conrad@wucs1.wustl.edu (H. Conrad Cunningham) (10/28/88)
Following an on-campus presentation (not a demo) by NeXT last
week, I had an interesting "discussion" with one of the professors in
the CS department. (He is a Macintosh owner and one of his current
research interests is in visual programming languages.) The following
is from my, perhaps faulty, recollection of the discussion.
He maintained that the NeXT computer will be a failure because
it not revolutionary enough. Its only advantage is a short-term
hardware capability/pricing advantage over the other available
UNIX-based workstations. He sees the NeXT as trying to impose a
visual, object-oriented overlay ("a Smalltalk-like environment") onto a
text-oriented UNIX base. These he contended are incompatible
notions--they mix like "oil and water." The UNIX base insures that
the visual and sound-oriented capabilities can't be used in any truly
revolutionary way.
Thoughts anyone?
H. Conrad Cunningham, Research Assistant, Dept. of Computer Science,
Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.A.guy@auspex.UUCP (Guy Harris) (10/29/88)
>He sees the NeXT as trying to impose a visual, object-oriented overlay >("a Smalltalk-like environment") onto a text-oriented UNIX base. >These he contended are incompatible notions--they mix like "oil and >water." The UNIX base insures that the visual and sound-oriented >capabilities can't be used in any truly revolutionary way. This sounds like one of those annoying oracular pronouncements - often made, to use Dorothy Parker's line, "without fear and without research" - that computer types are occasionally prone to. 1) What does he mean by "a text-oriented UNIX base"? What is the "UNIX base"? Does he mean the OS, considered in the sense of "sections 2, 3, 4, and 5 of the programmer's manual" (or "sections 2, 3 and 4 of the programmer's manual and section 7 of the administrator's manual" for those of you in S5-land)? If so, I don't see what's "text-oriented" about it; the OS intrinsics (whether implemented as traps to the kernel or not) aren't all that "text-oriented" - file I/O is in sequences of bytes, which need not be text. Does he mean what small set of routines you might think of as "user interface" routines are in the OS intrinsics set? Well, the NeXT machine comes with a window system toolkit, just like the Mac, so you're not stuck with "printf". Does he mean the utilities? Well, they're useful for some things, and it's nice that you can probably get at them from NeXTStEP; however, they're not the be-all-and-end-all of UNIX. You can implement a set of "visual, object-oriented" utilities atop them, if you wish. 2) How does he consider these notions "incompatible"? I had the impression that the Mac's moral equivalent of the UNIX OS intrinsics - file system, mainly, and assorted goodies like time-of-day services, etc. - were not all that radically more "revolutionary" than the UNIX ones. If you ignore the two-part file poop, doesn't the Mac basically have files that are collections of bytes? There's little, if anything about the Mac file system that I'd consider "revolutionary"; hell, the first version didn't support a hierarchical directory structure, and this was *after* several other OSes, including UNIX, showed that such directory structures work nicely - Multics did so *quite* a while ago. The Mac has other intrinsics that vanilla UNIX doesn't currently have. Two that come to mind are the window system and graphics toolkits - but UNIX is now, following its grand tradition of "first it has no WXYZ, then it it has more WXYZs than you care to think of", acquiring several of them (if NeXT licenses NeXTStEP to more than IBM, it may acquire one more) - and the internationalization stuff, a lot of which is covered by ANSI C. The same applies for the sound intrinsics; presumably the NeXT box has a similar set of intrinsics. (Or will.) The main potential difference I see is that the Mac has zillions more applications than the NeXT box *currently* has. However, I don't see that UNIX makes it impossible to write the same kind of applications, and UNIX+NeXTStEP may end up making it easier to write them than the Mac OS/Toolbox does.
manis@grads.cs.ubc.ca (Vincent Manis) (10/29/88)
In article <471@wucs1.wustl.edu> conrad@wucs1.wustl.edu (H. Conrad Cunningham) writes: > He sees the NeXT as trying to impose a >visual, object-oriented overlay ("a Smalltalk-like environment") onto a >text-oriented UNIX base. These he contended are incompatible >notions--they mix like "oil and water." The UNIX base insures that >the visual and sound-oriented capabilities can't be used in any truly >revolutionary way. I keep hearing this canard, and, frankly I can't buy it. Basically, the issue for `revolutionariness' is not the operating system, but the under- lying physical architecture. By that metric, Unix/Mach is neither more nor less revolutionary than the Mac OS (whose original file system was so un- revolutionary that it reminded one of William F. Buckley). It's clear that the leverage we need for truly revolutionary applications comes from massively parallel systems, either loosely coupled (in a network) or tightly coupled (e.g., Transputers or the Connection Machine). It comes from large mass-storage devices and high-bandwidth networks. It even comes from high-resolution displays and printers. It also comes from lowering costs. On the other hand, even a machine as bourgeois as the IBM PC can wreak revolutionary changes in its users. Ask any humanities scholar who uses word processing, data base, and electronic mail programs on one of those obsolete clunkers (which I'm in fact using as I type). What NeXT claims to have done (the proof will be in the pudding), is to produce a state-of-the-art workstation for a lower price than others will charge. They also claim to have developed better interfaces, but one can presumably use their machine without their interfaces (I've done it on a Mac lots of times), if one wants different ones. NeXT seems to believe that if one can put a machine of this sort on peoples' desks, they will do interesting things with it. That claim will have to wait for enough machines to be delivered before we can test it. ____________ Vincent Manis | manis@cs.ubc.ca ___ \ _____ The Invisible City of Kitezh | manis@cs.ubc.cdn ____ \ ____ Department of Computer Science | manis%cs.ubc@relay.cs.net ___ /\ ___ University of British Columbia | uunet!ubc-cs!manis __ / \ __ Vancouver, BC, Canada | (604) 228-2394 _ / __ \ _ "In the U.S.S.R., newspapers all print the same thing because ____________ the government tells them to. American newspapers all print the same thing even though the government doesn't tell them to."
