melling@cs.psu.edu (Michael D Mellinger) (06/13/91)
How well does NeXT seem to be gaining acceptance on college campuses? What is the general attitude of the computing community? And are people trading in their "Macintoys"(to quote Eric Scott) and PC's for the NeXT? I've heard different things from several people, and I would like to know if it is as bleak at other schools as it is at Penn State. Here we have a lab of six NeXTs(all 040's, 5 with 8MB of RAM, 1 server with 16MB). The general attitude though is that NeXT isn't going to survive. It definitely seems to be an uphill battle. Yesterday a faculty member walked into our Microcomputer Order Center and they told him that it would be 6-8 months before he would receive his machine. This definitely discouraged him(who wouldn't be?). Have most people at least received their machines? The few people around here that might buy a NeXT will most likely change their minds if they have to wait six months. I'm certainly not going to wasted my time convincing people to buy the NeXT if the company can't come through. -Mike
eps@toaster.SFSU.EDU (Eric P. Scott) (06/13/91)
In article <lh5H?zbu@cs.psu.edu> melling@cs.psu.edu (Michael D Mellinger) writes: >How well does NeXT seem to be gaining acceptance on college campuses? >What is the general attitude of the computing community? And are >people trading in their "Macintoys"(to quote Eric Scott) and PC's for >the NeXT? You rang? Here, far more Mac owners are trading up--most of the people who have PCs have them because they can't afford anything else. Or it could be that Mac users can more easily see "what a NeXT is good for." >Here we have a lab of six NeXTs(all 040's, 5 with 8MB of RAM, 1 server >with 16MB). Ick!!! > . The general attitude though is that NeXT isn't going to >survive. If that's what you're running, no wonder people are getting a bad impression. Go buy some RAM. Now!!! The performance gain will be like getting all new machines... (Read your Network and System Administration manual--NeXT recommends 32MB *minimum* in *any* server, and the clients really want at least 20MB each.) Why settle for "Mac Classic" performance??? > It definitely seems to be an uphill battle. Yesterday a >faculty member walked into our Microcomputer Order Center and they >told him that it would be 6-8 months before he would receive his >machine. This definitely discouraged him(who wouldn't be?). Have >most people at least received their machines? The few people around >here that might buy a NeXT will most likely change their minds if they >have to wait six months. I'm certainly not going to wasted my time >convincing people to buy the NeXT if the company can't come through. People who order machines through our bookstore see perhaps 2-3 week turnaround times. Your numbers sound mightly suspicious. NeXT certainly isn't responsible for them. Your school is f---ed. -=EPS=-
barry@joshua.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) (06/13/91)
In article <lh5H?zbu@cs.psu.edu> melling@cs.psu.edu (Michael D Mellinger) writes: > >How well does NeXT seem to be gaining acceptance on college campuses? >What is the general attitude of the computing community? And are >people trading in their "Macintoys"(to quote Eric Scott) and PC's for >the NeXT? Absolutely. At least in the UCLA math department, there are now 7-8 faculty/grad students that have at least one (some of us have two :-) NeXT, and many of these are used for home machines. At the last SCAN (So. Cal. NeXT) meeting held at UCLA, there were around 60 people in attendance. And sales have been healthy at our bookstore as well, I'm told. > >The general attitude though is that NeXT isn't going to >survive. Oh, really? I'll give you 10:1 odds on that one! >It definitely seems to be an uphill battle. Yesterday a >faculty member walked into our Microcomputer Order Center and they >told him that it would be 6-8 months before he would receive his >machine. This definitely discouraged him(who wouldn't be?). Have >most people at least received their machines? The few people around >here that might buy a NeXT will most likely change their minds if they >have to wait six months. I'm certainly not going to wasted my time >convincing people to buy the NeXT if the company can't come through. I suspect the problem lies with your MicroComp store. These stores tend to give NeXT the cold shoulder, because it only interferes with their lucrative Mac/PC marketing. We have had similar difficulties here, but in the long run NeXT has sold well enough that they get a prominent display at our bookstore. Don't blame NeXT for the fact that your Comp Store is run by a bunch of short sighted, profit margin-grubbing, technologically insipid, and otherwise vapid, jejune, banal, inane bureaucrats (oops, I'm using the NeXT Thesaurus again :-). Barry Merriman UCLA Dept. of Math UCLA Inst. for Fusion and Plasma Research barry@math.ucla.edu (Internet) barry@arnold.math.ucla.edu (NeXTMail)
