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