tli@sargas.usc.edu (Tony Li) (10/30/88)
In article <471@wucs1.wustl.edu> conrad@wucs1.wustl.edu (H. Conrad Cunningham) writes:
He maintained that the NeXT computer will be a failure because
it not revolutionary enough. Its only advantage is a short-term
hardware capability/pricing advantage over the other available
UNIX-based workstations. He sees the NeXT as trying to impose a
visual, object-oriented overlay ("a Smalltalk-like environment") onto a
text-oriented UNIX base. These he contended are incompatible
notions--they mix like "oil and water." The UNIX base insures that
the visual and sound-oriented capabilities can't be used in any truly
revolutionary way.
I recall that Sun Microsystems failed for exactly these same reasons.
;-)
Tony Li - USC University Computing Services - Dain Bramaged.
Uucp: oberon!tli
Bitnet: tli@kylara, tli@ramoth
Internet: tli@sargas.usc.educonrad@wucs1.wustl.edu (H. Conrad Cunningham) (11/01/88)
In article <354@auspex.UUCP> guy@auspex.UUCP (Guy Harris) writes: >This sounds like one of those annoying oracular pronouncements - often >made, to use Dorothy Parker's line, "without fear and without research" - >that computer types are occasionally prone to. I probably over-dramatized a portion of a hallway conversation. Like many such discussions the content is as much ideological as technical. :-) I will try to respond to a few of the points. By the way, I tended to take the side in the discussion that said the UNIX base was a good, pragmatic choice. I am not a visual programming advocate (nor a Mac user), but I thought these ideas were worthy of discussion. >1) What does he mean by "a text-oriented UNIX base"? What is the "UNIX > base"? NeXT uses Mach; Mach is essentially UNIX. UNIX's primary view of the world is one-dimensional: files as streams of bytes (mostly textual) and textual user interfaces (as text files or user interactions). The simplicity and portability of this view is one of the reasons for UNIX's success. (Along with the fact that AT&T made the sources available to universities and research institutions very cheaply--at least in the early days.) UNIX is good example of 1970's technology. >2) How does he consider these notions "incompatible"? I had the > impression that the Mac's moral equivalent of the UNIX OS intrinsics Trying to build systems which integrate two- (or three-) dimensional and/or multisensory (e.g., sound as well as sight) concepts on top of an inherently one-dimensional, textual environment probably result in a non-standard kludge. For consistency, the basic operating environment should be built with such concepts assumed as basic elements. The Lisa/Mac was somewhat revolutionary for the mid-1980's. Although not all aspects were revolutionary or even "state of the art", it was the first system to bring a visual (iconic, nontextual) user interface into wide usage--into a personal computer class machine. The usage style of computers has been greatly changed as a result. Is NeXT a comparable revolutionary system for the early-1990's? I guess we'll see in a few years.
conrad@wucs1.wustl.edu (H. Conrad Cunningham) (11/01/88)
In article <13148@oberon.USC.EDU> tli@sargas.usc.edu (Tony Li) writes: >In article <471@wucs1.wustl.edu> conrad@wucs1.wustl.edu (C.Cunningham) writes: > >> He maintained that the NeXT computer will be a failure because >> it not revolutionary enough. Its only advantage is a short-term >> hardware capability/pricing advantage over the other available >> UNIX-based workstations. > >I recall that Sun Microsystems failed for exactly these same reasons. There are perhaps two different dimensions of success that I was talking about: (1) commercial success and (2) having a revolutionary impact on computing. Undoubtedly Sun is a commercial success. Perhaps Sun could also be could be considered revolutionary as well. (My historical knowledge may be faulty here.) Sun was the first company to adopt a industry-standard, open systems approach as the organizing principle for its product line. Sun's success at this changed the industry considerably--other vendors are being pushed to varying extents toward that approach. But Sun's revolution began several years ago. Another company taking the same approach today probably wouldn't be revolutionary even if they have some measure of commercial success. Is NeXT revolutionary? Will NeXT change the computing in some significant way?
