hunt@tramp.Colorado.EDU (Lee Cameron Hunt) (08/14/89)
Hello all you netters... I'm evaluating the NeXT as a possible canidate for my next (no pun intended :-) home [apartment] computer. The $6500 + university share price-tag is not at all cheap, but I'm still interested. My main question is this: What kind of hardware graphics support does the NeXT have? Any good references? (I'm not willing to lay down the large sum for the NeXT developers manuals). After pawing through _The NeXT Book_, a few magazine articles, and talking with a few slightly-in-the-know people, I'm still fairly clueless. All I know is that the NeXT has a DMA channel dedicated to graphics (does it act as a blitter?) A few CS and EE friends and I have postulated from pre-release news/magazine articles that originally the NeXT was intended to have much faster graphics in color. The emphasis on custom DMA hardware for very fast system throughput seems to imply that this is true. The "color-for-the-NeXT-perhaps-by-Pixar" rumor may vindicate this assumption, but will also raise the price by, we expect, say $4000 (estimating $2000 for a very good display and $2000 for the color graphics board -- not at all a small piece o' change). We also hope (almost pray :-) that something is done to speed up Postscript display. (Could this be easily done by a color graphics board? Or would rewriting the current Postscript UI for an add-on dedicated Postscript engine be a monumental task?) The reason I'm soooo preoccupied with fast graphics is that I am interested in doing real-time animation for graduate research. I would like to use the NeXT for this. So, before I go out and get an Amiga 2500, would someone try to convince me that the wait for the rumored color board would be worthwhile? Further, do our raw assumptions seem to hold water? Does 1.0 plan on speeding-up some of the Postscript graphics? Is the NeXT ever going to be a "real" graphics monster (with colors and graphic coprocessors and hardware windowing and ...)? (Graphics hardware combined with the DSP sure would be a pleasant combination... :-) I realize that I'm strictly operating in the "Land of Rumors," but I'm still eager to hear what all of you NeXTophiles think. --Lee P.S. I'm probably paranoid, but I keep thinking that the price of $6,500 for a NeXT offered to academia is too good to hold out for long. Especially since now, I'm told, the NeXT is selling to the business sector for $10,000. Any indications either way about this? "Crying in your beer is bad enough; but crying in a Hot-Fudge Sundae is just disgusting." -- R. Heinlein
t-jondu@microsoft.UUCP (Jonathan Dubman) (08/15/89)
In article <10727@boulder.Colorado.EDU> hunt@tramp.Colorado.EDU (Lee Cameron Hunt) writes: > A few CS and EE friends and I have postulated from pre-release >news/magazine articles that originally the NeXT was intended to have much >faster graphics in color. The emphasis on custom DMA hardware for very fast >system throughput seems to imply that this is true. The >"color-for-the-NeXT-perhaps-by-Pixar" rumor may vindicate this assumption, but >will also raise the price by, we expect, say $4000 (estimating $2000 for a >very good display and $2000 for the color graphics board -- not at all a small >piece o' change). > We also hope (almost pray :-) that something is done to speed up Postscript >display. (Could this be easily done by a color graphics board? Or would >rewriting the current Postscript UI for an add-on dedicated Postscript engine >be a monumental task?) "Fixed in 1.2"? Last week's InfoWorld had an interesting tidbit that I'm surprised noone has commented on here. Apparently Steve Jobs has undergone preliminary negotiations to use IBM's new ROMP-II RISC processor in "an even nexter" version of the cube, and IBM's new graphics chip. Whether he will go through with this remains to be seen, but the InfoWorld reporter suggested that this was a ploy to reduce prices for the Motorola 68030, 68040 and 88000 for NeXT. > So, before I go out and get an Amiga 2500, would someone try to convince me >that the wait for the rumored color board would be worthwhile? Well, you can't go too wrong with an Amiga 2500. If there's one thing it does well, it's color animation. There's already lots of software. Depends on on your budget and how much time you're willing to wait for NeXT to leapfrog. Rumor has it an Amiga 3000 with 68030 will be available very soon... But the NeXT might be worth the wait- it's a gamble. >Further, do our raw assumptions seem to hold water? Does 1.0 plan on >speeding-up some of the Postscript graphics? Is the NeXT ever going to be a >"real" graphics monster (with colors and graphic coprocessors and hardware >windowing and ...)