chris@castlab.engr.wisc.edu (Christian Rohrmeier) (06/24/91)
Hello all. I've recently been introduced to the NeXT, and I think its a wonderful machine. Now I am stuck with the choices whichj I must make when purchasing one.... I want 24bit color, but with a budget of about $8000 that would limit be to a slab and a tiny hard drive. Some one suggested that to save money.. avoid a NeXT HD and buy a 3rd party SCSI for alot less... same thing for memory. Any words of davice??? -- Christian Rohrmeier chris@castlab.engr.wisc.edu
cnh5730@calvin.tamu.edu (Charles Herrick) (06/24/91)
In article <1991Jun23.180633.26224@doug.cae.wisc.edu> chris@castlab.engr.wisc.edu (Christian Rohrmeier) writes:
Some one suggested
that to save money.. avoid a NeXT HD and buy a 3rd party SCSI for alot
less... same thing for memory.
Any words of avice???
Unless you're quite Unix/compu-knowledgeable, buy the stuff from NeXT.
There is something to be said for taking the machine out of the box,
plugging it in, turning it on, and having everything already set up
and working.
--
The opinions expressed herein are mine and are in no way attributed
to any of the many people for whom I work. Who they are is irrelevant.Gerhard.Moeller@arbi.informatik.uni-oldenburg.de (Gerhard Moeller) (06/25/91)
chris@castlab.engr.wisc.edu (Christian Rohrmeier) writes: >Hello all. >I've recently been introduced to the NeXT, and I think its a wonderful >machine. Now I am stuck with the choices whichj I must make when >purchasing one.... I want 24bit color, but with a budget of about $8000 >that would limit be to a slab and a tiny hard drive. Some one suggested >that to save money.. avoid a NeXT HD and buy a 3rd party SCSI for alot >less... same thing for memory. >Any words of davice??? >-- >Christian Rohrmeier >chris@castlab.engr.wisc.edu If you want true color (24Bit ONLY fr color) then the Colorstation does not suite you fine. It is only capable of 4096 different colors. And it should be, as it has no extra processor for doing those graphic shifts. Even at the color station with 12MB Mem one remarks that it runs slower that the slab, doing complicatet graphics... I suggest to spend the $8000 as a whole on a 8/105 MB bw slab and 3rd party RAM (get 16MB!), a HDD (I use a wren6), maybe a streamer (depends on what you want to do with it, I would suggest to buy one) and maybe a modem. If you want true 24 Bit color, get a cube and a dimension board. But you won't get that for 8000... (On the other hand, it's still lots cheaper than a sun with the graphic-card...) sorry for disappointing you, Gerhard. -- +---------------------------< principiis obsta! >---------------------------+ | Gerhard Moeller, Teichstrasse 12, 2900 Oldenburg (FRG) [Geb. 02/21/68] | | inhouse: gimli!gemoe uucp: ...(unido!)uniol!gmoeller | |DOMAIN: gerhard.moeller@arbi.informatik.uni-oldenburg.de | |BITNET: gmoeller%arbi.informatik.uni-oldenburg.de@DOLUNI1 (106495@DOLUNI1) | +-----------------------> the medium is the message <-----------------------+
Gerhard.Moeller@arbi.informatik.uni-oldenburg.de (Gerhard Moeller) (06/25/91)
cnh5730@calvin.tamu.edu (Charles Herrick) writes: >In article <1991Jun23.180633.26224@doug.cae.wisc.edu> chris@castlab.engr.wisc.edu (Christian Rohrmeier) writes: > Some one suggested > that to save money.. avoid a NeXT HD and buy a 3rd party SCSI for alot > less... same thing for memory. > Any words of avice??? >Unless you're quite Unix/compu-knowledgeable, buy the stuff from NeXT. >There is something to be said for taking the machine out of the box, >plugging it in, turning it on, and having everything already set up >and working. >-- > The opinions expressed herein are mine and are in no way attributed ^^^^ hmm. Do you work for NeXT? > to any of the many people for whom I work. Who they are is irrelevant. Well, I still suggest to buy a drive from a 3rd party. Even if you are NOT a unix-guru, look at the prices for a external 660MB drive (You'll need that much, if you have inet accesss and do programming or graphic-stuff...) and at those funny pricing-ideas by NeXT. Look at the news or ask, what drives work properly, get some advise how to connect those. I use a wren6. It's fast, NOT noisy (VERY IMPORTANT!!!!) and more or less cheap. (As I'm German, I don't know about the US prices) What you need: SCSI2->SCSI1 or SCSI2->SCSI2 cable. (this depends on the SCSI cable you'll use for the daisychain, ask somene for more, if you don't know...) A SCSI terminator. (Most devices have built in terminators, you can use them if you cable ENDS at those devices. This is not the normal case, as you can connect more than one device to a SCSI-port. - So I suggest to pull the intern terminators out of the device and use a SCSI terminator at the end of your "intern" SCSI cable.) A drive (you guessed it) A power supply. (Either you get a HDD with case and power supply already configuratet, or get a cheap PClike case with power supply.) 