conrad@wucs1.wustl.edu (H. Conrad Cunningham) (11/01/88)
In article <4391@ubc-cs.UUCP> manis@grads.cs.ubc.ca (Vincent Manis) writes: > ...Basically, the >issue for `revolutionariness' is not the operating system, but the under- >lying physical architecture. ... >... >It's clear that the leverage we need for truly revolutionary applications >comes from massively parallel systems, either loosely coupled (in a network) >or tightly coupled (e.g., Transputers or the Connection Machine). ... I have no disagreement that wide-scale availability and usage of massive parallelism is one of the potential revolutions somewhere over the horizon. Innovative computer and communications architectures and designs must play a big part in that revolution. However, without devising new ways to exploit the parallelism on a wide-range of problems, all the fancy parallel hardware won't be so revolutionary. The revolution will be as much--maybe moreso--a "software" revolution than a "hardware" revolution. New languages, operating systems, tools, theories, methodologies, algorithms, and/or techniques are needed. (Of course, my biases as a researcher in concurrent programming languages may be showing thru here. :-) Will the sudden advent of group of ideas cause rapid change in computing? Or will the change be more multifaceted and evolutionary? >On the other hand, even a machine as bourgeois as the IBM PC can wreak >revolutionary changes in its users. Maybe. My use of revolution is more from a cultural/social/economic perspective than a purely technological one. From that perspective the introduction of the relatively inexpensive personal computer was revolutionary. I don't think I would consider the IBM PC as a revolutionary product however. It wasn't one of the first successful products in that category. >What NeXT claims to have done (the proof will be in the pudding), is to >produce a state-of-the-art workstation for a lower price than others will >charge. I have no problem with that. I tend to doubt that there will be much of a price advantage by the time they start shipping in quantity though. I imagine that Sun, Apple, and other companies will respond with price adjustments and new products in the "next" few months. I tend to think that the success of NeXT depends more upon the appeal of the overall package (NextStep, sound-support, the optical disk, bundled software, Mach, reliability, Objective C, etc.) than upon price. But I am disappointed that it came out costing nearly twice what I had been hearing. If I could have bought one for US$3500, I might have bought one to take home. Oh, well. >... NeXT seems to believe that >if one can put a machine of this sort on peoples' desks, they will do >interesting things with it. To some extent Jobs has bet his company on college "hackers." The approach worked by accident with UNIX. It was somewhat successful by intention with the Macintosh. Maybe it'll work with the NeXT cube, too. If they can put lots of machines into environments and application areas which have not been greatly touched by computers as yet, then they can be considered revolutionary.
jtn@potomac.ads.com (John T. Nelson) (11/01/88)
In article <354@auspex.UUCP>, guy@auspex.UUCP (Guy Harris) writes: > >He sees the NeXT as trying to impose a visual, object-oriented overlay > >("a Smalltalk-like environment") onto a text-oriented UNIX base. > >These he contended are incompatible notions--they mix like "oil and > >water." The UNIX base insures that the visual and sound-oriented > >capabilities can't be used in any truly revolutionary way. > > 1) What does he mean by "a text-oriented UNIX base"? What is the "UNIX > base"? > > Does he mean what small set of routines you might think of as "user > interface" routines are in the OS intrinsics set? Well, the NeXT > machine comes with a window system toolkit, just like the Mac, so > you're not stuck with "printf". Umm.... is that windowing toolkit part of Mach or does it just exist in that fancy interface? To get back to the previous poster's comment about Unix being text-oriented... weren't the tty driver, sh and csh all written with ttys in mind? "Okay, you say ... we just remove the sh and csh and tty driver and replace them with a new kind of interface that handles mice and bitmapped screens, but keep the kernel relatively intact." Sounds good. Is this what NeXT is doing or are they going the route of Sun Microsystems, where every window interface they've built so far was built to run on top of the shell? Kindof a kludge if you ask me. What NeXT and the world needs is a true windowing shell to replace the tty-style shells. Also, if mice and bitmapped screens had been around in those days, then Unix might have seen lightweight processes a lot earlier to support those more intelligence and complex interfaces. > The main potential difference I see is that the Mac has zillions more > applications than the NeXT box *currently* has. However, I don't see > that UNIX makes it impossible to write the same kind of applications, Hey... remember the first Macintosh? The big problem was that there were virtually NO applications for the machine. No one wanted to write any for a machine that was aimed "for the rest of us" with Big Blue already well entrenched. There are few windowing applications for Unix perhaps because the Unix kernel doesn't support a standard interface. Vendors would have to either package their own windowing systems with the applications or sell their own windowing systems and hope someone adopts them. Maybe even turn it into a standard like Adobe's Postscript. > and UNIX+NeXTStEP may end up making it easier to write them than the Mac > OS/Toolbox does. From Unix or the smalltalk interface? NeXT hasn't shown us anything much beyond the pressurized gas cylinder demo. -- 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 Shar and Enjoy!