? (Graphics hardware combined with the DSP sure would be >a pleasant combination... :-) > I realize that I'm strictly operating in the "Land of Rumors," but I'm >still eager to hear what all of you NeXTophiles think. Apparently 0.9 is not really performance tuned, but I wouldn't count on too much of a speedup for PostScript. I don't have any real info on future graphics hardware, but my Amiga 1000 says it'll be there by the time I can afford it. >P.S. I'm probably paranoid, but I keep thinking that the price of $6,500 for >a NeXT offered to academia is too good to hold out for long. Especially >since now, I'm told, the NeXT is selling to the business sector for $10,000. >Any indications either way about this? NeXT is not going to raise the price for anything, anytime. Look what happened to Apple. Steve Jobs has become a supply-bargaining wizard, and won't buy any RAM chips for $37 a shot. The cost of the parts should be monotonically decreasing. I expect he'll keep the business price where it is and lower the academic price in a year or two. Intuition says it'll bottom out at about $4000 for the current model. The RAM will come way down, but the monitor ain't cheap and I think he's already getting a bargain on the optical drive. > -Lee < -Jonathan Dubman Disclaimer: Microsoft has nothing to do with this letter.
gillies@p.cs.uiuc.edu (08/15/89)
In article <10727@boulder.Colorado.EDU> hunt@tramp.Colorado.EDU (Lee Cameron Hunt) writes: > A few CS and EE friends and I have postulated from pre-release >news/magazine articles that originally the NeXT was intended to have much >faster graphics in color. The emphasis on custom DMA hardware for very fast >system throughput seems to imply that this is true. I disagree. The original personal computer, the Alto, and its successors (DLion, and esp. Dorado), had a special emphasis on high-bandwidth I/O. This is one of the reasons why all the Xerox processor products were so expensive. The IBM PC and its relatives, and especially the Macintosh, have relatively poor I/O hardware support. I don't think there was any *particular* application for this type of "Muscle Processor", but just the general feeling that the CPU must be prepared to drive a mouse, a disk, an ethernet, and a huge bitmap display all at once, and at full speed. Clearly, if you run out of CPU cycles, this defeats the benefits of using a Personal Computer. I don't doubt that some of the ex-Xeroids (Xerox Employees) took this philosophy to NeXT when they were hired away by Steve Jobs. Don Gillies, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Illinois 1304 W. Springfield, Urbana, Ill 61801 ARPA: gillies@cs.uiuc.edu UUCP: {uunet,harvard}!uiucdcs!gillies
bruceh@zygot.UUCP (Bruce Henderson) (08/16/89)
In article <7360@microsoft.UUCP>, t-jondu@microsoft.UUCP (Jonathan Dubman) writes: > > A few CS and EE friends and I have postulated from pre-release > >news/magazine articles that originally the NeXT was intended to have much > >faster graphics in color. The emphasis on custom DMA hardware for very fast > >system throughput seems to imply that this is true. The The poop on this from a very unofficial source is that the NeXT incantationof the NeXT will be out [cross those fingers!] in April of next year. It is likely to be a 50Mhz '040 machine with a dedicated board for doing the window server. Pixar's RenderMan will be the native language of this beast but it will also work just the same as the current DPS model. IE Renderman will be extended to include DPS. The color will be 32 bit [24 data, 8 alpha] and all of the simulated 3D-ness of the machine will be quite real, as in there will be 3D data representations of the raised bevel on the Dock, and you can move the light source, etc. A lot of stuff will be turned off by defaul, but you can turn it down and make your machine crawl. The neat thing is is that they think that 100% should upgrade. I heard a price of $200.00 to $800.00 to pump your machine [not to color]. The MegaPixel will also plug into this card, giving you zillions fo grey scale values without a new monitor, Also the concept of having a "slave" board with 4 50Mhz '040's on it has been heaved arround. After all, Mach is made for multi processing! -- ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Bruce Henderson Software Engineer zygot!bruceh@Apple.COM "Sorry, Mathematica can't goon this much" ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^