Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!husc6!cs.utexas.edu!ut-emx!juniper!chari
From: chari@juniper.uucp (Christopher Michael Whatley)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: Comments on NeXT.
Message-ID: <5022@juniper.uucp>
Date: 29 Sep 88 05:46:12 GMT
References: <9291@swan.ulowell.edu>
Reply-To: chari@juniper.UUCP (Christopher Michael Whatley)
Organization: Austin UNIX Users' Group, Austin, TX
Lines: 52

In article <9291@swan.ulowell.edu> rsilvers@hawk.ulowell.edu (Robert Silvers) writes:
>
[Speculation on optical disk feasability]

Who knows?
>
>     I would also prefer a seperate monitor.  What happens when I want
>to add a color display?  I have to either have it external, or have a 
>dealer swap them (with an official NeXT display, not my choice of after-
>market ones.) 

Have you seen the box? Is it one piece? I was really hoping to use my current
Sony 19" that I have on my Mac II right now. I can't imagine getting a grayscale
monitor of that size and resolution for much cheaper than it is. If you want
color on it, you have to buy the Pixar card anyway. If it is a one piece, then
you'll have to have two monitors.

>		 He is able to control the price and profits by making it
>hard for others to market monitors for it.  What about when I want to 
>upgrade X-Windows?  I cant simply get a copy of the new version, I have
>to buy the official NeXT ROMS.  15 Megs of ROMS + dealer markup= $$$.

I don't think upgrading will be a problem. Probably all that is required is to
have the x-server on disk override the ROM version or something. Is the
15 megs of ROM an accurate amount or were you just speculating?

As far as prices and profits, $3500 for a 25Mhz Workstation with UNIX, 4mb RAM,
a large screen display and a 300mb disk is pretty damn cheap. I don't see how
they will make any profit at all! Of course if you are not a student, its 
$6000 but that's still about the price of an SE 2/40 and half the price of
a PS/2 model 70.

>     He learned from the mistakes of the Mac by adding expansion slots,
>but also learned that if you make things like the display and ROMs
>proprietary, you can control the prices.

I think the machine will be kind of a giveaway at this point, so, why worry
about price control and the like. Personally, I would rather install a few
SIMMs worth of ROM that load up 50 floppies or wait two hours for a tape to load
Maybe we will have pop and play unix instead of a need for a guru just to get
the machine up and running.

Note: I have nothing to do with anything and my opinions are mine and nobody
	else's.

Chris
--
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| Chris Whatley | mail chari@juniper.uucp        | "Ever seen the chicken  |
| 512/453-4238  |      chari@killer.dallas.tx.us |  walk?"  -Jeffrey       |
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