1 bottle of congnac (Hennessy VSOP or, even better, XO) or whisky (for yous Americans...;-)) You need to set the SCSI ID. (read the manual for the drive) The drive comes (normally) formatted, so you just have to init it. So you need a disktab entry. Post here what drive you are thinking of, and I'm sure you'll get lots of nice entries. - I can send you mine for the wren, others for maxtor, fujitsu and so on have been sent already... It's not that hard to do it - if you try... gerhard. -No warranty on the above said, of course... ;-) -- +---------------------------< principiis obsta! >---------------------------+ | Gerhard Moeller, Teichstrasse 12, 2900 Oldenburg (FRG) [Geb. 02/21/68] | | inhouse: gimli!gemoe uucp: ...(unido!)uniol!gmoeller | |DOMAIN: gerhard.moeller@arbi.informatik.uni-oldenburg.de | |BITNET: gmoeller%arbi.informatik.uni-oldenburg.de@DOLUNI1 (106495@DOLUNI1) | +-----------------------> the medium is the message <-----------------------+
stickler@utrio.helsinki.fi (Patrick Stickler) (06/25/91)
In article <5988@uniol.UUCP> Gerhard.Moeller@arbi.informatik.uni-oldenburg.de (Gerhard Moeller) writes: >chris@castlab.engr.wisc.edu (Christian Rohrmeier) writes: > >>Hello all. >>Any words of davice??? > >... 3rd party RAM (get 16MB!), a HDD (I use a wren6), ... > >+---------------------------< principiis obsta! >---------------------------+ >| Gerhard Moeller, Teichstrasse 12, 2900 Oldenburg (FRG) [Geb. 02/21/68] | >| inhouse: gimli!gemoe uucp: ...(unido!)uniol!gmoeller | >|DOMAIN: gerhard.moeller@arbi.informatik.uni-oldenburg.de | >|BITNET: gmoeller%arbi.informatik.uni-oldenburg.de@DOLUNI1 (106495@DOLUNI1) | >+-----------------------> the medium is the message <-----------------------+ Can you post where you got your 3rd party hardware and what might be the rough 'street price'? I'm also seriously considering 'taking the plunge' but am quite convinced of the need for RAM and HD space - so I'd be *very* interested in *any* way of getting below the price of the 16/400 slab (which seems to be the absolute minimum functional configuration) -- a 8/105 slab with 3rd party hardware might just be the solution (*if* it's really cheaper and it works!). Thanks. ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// Patrick Stickler Research Unit for Computational Linguistics OH2/KC4YYY Department of General Linguistics stickler@cc.helsinki.fi University of Helsinki ========================================================================== The comments contained herein reflect the official views of my employer. (but only if they agree with me or happen to think it was a clever idea) //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
mikec@wam.umd.edu (Michael D. Callaghan) (06/25/91)
Just to add my $.02 worth: If at all possible, try to buy a used machine. That's how I got my Cube. I bought a used 030 Cube, and put 3rd party 660 meg hard drive in it. Then I used edu discounts to buy 040 board and printer. And now I just bought some used memory (yes, you really can find that). In fact, now that I think of it...Someone want to tell me how much this system would be worth: 040 Cube Optical Drive 660 Maxtor Hard drive NeXT printer 6 Optical Disks System 2.1 28 MB RAM Dove Fax Modem FrameMaker TopDraw SoftPC T/Maker's Click Art on Optical I'm curious, but if the price is right... Thanks, MikeC -- --------------------------------------------------------- Michael D. Callaghan, MDC Designs, University of Maryland ---------------------------------------------------------
Gerhard.Moeller@arbi.informatik.uni-oldenburg.de (Gerhard Moeller) (06/26/91)
stickler@utrio.helsinki.fi (Patrick Stickler) writes: >In article <5988@uniol.UUCP> Gerhard.Moeller@arbi.informatik.uni-oldenburg.de (Gerhard Moeller) writes: >>chris@castlab.engr.wisc.edu (Christian Rohrmeier) writes: >> >>>Hello all. >>>Any words of davice??? >> >>... 3rd party RAM (get 16MB!), a HDD (I use a wren6), ... >> >>+---------------------------< principiis obsta! >---------------------------+ >>| Gerhard Moeller, Teichstrasse 12, 2900 Oldenburg (FRG) [Geb. 02/21/68] | >>| inhouse: gimli!gemoe uucp: ...