baker@necbsd.NEC.COM (L. BAKER) (11/01/88)
From article <471@wucs1.wustl.edu>, by conrad (H. Conrad Cunningham): >... > He maintained that the NeXT computer will be a failure because > it not revolutionary enough. Its only advantage is a short-term > hardware capability/pricing advantage over the other available > UNIX-based workstations. >... 1) I think that, as with everything else that costs people money, the market will decide. The "visual interface" as a simple, easy solution "for the rest of us" was highly successful for the Macintosh; I see no reason why it cannot do the same thing for Unix/NeXT. The market they capture may not end up being the "typical workstation users," e.g. engineers, CS/technical people, but then the market for the Macintosh turned out to be a *bunch* of people who'd never considered buying a computer in the first place. Which was exactly what they planned for it in the first place (Lisa flames notwithstanding). I think that Jobs & Co. have come up with a similar product, with a similarly untouched target market. Part of what I find facinating about the NeXT machine is that it is so obviously aimed at an interdiciplineary audience; consider the combination of reasonable graphics, high-quality music generation and reproduction, high-quality printing capability, powerful tools for manipulating text databases, a bunch of standard databases obviously targeted for *nontechnical* writing, a so-called "visual" (read: easy) interface ... the thing sounds like "the computer for the Liberal Arts Major" In direct answer to the criticisim that "Its only advantage is a short-term hardware capability/pricing advantage over the other available UNIX-based workstations," I think that the same comment could have been/was made about the Macintosh, and it is clearly a success. Similar to the Mac, NeXT brings together things that have never *all* been present in any single product on the market, though they have been available scattered piecemeal across the industry's various product lines for years. LEB -- Larry Baker, NEC America Switching Systems Division, Dallas TX Uucp: {harvard, ames}!cs!necssd!baker Internet: necssd!baker@cs.utexas.edu
guy@auspex.UUCP (Guy Harris) (11/02/88)
>>1) What does he mean by "a text-oriented UNIX base"? What is the "UNIX >> base"? > NeXT uses Mach; Mach is essentially UNIX. UNIX's primary view >of the world is one-dimensional: files as streams of bytes (mostly >textual) and textual user interfaces (as text files or user >interactions). The first part is irrelevant. I know of few, if any, systems that *don't* ultimately have files that are streams of bytes (or, perhaps, streams of disk blocks). You can implement whatever file structure you want atop that, if you think the file structure is what's important. The second part is just a description of one class of applications that run under UNIX. Other types of applications exist as well; there's nothing about the UNIX intrinsics that *requires* you to do this. >The simplicity and portability of this view is one of the reasons for >UNIX's success. (Along with the fact that AT&T made the sources >available to universities and research institutions very cheaply--at >least in the early days.) UNIX is good example of 1970's technology. Umm, I've seen little evidence that a preference for text files had much to do with UNIX's success in the marketplace. That isn't what made UNIX portable, and the widespread availability of UNIX and its portability probably were the major contributors to its success. >>2) How does he consider these notions "incompatible"? I had the >> impression that the Mac's moral equivalent of the UNIX OS intrinsics > > Trying to build systems which integrate two- (or three-) dimensional >and/or multisensory (e.g., sound as well as sight) concepts on top of >an inherently one-dimensional, textual environment probably result in a >non-standard kludge. For consistency, the basic operating environment >should be built with such concepts assumed as basic elements. The UNIX environment is not "inherently one-dimensional" and "textual". Period. The user interfaces supplied with most UNIX systems may be, but the underlying OS doesn't require that. And what do you mean by "basic elements"? The NeXT machine (and more and more other UNIX machines, these days) offer various tookits for constructing at least two-dimensional visual user interfaces; whether they're considered "part of the operating system" or "part of the window system" is irrelevant. They're present, and that's what counts.
dorourke@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU (David M. O'Rourke) (11/02/88)
In article <485@wucs1.wustl.edu> conrad@wucs1.UUCP (H. Conrad Cunningham) writes: >To some extent Jobs has bet his company on college "hackers." The >approach worked by accident with UNIX. It was somewhat successful by >intention with the Macintosh. Maybe it'll work with the NeXT cube, too. From what I heard Jobs has people working above the "college hacker" level. Also college hackers aren't necessarily bad. I also would give the Macintosh a little more than "successful by intention". After all there are more Mac II's than sun workstations out there {according to MacUser a biased source I'll grant you}. The scuttle but going around the valley is that Jobs looked for and got some of the best people in the industry to work for him, many people took significant pay cut's as well, just to be able to work on such a machine. Also I'd be willing to bet that Kernighan & Ricthe {sp??} would object to being called "college hackers". Lets try and pull out of the "it's from Jobs, therefore I'm not allowed to like it mode." -- David M. O'Rourke dorourke@polyslo.calpoly.edu "If it doesn't do Windows, then it's not a computer!!!" Disclaimer: I don't represent the school. All opinions are mine!