barry@joshua.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) (06/13/91)
In article <1713@toaster.SFSU.EDU> eps@cs.SFSU.EDU (Eric P. Scott) writes: >In article <lh5H?zbu@cs.psu.edu> melling@cs.psu.edu > (Michael D Mellinger) writes: >>How well does NeXT seem to be gaining acceptance on college campuses? >>It definitely seems to be an uphill battle. Yesterday a >>faculty member walked into our Microcomputer Order Center and they >>told him that it would be 6-8 months before he would receive his >NeXT certainly isn't responsible for them. Your school is f---ed. > > -=EPS=- Hey, for once I agree with EPS's opinion :-) (note: I always welcome his technical advice, though) Barry Merriman UCLA Dept. of Math UCLA Inst. for Fusion and Plasma Research barry@math.ucla.edu (Internet) barry@arnold.math.ucla.edu (NeXTMail)
hardy@golem.ps.uci.edu (Meinhard E. Mayer (Hardy)) (06/13/91)
In our department (about 33 Faculty members) there are three NeXT-s. (One Cube and two Stations). I am the only one who traded a MacIIx for a NeXT and am glad I did. But I still keep a PC around because of the flakiness of SoftPC. The cube was purchased a yearor two ago, the other station under the influence of SLAC. Approximately two undergrads bought 105 MB Stations. I can't afford to give up the HP-Vectras (donated by HP) in my teaching lab, and we have another 7-8 IBM PS2 machines there too. If the rumored 88k NeXt materializes, some of my colleagues who are contemplating buying HP 9000/720 machinse because of their speed (and the stability of HP-UX, if you ask me) might consider the new NeXT-s. But diversity is really not that bad. Departments who are "All-Mac" or "all-Ms-Dos" or all BSD or all SysV smack of totalitarianism. Having tried them all, I am very tolerant of other people's taste in computers; as long as they are productive and enjoy what they are doing. Greetings, Hardy -------****------- Meinhard E. Mayer (Hardy); Department of Physics, University of California Irvine CA 92717; (714) 856 5543; hardy@golem.ps.uci.edu or MMAYER@UCI.BITNET
miron@cs.sfu.ca (Miron Cuperman) (06/13/91)
melling@cs.psu.edu (Michael D Mellinger) writes: >survive. It definitely seems to be an uphill battle. Yesterday a >faculty member walked into our Microcomputer Order Center and they >told him that it would be 6-8 months before he would receive his This sounds suspect. I got mine in about a month. -- By Miron Cuperman <miron@cs.sfu.ca>
garton@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (Bradford Garton) (06/13/91)
Sort of an interesting thing happened in our Department (music). Due to extremely depressing budget constraints, we have not been able to do much beyond a single cube (plus access to the wonderful Columbia NeXTstation lab, but disk space for soundfiles is limited there!). However, almost every serious computer music student we have took advantage of the NeXT/B-land sale to purchase old cubes with large disks, and a few have now upgraded to 040 machines. Others have purchased NeXTstations through the school. So we now have a large number of students with better facilities in their dorm rooms than we can offer through the University. The future...? Brad Garton Music Department garton@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu
hardy@golem.ps.uci.edu (Meinhard E. Mayer (Hardy)) (06/13/91)
PS. I understand that our campus computer store has NeXT-s for immediate delivery; more students than Faculty seem to be buying. The "NeXT" geeneration ... Greetings, Hardy -------****------- Meinhard E. Mayer (Hardy); Department of Physics, University of California Irvine CA 92717; (714) 856 5543; hardy@golem.ps.uci.edu or MMAYER@UCI.BITNET
mikel@Apple.COM (Mikel Evins) (06/13/91)
In article <1991Jun13.150159.24629@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> garton@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (Bradford Garton) writes: >Sort of an interesting thing happened in our Department (music). Due to >extremely depressing budget constraints, we have not been able to do much >beyond a single cube (plus access to the wonderful Columbia NeXTstation lab, >but disk space for soundfiles is limited there!). However, almost every >serious computer music student we have took advantage of the NeXT/B-land >sale to purchase old cubes with large disks, and a few have now upgraded to >040 machines. Others have purchased NeXTstations through the school. So we >now have a large number of students with better facilities in their dorm >rooms than we can offer through the University. The future...? If this is so, and if students there are working on music software, and if they and the university are willing to provide some of that software for ftp, I am sure that many NeXT users would be grateful for the chance to use the software. The absence of much in the way of commercial music and MIDI software on the NeXT is ironic and frustrating. In fact, an enterprising music student who is also a programmer could conceivably make some money selling a nice MIDI application for the NeXT.
