devil@techunix.BITNET (Gil Tene) (05/25/90)
Hello NeXTfolk,
I am interested in knowing the status of NeXT's "technology"
up to now. I am very interested in the new 68040 promise, and know
of NeXTstep's reputation as "the best" unix user-interface around.
I would like to hear from people on this newsgroup on several topics:
1.) new 68040 machines : What are the expected configurations and
pricing ? I understand that NeXT has made an announcment, but
haven't seen a complete report of it on the net...
2.) O.S. : NeXT uses MACH (right?). I would like to hear about the
status of MACH compared to other UNIX systems. I understand that
MACH is the basis of OSF's OSF/1 O.S. . I would like to know
about features such as sockets, shared memory, semaphores,
mailboxes. How compatible is it to BSD and SVR3.2, etc.
how is the performance ?
3.) NeXT software : what is available ? any nice third party stuff ?
4.) DSP software and features : any modem software out there?
Does anyone know if NeXT intends to use the new M96002 in their
newer products (that is SOME DSP chip.) ?. Any good signal
processing software out there.
5.) etc, reflections on the NeXT machine.
I will summerize to the Net an}iy E-mail responses I receive...
AdvTHANKS,
Gil.rca@cs.brown.edu (Ronald C.F. Antony) (05/27/90)
In article <9675@discus.technion.ac.il> devil%techunix.bitnet@jade.berkeley.edu (Gil Tene) writes: >1.) new 68040 machines : What are the expected configurations and > pricing ? I understand that NeXT has made an announcment, but > haven't seen a complete report of it on the net... There are no other reports than what you could read: upgrade costs 1500$ for normal people, 1000$ for academia and developers >2.) O.S. : NeXT uses MACH (right?). Yes > mailboxes. How compatible is it to BSD and SVR3.2, etc. Quite compatible (to BSD 4.3) > how is the performance ? very good For more detail you can check for the documentation that is available by ftp from CMU directly, but I do not kneo the address offhand. (see also comp.os.mach) >3.) NeXT software : what is available ? any nice third party stuff ? > >4.) DSP software and features : any modem software out there? > Does anyone know if NeXT intends to use the new M96002 in their I hope, but the ones that know are not allowed to answer... Also call NeXT at 1-800-848-NeXT for info on whats available from 3rd parties. 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
edwardj@microsoft.UUCP (Edward JUNG) (05/30/90)
In article <41020@brunix.UUCP> rca@cs.brown.edu (Ronald C.F. Antony) writes: >In article <9675@discus.technion.ac.il> devil%techunix.bitnet@jade.berkeley.edu (Gil Tene) writes: > >>2.) O.S. : NeXT uses MACH (right?). > >Yes Note, however, that NeXT uses its own version of Mach, which is somewhat different than the current Mach release from CMU (having evolved from an earlier code base). I don't know what NeXT's plans are regarding synchronizing with Mach 3.0 from CMU; CMU is on their board, and 3.0 will apparently "fix" user pagers, possibly add MachObjects, etc... NeXT has extended Mach-O format, changed loadable drivers, etc. for Mach. The future regarding openly shared libraries, dynamic loading, and multiprocessing is unclear, but one of the original Mach people heads up their OS division, so I imagine we can expect good things... >>4.) DSP software and features : any modem software out there? >> Does anyone know if NeXT intends to use the new M96002 in their Currently I haven't seen modem software (and I have been looking around for a while... since last year, in fact). Don't count on the new DSP in the Cube: consider the cost of 68040 and the pricing of the 9600x ($750 Q1) in relation to the price of the upgrade... and recall that when the Cube came out, the DSP 56k was already pretty cheap (under $100). I could ask for a bit more DSP memory though... Edward Jung Systems Division Minister of War Microsoft Corp. #import <std_disclaimer.h>