guy@auspex.UUCP (Guy Harris) (11/02/88)
>> Does he mean what small set of routines you might think of as "user >> interface" routines are in the OS intrinsics set? Well, the NeXT >> machine comes with a window system toolkit, just like the Mac, so >> you're not stuck with "printf". > >Umm.... is that windowing toolkit part of Mach or does it just exist >in that fancy interface? Who cares? If I can write programs that use it, I don't give a damn what the name of the library is. It's probably not part of the Mach *kernel* (i.e., the part running in privileged mode, and probably wired down), which is a Good Thing. >To get back to the previous poster's comment about Unix being >text-oriented... weren't the tty driver, sh and csh all written with >ttys in mind? "Okay, you say ... we just remove the sh and csh and >tty driver and replace them with a new kind of interface that handles >mice and bitmapped screens, but keep the kernel relatively intact." > >Sounds good. Is this what NeXT is doing or are they going the route >of Sun Microsystems, where every window interface they've built so far >was built to run on top of the shell? Kindof a kludge if you ask me. I'm not sure what you mean by "to run on top of the shell". If you mean "you can run them from the shell, yeah, but so what? "shelltool" and "cmdtool" are NOT the only window system tools that come on Suns. The Network Software Environment (or whatever it's called) has a graphic interface; it also has a command-line interface for people who don't like graphic interfaces. There are also other applications available for Suns - and other workstations - with graphic interfaces. >What NeXT and the world needs is a true windowing shell to replace the >tty-style shells. Yes, that might be nice, although "replace" is wrong; try "supplement". I don't know that anybody's constructed a graphical shell that *all* users of the more traditional user interfaces would consider an adequate replacement. (As I understand it, various Xerox workstations have had command-line interfaces, at least in the development environments used inside Xerox.) >Also, if mice and bitmapped screens had been around in those days, >then Unix might have seen lightweight processes a lot earlier to >support those more intelligence and complex interfaces. So? Does the Mac have lightweight processes? Yes, they're nice to have (BTW, Mach has them), but I don't know that they're a *prerequisite*. >> The main potential difference I see is that the Mac has zillions more >> applications than the NeXT box *currently* has. However, I don't see >> that UNIX makes it impossible to write the same kind of applications, > >Hey... remember the first Macintosh? The big problem was that there >were virtually NO applications for the machine. No one wanted to >write any for a machine that was aimed "for the rest of us" with Big >Blue already well entrenched. Umm, Big Blue's machine didn't have boatloads of applications when it first came out, either. I don't see the point you're trying to make here. >There are few windowing applications for Unix perhaps because the Unix >kernel doesn't support a standard interface. The fact that "the UNIX kernel" - by which you presumably mean "the lump of code stored in files with names like "/unix", "/vmunix", etc. - doesn't have a standard window system interface is a Good Thing. That stuff tends to be wired down, and is harder to replace and harder to debug than user-mode code. >Vendors would have to either package their own windowing systems with >the applications or sell their own windowing systems and hope someone >adopts them. You mean like e.g. X11? I think it stands a chance of becoming a standard part of most UNIX offerings.
bzs@encore.com (Barry Shein) (11/02/88)
From: conrad@wucs1.wustl.edu (H. Conrad Cunningham) >In article <4391@ubc-cs.UUCP> manis@grads.cs.ubc.ca (Vincent Manis) writes: >> ...Basically, the >>issue for `revolutionariness' is not the operating system, but the under- >>lying physical architecture. ... >>... >>It's clear that the leverage we need for truly revolutionary applications >>comes from massively parallel systems, either loosely coupled (in a network) >>or tightly coupled (e.g., Transputers or the Connection Machine). ... > > I have no disagreement that wide-scale availability and usage of >massive parallelism is one of the potential revolutions somewhere over >the horizon. Innovative computer and communications architectures and >designs must play a big part in that revolution. However, without >devising new ways to exploit the parallelism on a wide-range of >problems, all the fancy parallel hardware won't be so revolutionary. >The revolution will be as much--maybe moreso--a "software" revolution >than a "hardware" revolution. New languages, operating systems, >tools, theories, methodologies, algorithms, and/or techniques are >needed. First off, consider the company I work for (and also note I was saying the same as I am about to say before I came here a few months ago, don't confuse cause and effect.) The problem with both of the above comments is that they are making the "best" the enemy of the "good". I have no doubt that all of the above coming true will make massive parallelism more useful, but to some extent this whole line of reasoning is a thought virus, something which infects your thinking about a new idea and renders your thoughts nearly useless. Non-massive parallelism is here *today* in completely useful packaging. Why does something as simple as knowing that while your compile is running in the background your foreground is running on a different CPU so response remains flat. Also, with several CPUs, things like compiles of lots of files can speed up at least linearly (at least seems odd until you realize how efficiently the buffer caches and shared text segments can get used during parallel compiles, they're not only cpu bound but use a lot of disk resources as well.) Also, traditional unix pipes like: lastcomm | sed mumble | sort -u | wc -l will run in parallel on 4 (in this case) CPUs. There are a lot of other examples, like I said, don't make the best the enemy of the good and say "Ah, computers are useless, no one has even solved the halting problem yet!" which is what a lot of this moaning and groaning sounds like. -Barry Shein, ||Encore||
wald-david@CS.YALE.EDU (david wald) (11/02/88)
