philip@pescadero.Stanford.EDU (Philip Machanick) (09/25/90)
I picked up the latest price lists from the Stanford Bookstore today. The general trend towards big discounts on the cheapest model is confirmed. The minimum model is $3153. The next one up has the Extended software release and an extra 8M of RAM, total $4445. Difference: $1292. If you buy those things separately, the RAM is $1024 (NeXT's inflated price), and 2.0 extended in optical is $174. Total: $1198 - BUT of course you can get RAM at much lower prices than NeXT's. The next thing I did was to do a slightly unconventional comparison with the Mac price list. Imagine you are in the market for a laser printer with a fast PostScript engine, e.g., a LaserWriter IINTX. Stanford price: $3820. Does NeXT offer an alternative? Their printer is 400dpi (which I presume is an advantage), but needs a NeXT workstation to drive it. Stanford price for a NeXT printer: $1229. Total for printer plus minimum NeXT: $4382. Now, this is $562 more than the Apple printer, but the LaserWriter doesn't have a nice screen to preview your PostScript, or a 105M hard disk. Also, it's processor isn't as fast as the NeXT's and it doesn't include a unix workstation in the price, or very much bundled software... -- Philip Machanick philip@pescadero.stanford.edu
jacob@gore.com (Jacob Gore) (09/25/90)
/ comp.sys.next / philip@pescadero.Stanford.EDU (Philip Machanick) / Sep 24 90/ > Imagine you are in the market for a laser printer with a fast > PostScript engine, e.g., a LaserWriter IINTX. Stanford price: $3820. Does > NeXT offer an alternative? Their printer is 400dpi (which I presume is an > advantage), but needs a NeXT workstation to drive it. Stanford price for a > NeXT printer: $1229. Total for printer plus minimum NeXT: $4382. Now, this > is $562 more than the Apple printer, but the LaserWriter doesn't have a > nice screen to preview your PostScript, or a 105M hard disk. Also, it's > processor isn't as fast as the NeXT's and it doesn't include a unix > workstation in the price, or very much bundled software... An interesting comparison. However, the NeXTstation + NeXT Printer combination does not exactly subsume a typical standalone laser printer. An end user can't connect a NeXTstation to the serial port of their PC, nor, in the case of a LaserWriter, to their LocalTalk network. Of course, one can get lpr for PC's, but your typical PC end-user won't be looking for it and installing it. However, for those systems with lpr already running, NeXTstation with printer offers another advantage: TCP/IP-speed data path. Postscript laser printers with an Ethernet card tend to cost quite a bundle. Jacob -- Jacob Gore Jacob@Gore.Com boulder!gore!jacob
dd26+@andrew.cmu.edu (Douglas F. DeJulio) (09/26/90)
jacob@gore.com (Jacob Gore) writes: > An end user can't connect a NeXTstation to the serial port of their PC, > nor, in the case of a LaserWriter, to their LocalTalk network. The NeXT has serial ports, why couldn't you hook it up to a PC? Just write some software to listen to the serial port and print whatever comes in over it. As for AppleTalk, no I can't see how you can daisy-chain a NeXT along with some Macs, but for some people CAP should let Mac users spool to a NeXT printer, no? As long as you've got some sort of an appletalk ethernet gateway...
jacob@gore.com (Jacob Gore) (09/26/90)
/ comp.sys.next / dd26+@andrew.cmu.edu (Douglas F. DeJulio) / Sep 25, 1990 / > jacob@gore.com (Jacob Gore) writes: > > An end user can't connect a NeXTstation to the serial port of their PC, > > nor, in the case of a LaserWriter, to their LocalTalk network. > > The NeXT has serial ports, why couldn't you hook it up to a PC? Just > write some software to listen to the serial port and print whatever > comes in over it. *I* could[1], but your typical PC end-user won't be interested in (or capable of) doing it. Jacob [1] I found it much easier, and quite cheap, to just drop an Ethernet card into the PC and set up some software... -- Jacob Gore Jacob@Gore.Com boulder!gore!jacob
SLVQC@CUNYVM (Salvatore Saieva) (09/29/90)
In article <1990Sep25.052907.4351@Neon.Stanford.EDU>, philip@pescadero.Stanford.EDU (Philip Machanick) says: > >...[stuff deleted] ... > >The next thing I did was to do a slightly unconventional comparison with the >Mac price list. ... [stuff deleted] ... > This week's issue of Mac Week (Sept. 24, I guess) had a really interesting table comparing the price of a NeXTstation vs the price of an equivalent Mac. The NeXTstation, 8MB ram, 105MB HD, 68040, mono-display, floppy, Unix/Mach, and bundled software at $4995. An equivalent Mac, 40Mhz fx, AUX, high-res graphics card, etc. (I don't have the chart in front of me now and don't remember all the Mac details) priced at $13,000!!!!! NeXT, what a great deal. Sal. ------- Salvatore Saieva Internet: slvqc@cunyvm.cuny.edu Queens College, Academic Computer Center BITNET: slvqc@cunyvm.bitnet 65-30 Kissena Blvd, Flushing, N.Y. 11367 DeskNet: (718) 520-7662