it as well as ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Minor quibble--5.25" high density is 1.2 MB. 3.5" is 1.44 MB. > plugs to hang more floppys off of. Those boxes are already made. They're called "clones." The cost starts at $500. And since the Next machine has a couple of serial ports-- connection is already solved. --Hal ========================================================================= Hal Heydt | "Hafnium plus Holmium is Analyst, Pacific*Bell | one-point-five, I think." 415-645-7708 | --Dr. Jane Robinson {att,bellcore,sun,ames,pyramid}!pacbell!pbhya!whh
brazil@pawl18.pawl.rpi.edu (Timothy E. Onders) (10/21/88)
The Cannon drive is not a true Optical drive. It is an optically enhanced
magnetic storage device. Through the use of lasers, the tracks can be made as
small as the width of the beam. The actual reading a writing is done with
a magnetic field, much the same as it is done in a normal hard drive. So
far, Tandy has been the only manufacturer to come close to a true erasable
optical media. Theirs seems to be based on phase change media, which changes
from clear to opaque and back depending on the power and wavelength of the
laser beam it is exposed to.
As to fears of high temperatures erasing the disk, rest assured that
Cannon picked a material with a high enough curie point that you won't have
to worry too much about that. Besides, even if it is heated up to the point,
you would still need a magnetic field to damage the data.
Although this is the first true market penetration for a read/write
optical-type media, the actuall technology was in use as early as 3 or 4
years ago. Then, as now, the phase change medium seems more promising, since
it allows for a lighter R/W head since it is not necessary to have a magnetic
coil, as well as the optics, not to mention the fact that, as Tandy suggested,
Phase change media could be read by present read-only devices, since the
data is stored in much the same way as on a conventional CD.
Timothy E. Onders
brazil@pawl.rpi.edukds@blabla.intel.com (Ken Shoemaker) (10/22/88)
Of course, another obvious reason for not using any of the currently
available RISCs (except for maybe the 29000) is system implementation costs.
If you don't put a cache on a MIPS, the system won't run like a jackrabbit.
With the SPARC you need to implement your own MMU. And the component
costs of 88000s and Clippers with their custom MMU/cache chips are almost
half the cost of the whole machine! And then we can start to talk about
availability of production volumes of reasonably debugged parts...
--------
If you break a law to prove a law, you're on pretty shakey moral grounds
-- Ian Shoales
Ken Shoemaker, Microprocessor Design, Intel Corp., Santa Clara, California
uucp: ...{hplabs|decwrl|amdcad|qantel|pur-ee|hacgate|oliveb}!intelca!mipos3!kdsns@cat.cmu.edu (Nicholas Spies) (10/22/88)
In article <1490@imagine.PAWL.RPI.EDU> brazil@pawl18.pawl.rpi.edu (Timothy E. Onders) writes: >The Cannon drive is not a true Optical drive. It is an optically enhanced >magnetic storage device. Through the use of lasers, the tracks can be made as >small as the width of the beam. The actual reading a writing is done with >a magnetic field, much the same as it is done in a normal hard drive. ... In fact, opti-magetic discs are written by raising the disc coating to its Curie point in a magetic field, which alters the polarization of light reflected off (and/or transmitted through?) the coating according to the direction of the magnetic field is was written under. Reading is done optically, not magnetically, by noting the changes of polarization. >a magnetic field, much the same as it is done in a normal hard drive. So >far, Tandy has been the only manufacturer to come close to a true erasable >optical media. Theirs seems to be based on phase change media, which changes >from clear to opaque and back depending on the power and wavelength of the >laser beam it is exposed to. ... >years ago. Then, as now, the phase change medium seems more promising, since >it allows for a lighter R/W head since it is not necessary to have a magnetic >coil, as well as the optics, not to mention the fact that, as Tandy suggested, >Phase change media could be read by present read-only devices, since the >data is stored in much the same way as on a conventional CD. Conventional videodiscs and CD's store data as a series of pits of varying length, of a constant depth of 1/4 wavelength deep, so that when they are illuminated by the reading laser, light reflected from the bottom of the pits is out of phase by 1/2 wave, yeilding destructive interference so the pits appear black (or light against a black background?). In any case, current laserdisc technology is reflective and does not depend on the relative opacity of the medium. -- Nicholas Spies ns@cat.cmu.edu.arpa Center for Design of Educational Computing Carnegie Mellon University
henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) (10/23/88)
In article <5024@cbmvax.UUCP> daveh@cbmvax.UUCP (Dave Haynie) writes: >Since the VAST majority of Suns sold to universities are Sun 3s (68020 based) >and below (believe it or not, folks STILL use Sun 2s here and there), I don't >think a 68030 based system, even NeXT's, which isn't an especially fast 68030 >system (they're running it's memory at about 1/2 the possible speed), will have >no trouble competing with the installed 68020 systems... Your statement is correct as it reads (they will not have no trouble, i.e. they will have trouble), but that's probably not what you meant. The 68030 is *not* orders of magnitude faster than the 68020, especially if you are comparing fast 68020 systems with mediocre 68030 systems. (Do remember that you should probably normalize for memory access times, not raw clock rate, when comparing implementations.) It's not at all obvious to me that NeXT is going to blow Sun away. -- The meek can have the Earth; | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology the rest of us have other plans.|uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu
daveh@cbmvax.UUCP (Dave Haynie) (10/25/88)
in article <1988Oct23.002818.20634@utzoo.uucp>, henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) says: > Xref: cbmvax comp.arch:7110 alt.next:228 > In article <5024@cbmvax.UUCP> daveh@cbmvax.UUCP (Dave Haynie) writes: >>no trouble competing with the installed 68020 systems... ^^ Whoops. > Your statement is correct as it reads (they will not have no trouble, i.e. > they will have trouble), but that's probably not what you meant. The 68030 > is *not* orders of magnitude faster than the 68020, A 68030 can run BETTER than TWICE the speed of a 68020+68851 MMU, if you let it. Sun 3s have a somewhat faster MMU, but no matter what you do, a 25MHz 68020 isn't going to be able to read a longword every two clock cycles. A 68030 using burst fills and both caches will usually preform about as fast with a few wait states as a 68020 with no wait states, running at the same speed. > especially if you are > comparing fast 68020 systems with mediocre 68030 systems. (Do remember that > you should probably normalize for memory access times, not raw clock rate, > when comparing implementations.) It's not at all obvious to me that NeXT > is going to blow Sun away. Of course, and I never implied that they would. I did imply that a NeXT machine is more than a match for a good portion of the Sun systems out there, all Sun 2s, Sun 3/50s, Sun 3/60s, and in fact, any Sun that's not based on a 25MHz 68020 with a no wait state MMU and no wait state RAM or a good chunk of external cache. Then you may have an even match. Of course, given an even match and even price, I'd pick the Sun. But hardware wise, they will compare favorably. > The meek can have the Earth; | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology > the rest of us have other plans.|uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu -- Dave Haynie "The 32 Bit Guy" Commodore-Amiga "The Crew That Never Rests" {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: D-DAVE H BIX: hazy Amiga -- It's not just a job, it's an obsession
mark@cygnet.CYGNETSYSTEMS (Mark Quattrocchi) (11/02/88)
In article <199@daitc.daitc.mil> jkrueger@daitc.daitc.mil.UUCP (Jonathan Krueger) writes: >In article <452@oracle.UUCP> csimmons@oracle.UUCP (Charles Simmons) writes: >>Something to factor into your price performance picture: I believe another >>article pointed out that the optical drive was under $1500 dollars. So, >>for $1550, I get 256MB of disk storage. For $1600 I get 512MB of disk >>storage. For $1700 I get 1 Gigabyte of disk storage. Admittedly, my >>seek time gets a little bit long (2 to 3 seconds) when I have to swap disks... > >Jukebox. I hear a voice saying, "the NeXT jukebox...for when you need >the NeXT disk". I also hear a voice saying "backup" and also "our 400 >disk box stores 100 gigabytes." Opens up whole new horizons in >optimizing allocation of disk resources. Such things exist today, but >tend to be expensive and highly vendor-specific, and don't offer >rewrite/erase capabilities as far as I know. > Jukebox... Did I hear the magic word? Cygnet, the leader in optical disk jukeboxes does make them for both 5.25" and 12" drives. We support just about any brand of drives that exists (if not now we will shortly). Our 5.25" jukebox will fit under a desk and holds 25-28 cartridges depending on the drive type. The time to exchange cartridges is less than 4 seconds (the worlds fastest). We even have software that allows multiple jukebox management that runs under UNIX. So you too can have a NeXT jukebox, just send all your money and 10 corn flake box tops to ... me :-) Mark Quattrocchi