In article <484@wucs1.wustl.edu> conrad@wucs1.UUCP (H. Conrad Cunningham) writes: >In article <13148@oberon.USC.EDU> tli@sargas.usc.edu (Tony Li) writes: >>In article <471@wucs1.wustl.edu> conrad@wucs1.wustl.edu (C.Cunningham) writes: >>> He maintained that the NeXT computer will be a failure because >>> it not revolutionary enough. Its only advantage is a short-term >>> hardware capability/pricing advantage over the other available >>> UNIX-based workstations. >> >>I recall that Sun Microsystems failed for exactly these same reasons. > >There are perhaps two different dimensions of success that I was >talking about: (1) commercial success and (2) having a revolutionary >impact on computing... ... >But Sun's revolution began several years ago. Another company >taking the same approach today probably wouldn't be revolutionary even >if they have some measure of commercial success. > >Is NeXT revolutionary? Will NeXT change the computing in some >significant way? But the original statement was that the NeXT machine "will be a failure because it is not revolutionary enough." What does it mean for the computer to fail? Does it mean that the computer will not be a commercial success (which was my original interpretation), or that it will not "change computing in some significant way?" Revolutionary enough for what? ============================================================================ David Wald wald-david@yale.UUCP waldave@yalevm.bitnet ============================================================================
manis@faculty.cs.ubc.ca (Vincent Manis) (11/03/88)
In article <4069@encore.UUCP> bzs@encore.com (Barry Shein) writes: >There are a lot of other examples, like I said, don't make the best >the enemy of the good and say "Ah, computers are useless, no one has >even solved the halting problem yet!" which is what a lot of this >moaning and groaning sounds like. I have a great deal of respect for Barry, but I think he's under a misapprehension about my original remarks. Basically, what I intended to say is that the NeXT machine doesn't seem tremendously technologically revolutionary (though definitely nice). It will, however, reach an audience which has never had access to this sort of heavy-duty computing capability before. What they'll do with it I don't know, but it will certainly bear watching. The PC is an excellent example of this sort of thing. When the PC was released in 1981, the dominant machine was the Apple ][. This machine, however, had the cachet of being a toy (you could play games on it). The PC was marketed as a serious business computer, though it was in fact a glorified Apple ][ (it even had a cassette port). Suddenly, a lot of people had PC's on their desks, and they started using them for all kinds of applications. Technologically, the PC is boring. However, its wide availability led to all kinds of applications being developed, and to a tremendous lowering of prices. The PC led to increased credibility of microcomputers, and therefore set the stage for the Mac (itself a revolutionary machine). I don't know whether the NeXT machine will be revolutionary in this sense. A lot will depend upon the fortunes of the company, and how their customers use the machine. I do however wish them well. ____________ Vincent Manis | manis@cs.ubc.ca ___ \ _____ The Invisible City of Kitezh | manis@cs.ubc.cdn ____ \ ____ Department of Computer Science | manis%cs.ubc@relay.cs.net ___ /\ ___ University of British Columbia | uunet!ubc-cs!manis __ / \ __ Vancouver, BC, Canada | (604) 228-2394 _ / __ \ _ "In the U.S.S.R., newspapers all print the same thing because ____________ the government tells them to. American newspapers all print the same thing even though the government doesn't tell them to."
henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) (11/04/88)
In article <7092@potomac.ads.com> jtn@potomac.ads.com (John T. Nelson) writes: >What NeXT and the world needs is a true windowing shell to replace the >tty-style shells. "Replace"? How do you propose to replace the shell's programmability with a windowing shell? That's been the big stumbling block in the past. As far as I know it's an unsolved problem. It's easy enough to build something that will suffice for most interactive use; making it useful for shell programming is orders of magnitude harder. >Also, if mice and bitmapped screens had been around in those days, >then Unix might have seen lightweight processes a lot earlier to >support those more intelligence and complex interfaces. By previous standards, Unix processes *are* lightweight! -- The Earth is our mother. | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology Our nine months are up. |uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu
bzs@encore.com (Barry Shein) (11/04/88)
I agree with Vincent's apprehensions. What would probably be revolutionary would be an inexpensive home computer who's forte is setting up home-brew usenet/e-mail links between households. Something like an Atari/ST or PC/Klone with a 2400b modem and a 100MB disk with a "just pick a site name and a neighbor" software set-up. It doesn't have to be fast. It could probably be done for around $2000 list or less. Centralized service machines could then be built around this. I suppose FIDOnet was an attempt at that, perhaps someone from that culture could comment on its current status? The important distinction from services like CompuServe is that a significant amount of the computing would go on in the households. What do other people think would be revolutionary in a personal computer? -Barry Shein, ||Encore||
bob@allosaur.cis.ohio-state.edu (Bob Sutterfield) (11/05/88)
In article <1988Nov3.192722.647@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes: >In article <7092@potomac.ads.com> jtn@potomac.ads.com (John T. Nelson) writes: >>What NeXT and the world needs is a true windowing shell to replace >>the tty-style shells. > >"Replace"? How do you propose to replace the shell's programmability >with a windowing shell? That's been the big stumbling block in the >past. As far as I know it's an unsolved problem. The programmability issue may be better addressed by some of the work on visual metaphors for programming constructs, like pipes that are drawn on the screen as pipes, with tees and valves and everything. Dataflow programming (like on the Evans & Sutherland PS300 of yore) has always been easier with a graphical editor (like PIGS) to move functional units and interconnections hither and yon. Perhaps NeXT will provide a rich enough prototyping environment that some of this sort of thing will someday come to the UNIX masses. It would be hard to draw a picture to represent some of the convoluted logic in some of the uglier shell scripts around. -=- Zippy sez, --Bob Being a BALD HERO is almost as FESTIVE as a TATTOOED KNOCKWURST.
