da1n+@andrew.cmu.edu (Daniel K. Appelquist) (04/13/91)
Exactly how much slower is the display on the NextStation color? Does it make a big difference? How much support is there for color among NeXT applications in general? We want answers, damnit! (All we have on campus here are monochrome next's.) Dan
tgingric@magnus.ircc.ohio-state.edu (Tyler S Gingrich) (04/13/91)
In article <wc1TnQa00VoRA4ZHxy@andrew.cmu.edu> da1n+@andrew.cmu.edu (Daniel K. Appelquist) writes: >Exactly how much slower is the display on the NextStation color? Does >it make a big difference? How much support is there for color among >NeXT applications in general? We want answers, damnit! (All we have >on campus here are monochrome next's.) > NeXT brought the Color Station in for a demo visit. The following are subjective comments based on a prototype NeXTStation color (running at 20Mhz instead of the production 25Mhz). The machine was slower than the monochrome station (probably due to the slower processor), but NOT as slow as I expected. The performance was very good -- more than fast enough to do REAL work. Most of the apps I saw (WordPerfect, Diagram, Create(beta), SoftPC) supported color. The workspace is monochrome with some colored icons & colored window contents for most apps. The 4096 (from 16.7 Million) with 4 bits of alpha channel (transparancy) produced VERY nice ('near photographic') pictures. We saw the 'Puffin', 'Tulips', and 'Van Gogh' (maybe -- I don't know anything about art) -- all these pictures where clear, crisp, and impressive. John Karabaic took the 'Puffin' picture, JPEG compressed it to 9% of it's original size (in about 4 seconds), un-compressed it, and displayed both versions on the screen side-by-side. Very little difference -- my compliments to the JPEG folks for an excellent algorithm. Speed - 8.5 (NS Monochrome = 9) Color - 8.5 (32 bit color = 10) Price - 9.0 (Very competitive -- BUT, big color monitors are STILL expensive) Software - 9.5 (NextStep 2.0 is truly awesome -- but not perfect) Overall 9.0 - Great value for the money. Tyler
hwr@pilhuhn.ka.sub.org (Heiko W.Rupp) (04/15/91)
>Exactly how much slower is the display on the NextStation color? Does >it make a big difference? How much support is there for color among >NeXT applications in general? We want answers, damnit! (All we have >on campus here are monochrome next's.) I saw a color-station here at our local dealer - dragging windows with color images is much slower than dragging very big windows on a mono- chrome station Gruesse -Heiko -- Heiko W.Rupp, Gerwigstr.5, D-7500 Karlsruhe 1 | hwr@pilhuhn.ka.sub.org Tel: +49 7021 693642 (voice only) | uk85@dkauni2.bitnet Mama's gonna make all your nightmares come true -PF : The Wall
petrilli@geech.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Chris Petrilli) (04/17/91)
Heiko W. Rupp writes: >>Exactly how much slower is the display on the NextStation color? Does >>it make a big difference? How much support is there for color among >>NeXT applications in general? We want answers, damnit! (All we have >>on campus here are monochrome next's.) > >I saw a color-station here at our local dealer - dragging windows with >color images is much slower than dragging very big windows on a mono- >chrome station The thing to remember with the NeXTstation color is that memory is VERY important. The standard 12Mb configuration is really not enough. I have had a chance to use a NeXTstation Color with 32Mb of memory, and it was quite fast, faster than the '030 monochrome running 2.0 in fact. It wasn't as quick as the '040 monochrome or the NeXTdimension, but quite quick, and very enjoyable. I would suggest a minimum of 16Mb for monochrome systems, and 24 or 32Mb for the color systems. Chris -- + Chris Petrilli | Internet: petrilli@gnu.ai.mit.edu + Insert silly disclaimer drivel here.
jchin@wimsey.bc.ca (Joseph Chin) (04/17/91)
Contrary to popular believes, I've noticed the NeXTstation Colour to be faster than the NeXTstation in computation and about the same as NeXTstation in terms of screen response. The NeXTstation Colour has interleaved memory which allows it to run at close to 0 wait state whereas other NeXT systems run with 1 or more wait states. This can account for 10-20% improvement in performance. I wonder why NeXT doesn't use the interleave memory scheme in the NeXTstation and the Cube! :-) Joe jchin@van-bc.wimsey.bc.ca -- ************************************************************** * "Kill the body and the head will die" (Hunter S. Thompson) * * NeXT --> The ultimate electronic publishing platform! * ********** Joseph Chin --> jchin@van-bc.wimsey.bc.ca *********
eps@toaster.SFSU.EDU (Eric P. Scott) (04/23/91)
In article <wc1TnQa00VoRA4ZHxy@andrew.cmu.edu> da1n+@andrew.cmu.edu (Daniel K. Appelquist) writes: >Exactly how much slower is the display on the NextStation color? 3-4 times slower than the NeXTstation--which is damn good considering how much more memory we're talking about. > Does >it make a big difference? If you're happy with the performance of the original 68030 NeXTs, you'll be happy with the NeXTstation Color. > How much support is there for color among >NeXT applications in general? All NeXTs run the *same* basic software--that means that "color applications" are _still_ "color applications" even on a grayscale display. Color is *not* used to convey essential information so that applications will be usable on all models. Very few applications "go out of their way" to support color; that doesn't mean that they don't, it just means that no exceptional effort is required. -=EPS=-
ls1i+@andrew.cmu.edu (Leonard John Schultz) (04/23/91)
On 23-Apr-91 in Re: NextStation vs. NextSta.. user Eric P. Scott@toaster.SF writes: >>Exactly how much slower is the display on the NextStation color? > >3-4 times slower than the NeXTstation--which is damn good >considering how much more memory we're talking about. Eric, Where do you see a factor of 3-4 performance degradation in the ColorStation? I have done much work on both machine and see NO NOTICABLE DIFFERENCE in speed!!! What exactly are you doing that seems so slow? Len