Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!cornell!batcomputer!itsgw!steinmetz!uunet!sugar!karl
From: karl@sugar.uu.net (Karl Lehenbauer)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Next Machine
Message-ID: <2658@sugar.uu.net>
Date: 20 Sep 88 23:48:51 GMT
Organization: Sugar Land Unix - Houston, TX
Lines: 55

There was a bit in InfoWorld today about Next Inc's Next Machine.  It has 
some stuff I particularly want for my "Next Amiga", which may have to be a 
Next Machine.  Specifically, if the report is true, every Next Machine 
shipped will include a 300 MB read/write/erase optical disk drive.  
They will also contain a 25-MHz 68030 (!), 4 MB RAM, ethernet, SCSI 
and MIDI interfaces, Mach Unix, X-windows and Display Postscript, all in 
ROM. It also comes with a 1220X960 or so gray-scale display, including monitor, 
with a color graphics board being developed by Pixar, which if you've been
really out of touch for a few years and don't know, is a LucasFilm spinoff, 
now at least partially owned by Steve Jobs, that has received tumultous 
acclaim for their computer animation work and markets a dedicated computer 
animation system.  The report indicated that the system includes a lot of 
software to produce animation and other never-before-supported-by-the-vendor-
in-a-general-purpose-system stuff.  I also heard a tantalizing rumor that the 
Next Machine has 16-bit sampled stereo DMA audio with a playback rate of 
something like 44.1 KHz, giving it studio-quality audio capabilities if true, 
and is of particular personal interest.

Steve Jobs reconfirms himself as a great visionary (even if he did blow
it in some ways with the Mac) to have included all that stuff in the base 
system.  The result is that the least-common-denominator machine, the one 
almost all developers have to develop for, has all this blow away stuff 
that one can count on having there in each and every machine sold.  (This 
has been one of the great things about the Amiga, too, in its market, that 
it has all those graphics and sound capabilities in every machine.)  The 
other is that by bundling all that stuff, he gets price breaks on the 
hardware, falling production costs due to the volume, plus lower end user 
costs are since if the stuff were aftermarket items, they'd have to have 
higher margins.

Think of the games!   (1/2 :-)  

The price is $6000, with a 40% educational discount to be available.  While
that clearly prices it far beyond an Amiga, it seems to logically extend a 
lot of the capabilities of the Amiga, has an incredible amount of stuff for
the money, and defines a niche that I would have liked (or would like) to see 
Commodore enter with some kind of "Super Amiga."

A cost comparison to the Mac II was easy, since IW ran an article in the same 
issue about Apple's price increases.  A 4 MB RAM, 40 MB disk, 14 MHz (?) 
68020-based Mac II costs $8100, without a display adapter, monitor or 300 MB 
optical disk, ethernet, MIDI, Unix, software.

As an aside, they have certainly "fixed" Unix; that is, considering Mr. Jobs' 
insistence on user-friendliness, I imagine that have made Unix operation 
really turnkey, (a cheap 300 MB distribution medium helps a lot), including 
invisibilizing and streamlining system administration.

If Next, Inc. can deliver the machine in quantity at that price, they're going
to blow the Mac II, the high-end PS/2s and ATs, and all the Suns and Apollos
right out of the water.

Disclaimer:  I'm just this guy, you know.
-- 
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