kaufman@maxzilla.Encore.COM (Lar Kaufman) (11/05/88)
In article <4090@encore.UUCP> bzs@encore.com (Barry Shein) writes: >I agree with Vincent's apprehensions. > >What would probably be revolutionary would be an inexpensive home >computer who's forte is setting up home-brew usenet/e-mail links >between households. Something like an Atari/ST or PC/Klone with a >2400b modem and a 100MB disk with a "just pick a site name and a >neighbor" software set-up. It doesn't have to be fast. It could >probably be done for around $2000 list or less. Centralized service >machines could then be built around this. I suppose FIDOnet was an >attempt at that [ material omitted ] > >What do other people think would be revolutionary in a personal >computer? > > -Barry Shein, ||Encore|| Fidonet *is* sort of an attempt at that, and it does work OK. There are circa 4500 Fidonet nodes at this time; largely in the US, but with significant membership in Canada, Holland, and Australia as well. Fidonet has its problems, primarily because of a rather loose mail identification scheme which causes messages to be much longer than they need to be (Fidonet messages get SEENBY lines attached as they pass around the net, so they get ever larger) and because someone has to compile a master nodelist. This task is handled by the International FidoNet Association (IFNA) and the nodelist is updated weekly. Unfortunately only about 7 percent of Fidonet sysops are members (pay the $25 yearly dues), so there is a kind of suppressed irritation on the part of the IFNA board of directors toward those who do not contribute but want to use the nodelist. This sporadically breaks into running battles and schisms; currently there are several other Fidonet-compatible networks operating. This fragmentation is hurting the ideal goal of direct convenient access between systems. I don't know what you would consider revolutionary about Fidonet *other* than the concept. A revised mailing system, necessarily incompatible with the current system, is the likely answer as far as personal computer networks. Possibly something like the UFGATE software which bridges the gap between UUCP systems and Fidonet systems is on the right track. Using it, personal computers can behave like UUCP addresses, and still access Fidonet as well. I will be trying this out myself. Getting back to the NeXT, given appropriate software and a color board, I think the NeXT is the ideal personal system. It could be the beginning of the use of visual interfaces for inter-computer communications; this conjures up cyberpunk concepts, ala William Gibson's _Neuromancer_. I have to agree that for a home computer to reach its potential it must radically open up information access to the user. I think most of the necessary hardware is in place, although if a lot of imaging information starts flooding the telephone system at 9600 bps or better you will quickly realize that the communications infrastructure is the real bottleneck. -lar Lar Kaufman <= my opinions /* Now speaking to you from the */ /* virtual center of the universe. */ Fidonet: 1:322/470@508-534-1842 kaufman@multimax.arpa {bu-cs,decvax,necntc,talcott}!encore!kaufman
peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) (11/05/88)
In article <4090@encore.UUCP>, bzs@encore.com (Barry Shein) writes: > What do other people think would be revolutionary in a personal > computer? How about fast TV-quality graphics, hi-fi sound, a real-time multitasking operating system that's actually easy to use, NTSC-compatible output, a decent CPU (non-segmented with a large address space), for around $1000? This would make it a great game machine, of course, but it'd be more than that. With the graphics and a CPU capable of directly addressing a lot of large bitmaps it'd make a great animation/video machine. With the hi-fi sound you could accompany them with music. With multitasking Usenet support would be relatively easy. You couldn't easily make it totally UNIX-compatible since fork() requires an MMU to run at a decent speed, but decent stdio support and the ability to build real pipelines would make a decent sh-clone work well enough. People's recent fascination with integrated applications would fade in the face of an integrated environment. It'd be... a baby NeXT. Nah... that can't be revolutionary. After all, it's already been done. And it's not taken over the market. I guess technical excellence just isn't that important after all. -- Peter da Silva `-_-' Ferranti International Controls Corporation "Have you hugged U your wolf today?" uunet.uu.net!ficc!peter Disclaimer: My typos are my own damn business. peter@ficc.uu.net
bzs@encore.com (Barry Shein) (11/05/88)
From: bzs@encore.com (Barry Shein) >What would probably be revolutionary would be an inexpensive home >computer who's forte is setting up home-brew usenet/e-mail links >between households. Er, after that computer worm which just hit the Internet perhaps I should reconsider that... "You can always spot the pioneers, they're the ones with the arrows in their backs!" -- ??? -Barry Shein