garton@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (Bradford Garton) (06/14/91)
In article <53955@apple.Apple.COM> mikel@Apple.COM (Mikel Evins) writes: > >If this is so, and if students there are working on >music software, and if they and the university >are willing to provide some of that software for >ftp, I am sure that many NeXT users would be >grateful for the chance to use the software. The >absence of much in the way of commercial music >and MIDI software on the NeXT is ironic and >frustrating. In fact, an enterprising music >student who is also a programmer could conceivably >make some money selling a nice MIDI application >for the NeXT. I agree, however I do want to point out that we have contributed a fair number of Apps to the archives -- it's just that most of us really like NeXT machines because they allow us to use software synthesis languages such as cmix and csound quite easily. MIDI is good at what it does, but some of us prefer to do other things. On the other side, I am surprised that more MIDI Apps haven't been forthcoming. The MusicKit certainly has support for MIDI data, plus I have seen the MIDI driver used in live situations (so it presumably works). My only guess is that the initial buyers of NeXT machines were more interested in software synthesis than MIDI. Hmmmm...... Brad Garton Music Department garton@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu
brian@umbc4.umbc.edu (Brian Cuthie) (06/14/91)
In article <lh5H?zbu@cs.psu.edu> melling@cs.psu.edu (Michael D Mellinger) writes: (greatly abreviated) > >Here we have a lab of six NeXTs(all 040's, 5 with 8MB of RAM, 1 server >with 16MB). The general attitude though is that NeXT isn't going to >survive. It definitely seems to be an uphill battle. Yesterday a >faculty member walked into our Microcomputer Order Center and they >told him that it would be 6-8 months before he would receive his >machine. This definitely discouraged him(who wouldn't be?). Have >-Mike Here at the great U of M, they actually stock the 105 meg version. This is great since it's the best deal going anyway. If you order the 400 meg slab, it is said to take 8 - 10 weeks. I too believe that if anything will be responsible for their demise, it will be shipping delays. After all, NeXT must realize that people are taking a risk when buying their machines (obviously they know this, that's why the price is so low). People are much less likely to take the risk of ordering a machine from a company that can't ship it for 3-4 months. Hell, they could be out of business by then! :-) -brian
ksmith@cubmol.bio.columbia.edu (Kenneth Smith) (06/14/91)
In article <lh5H?zbu@cs.psu.edu> melling@cs.psu.edu (Michael D Mellinger) writes: > >most people at least received their machines? The few people around >here that might buy a NeXT will most likely change their minds if they >have to wait six months. I'm certainly not going to wasted my time >convincing people to buy the NeXT if the company can't come through. > >-Mike At Columbia the delivery time seems to be 3 to 4 weeks. -- Kenneth Smith Dept. of Molecular Biophysics, 630 W. 168th St. Columbia University, New York, NY 10032 ksmith@cubmol.bio.columbia.edu
mpf@triplea.cs.umd.edu (Martin Farach) (06/14/91)
At the University of Maryland, they keep 105's in stock. Also, WAM (Workstations at Maryland) just announced that they are upgrading all the Vaxstation 2000's - of which there are quite a few on campus - to NeXTen. This means that, since the WAM labs are the main computing facility for many students at Maryland, NeXT is going to get alot of expusure here. -- Martin Farach mpf@cs.umd.edu University of Maryland "Triviality and certainty are the Department of Computer Science kinderkrankheiten of knowledge." College Park, Maryland 20742 -Imre Lakatos
whodges@lewhoosh.umd.edu (Wiley Hodges) (06/14/91)
