jaz@abvax.UUCP (Jack A. Zucker) (12/05/89)
I just wanted to relate my experience trying to become a registered developer for NeXT... I wrote them proposing to write a jazz improvisation program which would interactively take the student through chord theory, chord scale relationships, altered chords, synthetic scales, poly-rythms, etc. It would display notated examples which the user would be able to listen to by clicking on the appropriate icon. I saw the NeXT machine as the perfect machine to do this on since it has the built in DSP which I would use for synthesis or sampling. I planned to use some third party software and hardware to assist me. Digital ears, a digital recording device would be used for digitizing, and I planned to use Finale by Coda Music Software, to actually notate the music, which I would save in EPS format. I was disturbed to find out upon calling Coda, that there was only a single person doing the port, and that the software may not be finished for at least 12 months. At that point, I figured I'd call Adobe and buy their Sonata font, which would save me the trouble of designing my own musical noteheads, flags, etc. Well Adobe told me that they were not sure if they would be releasing any product for the NeXT. This amazed me, of course since we all know by now that the NeXT uses Display Postscript. It turns out that much of the hardware and software in the NeXT catalog is vaporware at this point. Most of the companies I called wouldn't even give me a ball park figure of when their software would be ported to the NeXT. This trend sounds amazingly like the OS/2 software catalog, which everyone nominated for best fictional work of the year. Anyway, my proposal was accepted by NeXT, and they indicated that I would be able to buy the hardware at developer's prices as soon as I took the $750.00 developer's course. Unfortunately, the next course was Jan. 30th, which was over 2 months away. I didn't want to wait that long to get started, so I offered to pay for the course "up front". NeXT indicated that their policy was firm, and that they couldn't make any exceptions. In addition, I explained that I had gotten a 1% discount on the interest rate of the loan that I had financed in order to being my development, and the bank would not give me the money until I had received confirmation of the order from NeXT. NeXT offered to take the money now, and send me the machine in 60-70 days but that hardly seemed acceptable. Well, I wanted to start now !!! What developer wants to tread water for 2 months ? I tried calling different people at NeXT to plead my case, but I never got any calls returned. It seems this the small start up company, which likes to portray the "mischievous bad boy, no tie look", has some polices that are akin to IBM, DEC, and yes, even SUN. They told me that I was "welcome" to buy the system at Businessland, and start development ! Oh, well. I "settled" for a 12.5 mips SPARCstation 1. The Sun does not have a DSP of course, but with all the OEMS liscensing the SPARC chip and SunOS, it's only a matter of time before we start seeing cheap SPARC hardware and software. Apparently more SPARCS are sold every months then have ever sold of the NeXT machine. The Sun does have a CODEC 8k digital voice chip (just like the NeXT) so it can be used for voice mail. Anyway, at least I got a machine. The price I paid for the SPARC was just a little more than the educational price for the NeXT machine. The SPARC will come down in price too, when the SPARCstation 2 machines come out. -Jaz jaz@calvin.icd.ab.com
baffico@adobe.COM (Tom Baffico) (12/06/89)
In article <972@abvax.UUCP> jaz@abvax.UUCP (Jack A. Zucker) writes: > >I figured I'd call Adobe and buy their Sonata font, which >would save me the trouble of designing my own musical noteheads, >jaz@calvin.icd.ab.com [This info has already been posted, I apologize to those who have already seen it.] Sonata is available as part of the NeXT Developer Font Kit. Included in the font kit are: A normal character set text face: Stone Serif Stone Serif Italic Stone Serif Semibold Stone Serif Semibold Italic Stone Serif Bold Stone Serif Bold Italic Display and script faces with special character sets: Stencil Hobo Brush Script And the musical notation face: Sonata The optical disk contains PostScript outlines, screen fonts, and AFM files for each of the above typefaces. This software is to be used only for development and testing, but our commercial typeface packages will begin shipping shortly. The price of the font kit is $100. If you need more info on the Font Kit or would like to get the order form, contact me at the following email address or phone number: Tom Baffico Account Program Manager baffico@adobe.com 415 962-2027
jaz@abvax.UUCP (Jack A. Zucker) (12/06/89)
I wanted to clear up some discrepancies from an earlier article I posted regarding my dealings with NeXT. Regarding returning phone calls, I implied that they never returned phone calls. In fact, they did return some of my calls, but there were times when they must have been very busy that several days would go by without getting a call returned. I was trying to depict a chronological order, and after reading it again, I realized that that aspect of the article was misleading. I should also mention that when I did talk to people at NeXT, they were very friendly and as helpful as they could be regarding my situation. -jaz@calvin.icd.ab.com
