daugher@cs.tamu.edu (Dr. Walter C. Daugherity) (08/26/90)
Rumor Central in PC Week for August 6, 1990, says: "Then, of course, there's 'Back Bay,' the graphical financial-modeling tool for the NeXT machines (which should look very nice on NeXT's forthcoming NeXT Dimension color workstations),...." So now we know what the color NeXT is called? You are entering the NeXT Dimension.... I can't wait! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Walter C. Daugherity Internet, NeXTmail: daugher@cs.tamu.edu Knowledge Systems Research Center uucp: uunet!cs.tamu.edu!daugher Texas A & M University BITNET: DAUGHER@TAMVENUS College Station, TX 77843-3112 CSNET: daugher%cs.tamu.edu@RELAY.CS.NET ---Not an official document of Texas A&M--- From: daugher@cs.tamu.edu (Dr. Walter C. Daugherity) Newsgroups: comp.sys.next Subject: new NeXT's rumored due Sept. 18 Expires: References: Sender: Followup-To: Distribution: world Organization: Texas A&M University Keywords: NeXT, 68040, color Notes From The Field, by Robert X. Cringely, in INFOWORLD for August 13, 1990 says: "INSANELY GREAT? Steve Jobs, who **lives** to take product risks, will either teach us a lesson or not when he intros two new NeXT machines on September 18. "Look for color and monochrome units based on 25-MHz 68040 processors. The $10,000 color machine will have four slots and use the same case as the current machine, which will no longer be produced. The $5,000 black-and-white machine will be a 'pizza box,' with a single slot. Both units will have (at last) a 2.88-meg 3-1/2-inch floppy, and a 100-meg hard disk. The optical disk will be optional, but bigger (512 megs). The color machine will have a superfast 96002 digital signal processing chip." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Walter C. Daugherity Internet, NeXTmail: daugher@cs.tamu.edu Knowledge Systems Research Center uucp: uunet!cs.tamu.edu!daugher Texas A & M University BITNET: DAUGHER@TAMVENUS College Station, TX 77843-3112 CSNET: daugher%cs.tamu.edu@RELAY.CS.NET ---Not an official document of Texas A&M---
barry@joshua.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) (08/26/90)
In article <7721@helios.TAMU.EDU> daugher@cs.tamu.edu (Dr. Walter C. Daugherity) writes: [quoting Notes From The Field:] > >"Look for color and monochrome units based on 25-MHz 68040 processors. >The $10,000 color machine will have four slots and use the same case as the >current machine, which will no longer be produced. Great!---I guess that makes our originals collectors items! :-) >The $5,000 black-and-white >machine will be a 'pizza box,' with a single slot. Both units will have (at >last) a 2.88-meg 3-1/2-inch floppy, and a 100-meg hard disk. The optical disk >will be optional, but bigger (512 megs). I think this is unfortunate---floppy drives really are outdated technology. The just don't have the capacity a machine like NeXT needs. For example, the excellent TopDraw demo takes up 27 Meg!---wouldn't be much fun having to load those 20 floppies, would it? :-) Or, another example, I just copied a friend 90 Meg of (public domain) stuff. He'd sure be loaded down if I had to give him 70 floppies! (Not to mention 70 floppies cost at least twice as much as an optical disk, with only 1/3 the capacity.) And even so, big files---like tar files or graphics---would need to _broken up_ for transfer onto multiple floppis; a repulsive notion, isn't it? The optical drive was one of the greatest, and most useful, innovations of the cube. Sorry to see it go. Also, the predicted 100 Mb hard drive + _no optical_ just isn't going to cut it---thats not enough to store distribution 1.0 !?! I have a 330 MB drive that hovers at 90% full, and much of that is just the standard distribution. I have another 300 Mb of stuff on od's. 100 Mb just ain't enough!
rlin@cs.ubc.ca (Robert Lin) (08/27/90)
In article <287@kaos.MATH.UCLA.EDU> barry@math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes: >In article <7721@helios.TAMU.EDU> daugher@cs.tamu.edu (Dr. Walter C. Daugherity) writes: > >>The $5,000 black-and-white >>machine will be a 'pizza box,' with a single slot. Both units will have (at >>last) a 2.88-meg 3-1/2-inch floppy, and a 100-meg hard disk. The optical disk >>will be optional, but bigger (512 megs). > >I think this is unfortunate---floppy drives really are outdated >technology. The just don't have the capacity a machine like NeXT needs. > >Also, the predicted 100 Mb hard drive + _no optical_ just isn't >going to cut it---thats not enough to store distribution 1.0 !?! > >I have a 330 MB drive that hovers at 90% full, and much of that >is just the standard distribution. I have another 300 Mb of stuff >on od's. 100 Mb just ain't enough! I believe the marketing thrust is to sell the pizza box as a network node, which really can't hack it alone but needs an NFS file server. The server is expected to have a big 512M OD, though. So for those situations, the OD distribution still makes sense. On the other hand, for people who haven't got an NFS server, you could also attach a bigger SCSI (a 660M external, for example) and stuff all the other distribution stuff there. The 100 Mb hard disk only holds the bare bone UNIX, device files, etc. Remember, even the leviathan System V R4.0, known for its gigantic girth, takes only 40M (though 70M is recommended for actual use). -Robert
rca@cs.brown.edu (Ronald C.F. Antony) (08/28/90)
In article <287@kaos.MATH.UCLA.EDU> barry@math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes: >Great!---I guess that makes our originals collectors items! :-) There is an upgrade possibility that will cost around 1000$, so it is up to you if you want to have a collectors item... >The optical drive was one of the greatest, and most useful, innovations >of the cube. Sorry to see it go. I'd be sorry, too. >Also, the predicted 100 Mb hard drive + _no optical_ just isn't >going to cut it---thats not enough to store distribution 1.0 !?! I still hope that is only for swapping plus things like a couple of shell commands and shared libraries, to make the load of a network go down. I hope not they belive a full system is going to fit on these 100MB. Ronald ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." Bernhard Shaw | rca@cs.brown.edu or antony@browncog.bitnet
kevin@cunixf.cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (Kevin Harris) (08/29/90)
In article <7721@helios.TAMU.EDU> daugher@cs.tamu.edu (Dr. Walter C. Daugherity) writes: "Look for color and monochrome units based on 25-MHz 68040 processors. The $10,000 color machine will have four slots and use the same case as the current machine, which will no longer be produced. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^!!!!!! Say it ain't so, Joe! I *like* the Cube. I don't want a "pizza-box" and I *really* don't want to have to buy a color machine just to get the Cube casing. Why, why, why? I hope that this is just a rumor. -- |Kevin A. Harris |"...an all-expense-paid four-day trip to LA. The | |119th & Broadway |reason that it's only four days is the fact that | |New York, N.Y. 10027|after four days in Los Angeles, it ceases to be a | | |prize and starts to become an irritant." --WNEW DJ | |Kevin A. Harris |"...an all-expense-paid four-day trip to LA. The | |119th & Broadway |reason that it's only four days is the fact that | |New York, N.Y. 10027|after four days in Los Angeles, it ceases to be a | | |prize and starts to become an irritant." --WNEW DJ |