This was just announced at U. of Maryland today. I thought it might be relevant to this thread: >Date: Thu, 13 Jun 91 13:53:31 EDT >Sender: Electronic Mail Distribution of CSC News <NEWSLIST@umdd.umd.edu> >From: Ira Gold <IGOLD@umdd.umd.edu> >Subject: CSC News: NeXTstations to replace VAXstations in WAM Labs >NeXTstations to replace VAXstations in WAM Labs >Over the summer, the Digital Equipment Corporation VAXstation 2000s in >the CSC, EPSL, Worcester, and Centerville WAM labs will be replaced by >NeXT Computer, Inc. NeXTstations. At the same time, additional >NeXTstations will be installed in the PG2 WAM lab. >The goal of the upgrade, which is taking the form of a complete >replacement of hardware and software at the individual workstation >level, is to provide high-power, highly-integrated, UNIX-based >workstation computing to the campus community. The NeXTstations are >considerably faster than the VAXstations they are replacing and come >bundled with a fair amount of application software. In addition to >NextStep, which provides an integrated multi-media environment, the >NeXTstations will support the X Window System and be capable of running >most of the freely available Berkeley UNIX-based software. The total number of NeXT machines involved in the project is 100. I think that it is significant not just for the 100 machines, but for the confidence which UMD is placing in NeXT. I would add that getting a NeXT at Maryland takes from 3-6 weeks for just about any machine. This figure includes time spent by the Computer Emporium logging in the order (they also only order about once a week from NeXT, so the timing of the order is a factor). Wiley Hodges whodges@wam.umd.edu ------------------------- Disclaimer: Any opinion expressed here is my own. Actually, it may belong to someone else as well, but I speak only for myself. Any information provided is provided as-is, and is not warranted to be accurate, helpful, or even relevant. This is a really long, boring disclaimer. -- Wiley Hodges NeXT Campus Consultant University of Maryland whodges@wam.umd.edu
pfkeb@kaon.SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Paul Kunz) (06/14/91)
In article <HARDY.91Jun13003230@golem.ps.uci.edu> hardy@golem.ps.uci.edu (Meinhard E. Mayer (Hardy)) writes:
< stuff deleted >
The cube was purchased a yearor two ago,
the other station under the influence of SLAC.
SLAC as DoE funded laboratory does not ``influence'' university staff as your
sentence might imply. I hope the SLAC lawyers didn't read your statement
they might be upset. I'm sure you didn't mean the way the sentence
could be read, so I'm not flaming you, just want to make things clear.
On the other hand, NextStep applications being developped at SLAC
has led to the sale of a dozen or two NeXTs at universities and even
in Europe. Curiously, I don't think this is the case of the one I know
about at Irvine.
As long as I'm being so legal, I guess I must add that I don't
speak for SLAC, the DoE, or the Board of Trustees of
the Leland Stanford Junior University.kls30@duts.ccc.amdahl.com (Kent L Shephard) (06/14/91)
In article <53955@apple.Apple.COM> mikel@Apple.COM (Mikel Evins) writes: >>040 machines. Others have purchased NeXTstations through the school. So we >>now have a large number of students with better facilities in their dorm >>rooms than we can offer through the University. The future...? > >If this is so, and if students there are working on >music software, and if they and the university >are willing to provide some of that software for >ftp, I am sure that many NeXT users would be >grateful for the chance to use the software. The >absence of much in the way of commercial music >and MIDI software on the NeXT is ironic and >frustrating. In fact, an enterprising music >student who is also a programmer could conceivably >make some money selling a nice MIDI application >for the NeXT. NeXTstations (color and mono) have been selling like hotcakes at San Jose State where I attend. The bookstore keeps 1 or 2 machines in stock so people don't have to wait, this is assuming they don't have more than a couple of people wanting them at the same time. I don't know how many the school has in labs and such but I know that in the last few weeks our bookstore has delivered at least 6 or 7 with more people waiting for strange, non-standard configurations. BTW - I agree on the music stuff. Anyone who comes out with a good midi package that supports either MOTU - Midi Timepeice or supports the Studio 3 midi interfaces will stand to make loads of money. My $400-500 is in the bank waiting for a good piece of midi software. Kent -- /* -The opinions expressed are my own, not my employers. */ /* For I can only express my own opinions. */ /* */ /* Kent L. Shephard : email - kls30@DUTS.ccc.amdahl.com */
matthews@lewhoosh.umd.edu (Mike Matthews) (06/14/91)
