mike@relgyro.stanford.edu (Mike Macgirvin) (02/25/89)
We've had our NeXT running for several weeks now, and I thought I should give my own biased feedback on how it's doing... Minuses: - Spare optical disks are in short supply. We ordered ten and haven't received one yet. What I hear is that they are being delivered one-by-one. (Hand made? ..spooky) - YP support is fine, but the docs say that it will be going away. Why have it if it will be going away? I don't like the idea of relying on it at all if that's the case. - PostScript has some new syntax and backward compatibility was ignored. That means several existing applications we use no longer work without major contortions. - The TIFF "standard" was extended to decrease the size of Webster's pictures. NO documentation of this effort exists. - The stinking "power" key on the keyboard is totally uncalled for. Several users have decided to shut it off without realizing that it is also supporting disk access for other systems. - Capitalization of FileNaMEs should be done consistently. All or none. unix was much friendlier as a lower-case language. (let's see, was that MyDisk or Mydisk ?) Pluses: - Setup into our network of assorted Suns and PCs was painless. I'm STILL struggling with some 386is that were received at the same time. - Sound is great. Kinda' makes me wonder what the information worker of the nineties will look like with headphones, fingers on the keyboard, eyes on the screen... (now all we need is foot-switches and we'll be totally plugged in). - Video is also very good. I have a little trouble with the half Sun, half Mac, interface but I'll get used to it. I might recommend that a terminal version of Webster's and other database stuff be available for those of us who work from such on occasion. - The biggest plus of all, and it gets very little press. Many, many Sun 3 binaries run unmolested on the NeXT. Saves a lot of work. It also saves having to maintain yet another set of binaries for yet another CPU type for about a hundred of our home-brew commands. I hope they (NeXT) consider this a feature and not a bug. ************************************************************************ m m k Mike Macgirvin m m m m o k k eee Stanford Relativity Gyro Experiment m m m k k e e Stanford University m m i kk eeeee (415) 725-4117 m m i k k e ARPA: mike@relgyro.stanford.edu (36.64.0.50) m m i k k eeee UUCP: /dev/null This room has been punched out. Now where are all the gazingas? *************************************************************************