rock@lighthouse.com (Roger Rock Rosner) (12/06/89)
In article <972@abvax.UUCP> jaz@abvax.UUCP (Jack A. Zucker) writes: >I figured I'd call Adobe and buy their Sonata font, which >would save me the trouble of designing my own musical noteheads, >flags, etc. Well Adobe told me that they were not sure if they >would be releasing any product for the NeXT. I have Sonata on my NeXT right now (and yes, it's beta). I called Adobe today. The rep said their first type library for the NeXT will probably be released this month. The rep also added, "Illustrator will take a while longer. Don't look for it first quarter." >It turns out that much of the hardware and software in the NeXT >catalog is vaporware at this point. Most of the companies I called >wouldn't even give me a ball park figure of when their software would >be ported to the NeXT. Most unfair. Call us and we'll only give you a vague notion of our release date. And I know damn well we're working like crazy on the NeXT. This is how people avoid creating vaporware. (Vaporware, by any reasonable definition, is when the company says (or implies) the product is shipping when it isn't yet done.) >Anyway, my proposal was accepted by NeXT, and they indicated that I >would be able to buy the hardware at developer's prices as soon as I >took the $750.00 developer's course. Unfortunately, the next course >was Jan. 30th, which was over 2 months away. I have to agree with Jack here. This policy stinks. If "naive" users can get the machine without attending a course, why can't we? Programming it is *easier* than programming other machines, remember? >Apparently more SPARCS are sold every months then have ever sold of >the NeXT machine. Does it occur to you that Suns have been on the market for years? That they're the biggest workstation manufacturer in the world? Do you have a point? Or is this another of those "they can't succeed because they're new" arguments? Have we reached the end of technological development? (Why do I keep feeling like this is 1984 again? "The Mac can't succeed. There are more PC's sold in a month than Macs exist.") >The price I paid for the SPARC was just a little more >than the educational price for the NeXT machine. And what did you get? A fast machine that has little productivity software, no dsp, no d/a of note, tiny drives, and a really nasty user interface. Great deal. Roger Rosner The above is a personal opinion in no way endorsed by my employers.
jtn@zodiac.ADS.COM (John Nelson) (12/08/89)
In article <972@abvax.UUCP> jaz@abvax.UUCP (Jack A. Zucker) writes: > >I planned to use Finale by Coda Music Software, to actually >notate the music, which I would save in EPS format. > >I was disturbed to find out upon calling Coda, that there was >only a single person doing the port, and that the software >may not be finished for at least 12 months. At that point, >I figured I'd call Adobe and buy their Sonata font, which >would save me the trouble of designing my own musical noteheads, >flags, etc. Well Adobe told me that they were not sure if they >would be releasing any product for the NeXT. This amazed me, This amazes me too. Adobe is developing and licencing products for the Mac (Apple has decided to develope their own scalable fonts instead of using Adobe Postscript fonts) but not for NeXT (which uses a licenced display Postscript kernel)??? I also called Coda software to find out when Finale' would be released for the NeXT. The person I talked to said they hadn't even begun development but they were taking names to see how much interest there was. Why are we getting two entirely different answers? I called MOTU to see when performer would be available for neXT and at least MOTU *is* developing something. They have no idea however when performer will be available which tells me that they really AREN'T committed to developing anything. You don't begin a deveopment effort without some idea of when you expect to complete development. I guess these companies would rather make money selling their existing ports than enter into expensive development efforts to port their software to other machines. I STRONGLY suggest that NeXT look into these problems. I realize that the machine is new and thus software is scarce, but the almost schitzophrenic response of software developrs doesn't bode well. NeXT should send out a newsletter at the very least, to inform it's customers and dispell these rumors. John T. Nelson UUCP: sun!sundc!potomac!jtn Advanced Decision Systems Internet: jtn@potomac.ads.com 1500 Wilson Blvd #512; Arlington, VA 22209-2401 (703) 243-1611
edwardm@hpcuhc.HP.COM (Edward McClanahan) (12/09/89)
In response to Jack A Zucker's "Where's the beef?", Roger Rock Rosner writes: > (Vaporware, by > any reasonable definition, is when the company says (or implies) the > product is shipping when it isn't yet done.) Another form of Vaporware is when a company announces a product simply to test the waters and see if there is enough interest to actually produce it. This is kind of like White House Aids "leaking" information to manipulate the media. A recent president will go down in history as being a master at this "technique" :-) :-) :-). =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Edward McClanahan Hewlett Packard Company Mail Stop 47UE -or- edwardm%hpda@hplabs.hp.com 19447 Pruneridge Avenue Cupertino, CA 95014 Phone: (408)447-5651