In article <1991Jun13.065828.3188@math.ucla.edu> barry@joshua.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes: [Stuff about NeXTs on campus and bad bookstore policy] Well, the University of Maryland at College Park just announced they will replace the VAXstation 2000s in the Workstations at Maryland public labs with NeXTstations. The exact number isn't known, nor is the timeframe, but there will be a healthy number of them (there are 44 VAX2000s out there, 20ish empty slots earmarked for NeXTs, plus some others floating around...). Not sure about NeXT sales to undergrads or faculty, but a friend of mine and I ordered them the day after they were announced, and the total number of order is probably somewhere in the 50 - 100 ballpark over the past 10 months, if not higher. I like. :-) Mike
randall@redfish.atmos.colostate.edu (Dave Randall) (06/14/91)
In article <lh5H?zbu@cs.psu.edu> melling@cs.psu.edu (Michael D Mellinger) writes: > >How well does NeXT seem to be gaining acceptance on college campuses? >What is the general attitude of the computing community? And are >people trading in their "Macintoys"(to quote Eric Scott) and PC's for >the NeXT? My department (Atmospheric Science) has fourteen of various types, including one NeXTDimension. Also five NeXT printers. Four out of thirteen faculty have bought, and a fifth seems about ready to jump. Keep in mind that some of the thirteen don't have much need for a workstation. NeXT outnumbers Sun and Dec (separately, not combined) even though those two vendors had a head big start. I predict that we will hit 20 NeXT machines before the end of this calendar year. And they'll all be upgraded to 88K!
mattson@beowulf.ucsd.edu (Jim Mattson) (06/14/91)
melling@cs.psu.edu (Michael D Mellinger) writes: >How well does NeXT seem to be gaining acceptance on college campuses? >What is the general attitude of the computing community? And are >people trading in their "Macintoys"(to quote Eric Scott) and PC's for >the NeXT? I've heard different things from several people, and I >would like to know if it is as bleak at other schools as it is at Penn >State. >[stuff deleted] >-Mike Judging by the forum, I'd suspect that you're probably going to get a warped response to a question like this. At campuses where things are even "bleaker" than at Penn, there may not be too many people reading this newsgroup to begin with. Here, in the Computer Science department, we have one (1) NeXT, and I toy with the idea of unsubscribing to comp.sys.next on a daily basis. The traffic is just too high to really make it worthwhile for the support of one machine. I can't speak for all of UCSD, but in this department, at least, I would have to say that NeXT is doing pretty poorly. One major problem is that we have a tremendous amount of "local" software (mostly public domain things for which we have sources, though they weren't actually developed locally), and a disturbingly high percentage of this software won't port to the NeXT or only ports with considerable difficulty. In an environment where every user expects to have every piece of software on every machine, the NeXT has become something of an orphan. Even worse, though, is the problem of support--or rather, the lack thereof. We are used to dealing with Sun, and they are pretty bad about informing end-users about known problems, but once we can identify a problem, in many instances we can at least get a patch (or patch the sources ourselves). With NeXT, on the other hand, our typical experience has been that it takes them at least a week to realize that the problem we are reporting is a known bug, and even then, there is no patch for it. Unfortunately, we don't have sources for the NeXT OS, so that's where the story ends. I know that NeXT is a relatively small company, but you'd think that someone there would be working on patching bugs. Ever since 2.0 came out, I've been waiting for a patch to the netgroups problem, but I'm not holding my breath. Ever since 0.9, we've been using an atom'ed version of Sun's lpd, too. With each new release, I expect the lpd problems to go away, but each time I've been disappointed. When we originally decided to buy this machine, I was all for it, but now I feel like I should have kept my mouth shut. Of course, all of this babble is just my own opinion, and should not be taken to reflect the views of UCSD, the computer science department, or anyone else. --jim -- Jim Mattson Internet: jmattson@ucsd.edu UCSD CSE Dept. 0114 Bitnet: jmattson@ucsd 9500 Gilman Drive UUCP: ...!uunet!ucsd!jmattson La Jolla, CA 92093-0114 Voice: (619) 534-7371