sac@well.UUCP (Steve Cisler) (11/07/88)
Barry, I think that you described a platform that is revolutionary once it becomes easier to administer distributed systems such as Usenet or Fidonet (which is doing quite well, in terms of sites but the internal politics has been stressful). I'd guess that the 386 boxes in late '89 will be easier to run. Though it runs on a Mac, Harry Chesley's HyperBBS was the kind of easy-to-use system (setup time: 45 minutes+-) that could spread everywhere, assuming Mac prices were lower. The comms toolbox for the Mac os should give us ease-of-use for EZ networking software, but the prices won't be as low as 386 clones which will be the backbone of most grass roots efforts. Steve Cisler Connect: Libraries & Telecommunications Box 992, Cupertino, CA 95015 (408) 973 3258
dave@micropen (David F. Carlson) (11/09/88)
In article <4429@ubc-cs.UUCP>, manis@faculty.cs.ubc.ca (Vincent Manis) writes: > In article <4069@encore.UUCP> bzs@encore.com (Barry Shein) writes: > >There are a lot of other examples, like I said, don't make the best > >the enemy of the good and say "Ah, computers are useless, no one has > >even solved the halting problem yet!" which is what a lot of this > >moaning and groaning sounds like. > > I don't know whether the NeXT machine will be revolutionary in this sense. > A lot will depend upon the fortunes of the company, and how their customers > use the machine. I do however wish them well. > > ____________ Vincent Manis | manis@cs.ubc.ca Something on NeXT that I have seen so I'll say it: Note that Apple's successes (and therefore arguably Job's) have not been from the rev I machines. Every see an Apple I or even an Apple II? No, the real success was the Apple II+ (which is still being sold in a slightly different form today.) Similarly the Mac was an anemic toy when first released: tiny little B&W screen with 128K memory with no possibility of expansion. I was really the MAC II that made the Mac viable for anyone who needs a real machine. I have no reason to doubt that this machine for "academia" is just the Apple I for NeXT. Its the NeXT II+ that I'm waiting for: the machine for the rest of us. -- David F. Carlson, Micropen, Inc. micropen!dave@ee.rochester.edu "The faster I go, the behinder I get." --Lewis Carroll
mfi@beach.cis.ufl.edu (Mark Interrante) (11/09/88)
>In article <4429@ubc-cs.UUCP>, manis@faculty.cs.ubc.ca (Vincent Manis) writes: >Note that Apple's successes (and therefore arguably Job's) have not been >from the rev I machines. Every see an Apple I or even an Apple II? No, >the real success was the Apple II+ (which is still being sold in a slightly >different form today.) Similarly the Mac was an anemic toy when first >released: tiny little B&W screen with 128K memory with no possibility of >expansion. I was really the MAC II that made the Mac viable for anyone who ^^^^^^ >needs a real machine. >I have no reason to doubt that this machine for "academia" is just the >Apple I for NeXT. Its the NeXT II+ that I'm waiting for: the machine ^^^^^^^^ >for the rest of us. Just for historical accuracy, it was the mac+ with 1mb, hardisk port, and updated ROMS, that push the MAC into the "real"machine catagory. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mark Interrante Software Engineering Research Center mfi@beach.cis.ufl.edu CIS Department, University of Florida 32611 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- "X is just raster-op on wheels" - Bill Joy, January 1987
snoopy@sopwith.UUCP (Snoopy T. Beagle) (11/10/88)
In article <4069@encore.UUCP> bzs@encore.com (Barry Shein) writes: |The problem with both of the above comments is that they are making |the "best" the enemy of the "good". On the other hand, one needs to be careful and not mistake some handy piece of garbage for "good" and make it the enemy of the truely good. There is altogether too much of that happening. The trick is to determine what one can accomplish, avoiding both the over-optimistic blue-sky ideas and the under-optimistic stuck-in-the-mud ones. I suspect that there are a lot of Jobs worshippers out there, who were expecting something more than what he is delivering. NeXT *is* a nice step forwards. It is not perfect. There are things I would have done differently. If nothing else, "NeXT" is painful to type, and is ugly to boot. :-) _____ /_____\ sn00py /_______\ |___| tektronix!tekecs!sopwith!snoopy |___| sun!nosun!illian!sopwith!snoopy
clp@beartrk.UUCP (Charlie Pilzer) (11/10/88)
>In article <4429@ubc-cs.UUCP>, manis@faculty.cs.ubc.ca (Vincent Manis) writes: > Its the NeXT II+ that I'm waiting for: the machine for the rest of us. Will the 'NeXT I' name be changed to the PReVIOUS? :-)
jtn@potomac.ads.com (John T. Nelson) (11/20/88)
>> I have no reason to doubt that this machine for "academia" is just the >> Apple I for NeXT. Its the NeXT II+ that I'm waiting for: the machine >> for the rest of us. Can anyone at NeXT comment on their plans for future machines if any? -- 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 Shar and Enjoy!