alexis@ccnysci.UUCP (Alexis Rosen) (10/21/88)
Keywords:
Here is some info on the NeXT machine. It should be taken as the gospel truth
[no :-) ] since it comes direct from NeXT. Let me note in advance, though, that
I DON'T speak for NeXT. I just happen to have gotten hold of some of their
documents.
The Optical drive is a true read-write drive. It is NOT a WORM/harddisk combo.
There is 30% extra space on the disk for sparing out tracks. It does NOT use
the SCSI port. It has a custom connection to the Optical Storage Processor chip
(OSP), which has two of its own DMA channels to the ICP chip. The OSP has two
buffers which are in use simultaneously for input and output, and some
enormously powerful ECC stuff built into it in a way that does not introduce
delays into the system. When shipped, software will allow copying disks on a
one-disk system, though it doesn't yet.
[ The following is not from NeXT, but appears to be reliable: 96ms average
access, 3000 rpm (i.e., like a winchester, not a floppy), and a fast-seek mode
which compensates fairly well for the 96ms aat.]
The SCSI controller is a next-generation (no kidding...) chip which support 4.8
MBYTES/sec. (can you say mainframe channel speeds?) Of course, I don't think
you can get a SCSI drive which transfers this fast, but that will change...
The ICP (Integrated Channel Processor) is a 12 buffered channel DMA chip: 2
Ethernet channels 2 serial port channels 1 video channel 1 Laser printer
channel 2 OSP channels (one for SCSI, one for optical) 1 DSP (56001) channel 2
memory channels (for memory-to-memory copy, etc.) That's 11 channels. The
document isn't 100% clear, but I believe the 12th is a second DSP channel. Note
that the BYTE article was slightly wrong about this.
One thing I haven't seen mentioned is the complete package of bundled software.
So far, everybody missed these two: Sybase's SQL database server (!) and
Allegro CL Common Lisp. There are also two specialized database tools: 'Jot',
which is a
'personal librarian', seems to be desined for filing user documents (mail, papers,
notes, etc.), and the 'Digital Librarian', which is a high-power full-text
indexing and retrieval system.
The video display is a two bit plane display. [The greys are probably intended
primarily for anti-aliasing. I am not sure if postscript knows how to do that,
but I assume that NeXT's Display PostScript will. Does anyone know?] [Byte says
that there are 256K of VRAMs for the display. This is not mentioned in NeXT's
document.] The display unit contains chips for producing CD-quality sound on
two line-out jacks and a walkman-style jack. There is a voice-quality sound
input microphone jack on the display and a built-in speaker [anyone know what
kind?].
The Laser Printer is a _custom_ engine which takes Canon-style cartridges. It
can produce either 300 dpi [they call that "draft"] or 400 dpi output. It uses
the main CPU to do the imaging (that's what one of those DMA channels is for).
There are NO controls on the printer, not even a power switch. All that is
handled by the computer. Look on it as a display device that images on paper.
It has an auto-standby feature which save on power and parts life.
All power to NeXT devices goes through a universal power supply. You can plug
these machines into just about any wall current in the world.
--- There's more, but I'm just trying to send stuff that others have missed or
gotten wrong. Hopefully someone here will get a real live machine in a little
while and I can ask some questions instead...
Thanks to Andrew Eisner at MacUser for providing me with the source documents.
----
Alexis Rosen alexis@dasys1.UUCP or alexis@ccnysci.UUCP
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