greg@travis.cica.indiana.edu (Gregory TRAVIS) (06/14/91)
Indiana University, Bloomington, currently has over 150 NeXT machines - including over 100 in a Journalism lab. We bought our first batch of 18 cubes back in November of 1988. Don't know how many are present in the entire Indiana University system. People really seem to like them. greg "typing from machine AAK0000343" travis -- Gregory R. Travis Indiana University, Bloomington IN 47405 greg@cica.indiana.edu Center for Innovative Computer Applications
wrb@ulnar (Bill Barker) (06/15/91)
In article <lh5H?zbu@cs.psu.edu> melling@cs.psu.edu (Michael D Mellinger) writes: > >How well does NeXT seem to be gaining acceptance on college campuses? >What is the general attitude of the computing community? And are >people trading in their "Macintoys"(to quote Eric Scott) and PC's for >the NeXT? I have 9 NeXTs under my tutelage here in Biological Structure, with 4 more in other departments that use me as an ad-hoc consultant for NeXTish things. So far, we've done a significant amount of software development, database (Sybase), spreadsheet (Improv) and technical publishing (FrameMaker and WordPerfect) projects with them. I recently upgraded my departmental administrator and budget coordinator with slabs, and they still haven't put their eyes back into their heads! Quite nice to see people having FUN in front of a computer. For the most part, the NeXTs were intended for software development, but when we got these things in the door and saw what one could do with them, other uses started taking off. I pushed hard for NeXTs as replacements for AT-class PCs in our administrative offices (the alternative was 386's with Windows). So far, they have been everything I wanted and more, especially when I consider how easy my non-technical users switched over and got up to speed. If things keep going like they have been, more should be on the way this year. Maybe sooner than later. As soon as our NeXTdimension system shows up, I hope to integrate it into our video work, as anotomical animations are one of our major products. My only problem had been delays in '040 upgrades, but that's it so far. I've had far worse problems with other vendors. Just one happy customer's opinion. Bill Barker Biological Structure U of Washington, Seattle
adam@media-lab.media.mit.edu (Adam Glass) (06/15/91)
melling@cs.psu.edu (Michael D Mellinger) writes: > How well does NeXT seem to be gaining acceptance on college campuses? It's doing fine here. (Here is CMU, not MIT.) We have a NeXT lab... around 20 machines, all slabs. The computer store price is the lowest I've seen at any school. They're wiring some of the dorms with thick Ethernet, so it'll be really easy to get them connected next semester. Four friends of mine are considering buying NeXTs. AFS is supposedly being ported to the NeXT. That should make things smoother down here too. > And are people trading in their "Macintoys"(to quote Eric Scott) and > PC's for the NeXT? I did -- I sold my Mac II a month before school ended so I could buy my NeXTStation. But I think it's rather immature to call macs "Macintoys" -- there are things that the Mac does better than the NeXT. There are things the NeXT does better. I decided that the things the NeXT excelled in were more important to my needs than those things the Mac excelled in. Adam
wjabi@srvr1 (wassim jabi) (06/15/91)
Here at APRL^, University of Michigan, we have two 040 Cubes. The lab has
the following:
Name Number
-----------------------------------------
- Hp/Apollo Domain Series 4000 2
- Hp/Apollo Series 400 1
- IBM Risc 6000 1
- Stardent Titan Supercomputer 1
- NeXT Cube Monochrome 2
It seems UofM decided to sell a NeXTStation with 8MB RAM, 300MB Hard
disk as the lowest-end you can buy (Price ~4000 dollars). That was a
bit steep for some students that were counting on a $3000 NeXTStation
with 105 MB Hard disk.
I don't know what is going on with other departments.
Wassim Jabi
wjabi@caen.engin.umich.edu
^ APRL = Architecture and Planning Research Laboratory,
College of Architecture and Urban Planning.