(unido!)uniol!gmoeller | >>|DOMAIN: gerhard.moeller@arbi.informatik.uni-oldenburg.de | >>|BITNET: gmoeller%arbi.informatik.uni-oldenburg.de@DOLUNI1 (106495@DOLUNI1) | >>+-----------------------> the medium is the message <-----------------------+ >Can you post where you got your 3rd party hardware and what might be the >rough 'street price'? I bought it at sinfoni, Bremen, FRG. Prices: Wren6: 3000,- DM (~1680,- US$) Case and power supply for the Wren6: 200,- DM Archive Viper 150: 1400,- DM 4x9x4MBit (16MByte): 1600,- DM I don't know prices in USA, probably cheaper, and I have no clue about the prices in Helsinki... >I'm also seriously considering 'taking the plunge' but am quite convinced of >the need for RAM and HD space - so I'd be *very* interested in *any* way of >getting below the price of the 16/400 slab (which seems to be the absolute >minimum functional configuration) -- a 8/105 slab with 3rd party hardware >might just be the solution (*if* it's really cheaper and it works!). It depends on how much effort you will take upon you. To install the system took me about 2 days... and how much you know about Unix. Look for some prices, then decide what drive suits you best and then ask here for the disktab to use with this drive. (Better do this BEFORE you buy the HDD...) With RAM the thing gets more compilcated, as all SIMMS are supposed to work with the NeXT, but they don't. So make sure that you can return them if they don't work... Ciao, Gerhard. -- +---------------------------< principiis obsta! >---------------------------+ | Gerhard Moeller, Teichstrasse 12, 2900 Oldenburg (FRG) [Geb. 02/21/68] | | inhouse: gimli!gemoe uucp: ...(unido!)uniol!gmoeller | |DOMAIN: gerhard.moeller@arbi.informatik.uni-oldenburg.de | |BITNET: gmoeller%arbi.informatik.uni-oldenburg.de@DOLUNI1 (106495@DOLUNI1) | +-----------------------> the medium is the message <-----------------------+
cnh5730@calvin.tamu.edu (Charles Herrick) (06/27/91)
In article <6030@uniol.UUCP> Gerhard.Moeller@arbi.informatik.uni-oldenburg.de (Gerhard Moeller) writes:
With RAM the thing gets more compilcated, as all SIMMS
are supposed to work with the NeXT, but they don't. So make sure that
you can return them if they don't work...
Good advice. But you also need to be aware of the special situation
with the NeXTstation (slab). If you open the slab and install non-NeXT
RAM yourself (as opposed to having a NeXT-certified service provider
do the job), you violate the conditions of your warranty. So if for
some reason, your RAM fries your system, you may have a problem.
Just so you know.
--
"I am walking on the wire
and the wire is what the whole thing is about."
-- John Stewarteps@toaster.SFSU.EDU (Eric P. Scott) (06/28/91)
In article <CNH5730.91Jun27094940@calvin.tamu.edu> cnh5730@calvin.tamu.edu (Charles Herrick) writes: >Good advice. But you also need to be aware of the special situation >with the NeXTstation (slab). If you open the slab and install non-NeXT >RAM yourself (as opposed to having a NeXT-certified service provider >do the job), you violate the conditions of your warranty. We had our [now former*] Campus Consultant check on this before ever opening a machine, and he told us that this was NOT true. BTW, it's just about impossible to damage one of the non-Color machines while adding RAM--you're far more likely to damage the SIMMs themselves (mechanically, not electrically). On the Color machines, the sockets are extremely fragile, but the SIMMs are reasonably sturdy. *NeXT apparently changed the "official responsibilities" of all Campus Consultants, and ours resigned in disgust. The story I heard was that NeXT decided not to have CCs performing technical support, but instead be on-site sales dweebs. -=EPS=-
osborn@cs.utexas.edu (John Howard Osborn) (06/28/91)
In article <1801@toaster.SFSU.EDU> eps@cs.SFSU.EDU (Eric P. Scott) writes: >*NeXT apparently changed the "official responsibilities" of all >Campus Consultants, and ours resigned in disgust. The story I >heard was that NeXT decided not to have CCs performing technical >support, but instead be on-site sales dweebs. This doesn't surprise me at all. I'm sure I'll get flamed and called an ass for saying it, but Campus Consultants (at least the technically able ones) have always seemed an exploitable labor source for NeXT. Paid a wage that doesn't allow a student to live, much less pay for a NeXT computer, I can easily imagine a person quitting if forced to do nothing but sales work. NeXT, by direct quote, prefers to hire Campus Consultants (an outdated phrase?) who "already have the religion." Unfortunate, but true, is a sad tendency for religious zeal to combine with an unquestioning attitude. I hope that NeXT Campus Consultants are above such an attitude. (Important disclaimer: NeXT had me cancel travel plans on short notice so that, an hour into a job interview, they could tell me the position had already been filed. I was upset and, therefore, am probably biased. I think the machine is #1, but I can't seem to get the religion.) - -John H. Osborn -osborn@cs.utexas.edu
eps@toaster.SFSU.EDU (Eric P. Scott) (06/28/91)
In article <20891@cs.utexas.edu> osborn@cs.utexas.edu (John Howard Osborn) writes: > ... but Campus Consultants (at least the technically able >ones) have always seemed an exploitable labor source for NeXT. Paid a >wage that doesn't allow a student to live, much less pay for a NeXT >computer A NeXT Computer comes with the deal--but if you resign, you have to return the machine--it's only on loan. -=EPS=-