portnoy@athena.mit.edu (Stephen L. Peters) (10/15/90)
Hi all! I'm new here, so I don't know if this is discussed to death or not. If it is, then please respond via email. I'm considering purchasing a new computer before I finally leave school next year, and one of the options I'm considering is a NeXT machine. Most of the reasons for this revolve around the fact that it has UNIX, great potential for sound applications, good graphics, and a cheap method for laser printing using PostScript. I'm a software developer by avocation, and will probably do so in my (copious, I'm sure :-) spare time apres MIT. However, I'm planning on taking advantage of any educational discounts before I leave. Anyway, I worry a little about how fast NeXT is growing in the marketplace. True, it's not growing as fast as the Mac or the IBM PC and PS/2 did, but then those two companies were fairly well-established by the time they came out with their respective products, so it is probably unfair to compare. Most of the growth within the NeXT seems (from my exposure) to be within educational institutions or research groups looking into developing interface technology or some such work. How fast is the NeXT growing into the business and personal fields? Will it speed up its growth when Motorola begins to ship 68040s in bulk, or will it be overridden by the competition? I'd hate to end up with a big, black, unsupported paperweight a few years down the road... How useful is the NeXT machine as a personal computer? I've heard complaints that software is expensive as all hell, but it also comes with all the necessary equipment to satisfy most personal use needs, especially if the Lotus Improv spreadsheet is still given away as a promotional package. One might think that software might be cheaper, given the "ease" of the Interface Builder, but I guess a great deal of time is spent in re-engineering some products for the UNIX box. What about using the NeXT as a standalone? It appears to have been developed for use in a networking environment, but how much usefulness is removed if it is used as a desktop workstation? What kind of a market is there for NeXT developers nowadays, and later? Are the larger companies working on applications for it, or are they scared away by the current debate over Jobs' "vaporproducts?" What about small businesses? Are some being scared off by the entire idea of using Display PostScript, judging it to be slower than an efficient raster-based graphic system, such as X? Finally, what would be the minimum real configuration for a NeXT machine be, assuming that it would be standalone, for a potential software developer (concentrating possibly in graphics or sound applications)? What add-ons are "necessary" to make it useful as a personal computer, also? Sorry this has been so long, but I'm intensly curious :-) Stephen Peters