--
this is my signaturelouie@sayshell.umd.edu (Louis A. Mamakos) (06/15/91)
In article <1991Jun14.182256.27863@news.media.mit.edu> adam@media-lab.media.mit.edu (Adam Glass) writes: > AFS is supposedly being ported to the NeXT. AFS is available for the NeXT. I'm running on my Release 2.1 system. louie
barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) (06/15/91)
In article <1991Jun14.201227.22767@ni.umd.edu> louie@sayshell.umd.edu (Louis A. Mamakos) writes: >In article <1991Jun14.182256.27863@news.media.mit.edu> adam@media-lab.media.mit.edu (Adam Glass) writes: >> AFS is supposedly being ported to the NeXT. > >AFS is available for the NeXT. I'm running on my Release 2.1 system. Pardon me; what is AFS? -- Barry Merriman UCLA Dept. of Math UCLA Inst. for Fusion and Plasma Research barry@math.ucla.edu (Internet) barry@arnold.math.ucla.edu (NeXTMail)
dmg@ssc-vax (David M Geary) (06/15/91)
In article <HARDY.91Jun13003230@golem.ps.uci.edu> hardy@golem.ps.uci.edu (Meinhard E. Mayer (Hardy)) writes: >In our department (about 33 Faculty members) there are three NeXT-s. >(One Cube and two Stations). I am the only one who traded a MacIIx >for a NeXT and am glad I did. But I still keep a PC around because of >the flakiness of SoftPC. The cube was purchased a yearor two ago, ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Hardy, could you please elaborate? I am considering a NeXT, and one of the main reasons is that I am under the (misguided?) notion that with a NeXT, coXist, and softPC, I can simultaneously develop software for the NeXT, X Windows, and PC (Windows) world. Am I crazy or what? -- |~~~~~~~~~~ David Geary, Boeing Aerospace, Seattle, WA. ~~~~~~~~~~| |-----------------------------------------------------------------------------| |~~~~~~ Seattle: America's most attractive city... to the *jetstream* ~~~~~~| |-----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
portnoy@athena.mit.edu (Stephen L. Peters) (06/15/91)
I think it's doing pretty good here. I walked into the Microcomputer Center here a few weeks back and started playing with one of the demo machines, when a friend of mine who works there wandered over and told me that the MCC had shipped no less than 8 NeXTs that day. Also, a friend of mine just picked up a NeXT Dimension, 16Mb, Sound Box, all the trimmings. Sigh. Wish he weren't taking it to Missouri. :-) And of course, I'm waiting for the day that I can afford one of those sleek lil' ol' black boxes. At that point, it's goodbye MS-DOS, hello UNIX forever! Stephen Peters
bishop@milton.u.washington.edu (John Bishop) (06/15/91)
Some of you may have seen the Campus profile on University of Washington in the most recent "NeXT on Campus". There's an interview with Garret Odell about a mathematical models in biology course which he teaches here, which I took. There were about 25 of us, mostly graduate students, and we used the general access next lab for the course. This lab has 10 '030's running off 2 servers, and is VERY slow (none of the cubes have hard disks, and only 8mb ram per cube). Nonetheless, we were blown away by what we could do on the nexts, especially with Mathematica. It was a very successful class. The Next lab, as far as I can tell, gets very heavy use, and is surrounded by older terminals which get much lighter use. In spite of this, the U hasn't seen its way to improving this lab. At leas two of us from the course have bought our own nexts so far, but the big coup is that the zoology dept has decided to set up its own next lab, with (I'm a little fuzzy on these numbers) something like 8 stations and 2 cubes, plus 2 cubes acting as servers. In addition 4 or 5 faculty will get a station on their desks. As I recall, all of these will have lots of memory big disks, and the cubes will have ND's. It ought to be some lab. John Bishop Department of Botany
eps@toaster.SFSU.EDU (Eric P. Scott) (06/15/91)
In article <1991Jun14.210204.11184@math.ucla.edu> barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes: >Pardon me; what is AFS? It's sort of the next level of file sharing after NFS. Look in the Spring 1991 Software and Peripherals catalog under Transarc. -=EPS=-
mfriedel@slate.mines.colorado.edu (Friedel Michael) (06/16/91)
Here at Mines the computing center has 4 machines in the public lab (2 slabs, and 2 upgraded cubes). Further they have a server machine (a 040 cube) and two slabs for the staff. The Geophysics department has 5 cubes (all upgraded I think) and is planning to buy more (soon to include a NeXTdiemnsion). Further ther are numerous slabs in other department offices (10 or more). And I know of several students and faculty that have bough a machine. One departmet is thinking about replacing their IBM PC's with NeXT for teaching classes (FORTRAN, Graphics...). And that would be another 5 machines or so. Our Bookstore does not keep any machines in stock, and it takes about 2-6 weeks to get a machine. And they charge about 15% on top of the price charged by NeXT Inc. Support (Hardware) is handled by a service depot in the Computing Center (we have a licenced techician). Hope this help Mike -- /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ No user serviceable part inside. Warranty void if opened modified or tampered with. No batteries included. *
songer@orchestra.ecn.purdue.edu (Christopher M Songer) (06/17/91)
Well,
NeXT is doing terribly at Purdue. Purdue is strongly ingrained as
a Sun and Mac campus and the resistance to change by those who make
the decisions seems unshakable. Most are still plaugued by the initial
impression NeXT made with optical only 8meg system as well as continuing
rumors of NeXT's financial instability. They lost a bid to Suns (Macs
were the runners up) even though the NeXT was the performance for price
leader. While one hears of the odd Station or Cube going in somewhere
or another on campus, the only NeXT lab still has about 10 8Meg 030's
running 1.0a.
As a result, the student price for Nexts is $4000 for a 105Meg Station.
This is not low enough to persuade students to buy them over Macs and PC's.
Let's face it, for students doing real work, a 105Meg Station is not going
to cut it, so you can add $1000 to make the system usable. Those who buy
NeXT's are generally doing it through friends at other schools. (If it
had not been for the Businessland sale, I wold probably be using an SLC
at home and not a Next.) Sure it is illeagel, bit it is also $1000,
which is alot for a student.
Next is likely to continue to do poorly at Purdue until the student
price comes down or Next gets really good press (and not press you have
to go out of your way to read). They have a bad first impression to over
come.
This is, of course, my opinion and perception of the situation and may
bear no real resemblence to the truth.
-Chrismccoy@cory.berkeley.edu (Gary McCoy) (06/19/91)
There are quite a few machines at Berkeley these days, however, there aren't any significant next labs at this point. There has been a -certain- kind of acceptance in that professors, faculty and staff are making personal purchases and small lab purchases, but there aren't any large labs yet. (Part of that could be that the state of California and the UC system are in the middle of big cutbacks to address the BIG deficit) Also, I seem to recall that SF State's CS department has standardized on next. Things seem to be going the way of the original macintosh when one or two brave pioneers brought their personal machines into departments and they began to take hold. Berkeley has around 200 machines at the end of last semester. Hope this helps. In article <lh5H?zbu@cs.psu.edu> melling@cs.psu.edu (Michael D Mellinger) writes: > > How well does NeXT seem to be gaining acceptance on college campuses? > What is the general attitude of the computing community? And are > people trading in their "Macintoys"(to quote Eric Scott) and PC's for > the NeXT? I've heard different things from several people, and I > would like to know if it is as bleak at other schools as it is at Penn > State. > -Mike
eps@toaster.SFSU.EDU (Eric P. Scott) (06/21/91)
In article <993@rosie.NeXT.COM> mccoy@cory.berkeley.edu writes: >and small lab purchases, but there aren't any large labs yet. (Part of that >could be that the state of California and the UC system are in the middle of >big cutbacks to address the BIG deficit) Frightening, that. UC has *much* more money than the CSU. >Also, I seem to recall that SF State's CS department has standardized on next. Not really--it just so happens that NeXT provides the most cost- effective way to meet *our* needs... and that has been continuously true since Fall 1988. "Our" needs may not be the same as "your" needs; for example, we don't "need" X Windows... (We have about half a dozen platforms that support X, but it's not used in any sort of "open" way--no client-and-server-on-different machines, and hardly anyone even considers programming for it. It runs xterm and xclock, and a few "canned" packages. On systems with both X *and* a proprietary window system, users prefer the proprietary package because it's invariably many times faster.) -=EPS=-