Conference hydra::amiga_v1

    Press KP7 to add to your notebook.

    
    See RAINBO::FLG:[WASSER]MACINTOSH note 2072.10 for a brief summary
    of the NeXT machine.
    
    I've seen conflicting prices, but I think the real price is more
    like $11,000.  The $6500 price is only for universities, where the
    machine is being strongly marketed as a next generation Unix
    workstation.  In fact, at first, the machine will ship only to
    universities.
    
    I'd say that the NeXT machine has virtually no effect on the Amiga,
    which I consider to be a high-end home computer or low-end
    graphics/video machine.  The NeXT could really put the hurt on the Mac
    II, where it could have a clear cost/performance advantage.  And don't
    you think that would make Jobs very happy?
    
    I would hope that a next-generation Amiga would be more interesting
    than Jobs' offering.  If you consider how advanced the Amiga was,
    architecturally, over the competition (128K Macs and 64K Pee Cees) in
    1985 than the NeXT doesn't seem quite as revolutionary.  There ARE
    numerous innovations, however.
    
    Ed.
    

    Here's what you get for $6500 (student discount).  Sounds like a
    good deal!  This is what the next Amiga should be, but with a COLOR
    monitor of course !!  If you have not seen this machine (it is totally
    black, the cpu box is a 1x1 foot cube with a slot in the front for
    the OptDisk <look really ugly there>.)

    
<courtesy of the Vogon News service>
VNS TECHNOLOGY WATCH:                           [Mike Taylor, VNS Correspondent]
=====================                           [Nashua, NH, USA               ]

         Next Machine to Feature 300MB Erasable Optical Disc Drive

    The long-awaited Next Inc. computer system is scheduled to debut
    October 12, in San Francisco.  Sources close to Next said that it
    will include a 300-MB erasable optical disc drive developed jointly
    by Next and Sony Corp. Sources at Sony and Next could not be reached
    for comment.  Other features  to be included:

	o  Mach operating system kernel, Display Postscript and X Window 
	   in ROM
	o  25-Mhz Motorola 68030 microprocessor
	o  A monochrome, 17" gray-scale monitor with 1,280 x 960 pixel 
	   resolution
	o  3.5", 1.44 MB floppy disk drive
	o  4 MB of RAM, with 1.25 dedicated to video
	o  Floating-point and array coprocessor chips
	o  Ethernet, SCSI, serial, MIDI communications ports (among others)
	o  A built-in 9,600-bps modem
	o  Four 32-bit bus slots
	o  The Objective C compiler from Stepstone Inc. of Sandy Hook, CT
	o  A programmer's toolkit, including functions similar to the Mac 
	   toolkit plus sophisticated graphics, animation and sound-handling 
	   (in ROM)
	o  A copy of Mathematica for simplified advanced mathematics
	o  An optional compact laser printer
	o  An optional color graphics card still under development by 
	   Pixar, the graphics computer firm Jobs purchased from filmmaker 
	   George Lucas.

    Developers who have seen the product say that its built-in
    development  software is one of the company's greatest breakthroughs.
    {INFOWEEK Sept 9, 1988 pg 5}
    {Contributed by MISG}

    I enter .3, prematurely.  Some of the information are incorrect
    (i.e. X-windows in ROM).  The following is extracted from the Macintosh
    notes file 2072.10:
    
From: redell (David Redell)               
Date: 12 Oct 1988 1919-PDT (Wednesday)
To: lytton, wrl, wsl, wse
Cc: redell
Subject: Trip report: NeXT Introduction
 
 
I went to the NeXT extravaganza this morning at Davies Hall. It was
pretty interesting, both as an event and because of the machine they
announced.
 
Steve Jobs was, naturally, the star of the show. He began with a fairly
simplistic pitch about the ten year lifecycle of any computer architecture,
why it peaks at five years and how it then goes into a "glide slope"
into eventual decline. He claimed that the Mac will peak in 1989,
and that NeXT is defining the architecture for the 1990s, which should
peak in 1994-95. (He also said something about why NeXT should be able
to avoid the glide-slope effect, but it didn't make any sense to me.)
 
After reading the ad from this morning's WSJ, he talked about the
needs of the university market: Unix (esp good networking and true
multitasking), great user interface technology, 5 MIPS, at least 8
MB RAM, at least 100 MB disk, Display Postscript, 1 megapixel, sound,
open architecture, laser printing and a small, cool, quiet package.
Not too surprisingly, turns out to be a good description of what they
have built.
 
One of the main things they focused on was sufficient memory bandwidth
(around 35 MB/s) and the ability to parcel it out to concurrent demand
streams. In addition to the processor/cache and display/VRAM, they
have 12 DMA channels. This (and a lot of other stuff) is done using
a pair of big custom CMOS chips, reducing the total chip count of
the machine to 45. Memory is on SIMMs, with a minimum system of 8 MB
and a maximum of 16 MB (64 MB when 4Mb chips arrive). The standard
machine also includes a floating point coprocessor and a digital signal
processor, which was characterized as 10 MIPS (whatever that means).
The DSP is used for speech, music, image processing, encryption, FFTs,
etc. It also does most of the work of the 9600 baud modem and some
kind of FAX port. The sound output is CD format (2 channels x
16 bits x 44.1 KHz.) There is a built-in ethernet controller (and
thinwire transceiver, I assume). All of this comes on one medium size
board, which mounts vertically in the 12" cubical cabinet. There are
four slots total, so three are free for expansion. The backplane is
a modification of the NuBus, speeded up to 25 MHz (implemented using
another custom CMOS chip, which they plan to sell to 3rd parties for
$25). There are two slots on each side of the cube, and in the middle,
there is space for two full-height disk drives. The power supply is
in the bottom. The base configuration includes a 256 MB erasable optical
disk; the cartridge looks like a CD sealed in a slightly oversized
"jewel box" and sells for $50. There are optional 330 and 660 MB hard
drives that connect through a 4MB/s SCSI port. They cost $2000 and
$3000, respectively.
 
The gray-scale display is 1 M pixels x 2 planes. Connected to it are
the keyboard and two-button mouse. On the back of the display are
all the other connectors (stereo sound, microphone, headphones etc.)
It has exactly one cable coming out of it, which carries video,
key/mouse events, all sound channels, and power from the cube.
 
The above emphasizes some lessons they seem to have learned from the
Macintosh experience:
 
  1) Closed systems just don't fly
  2) Tiny displays are unacceptable
  3) Your smallest configuration will haunt you forever
  
Regarding 1, they have paid a lot to keep the system open.  Since
they use one big card and wanted all slots identical, they had to
make both the box and the power supply much bigger. Just what might
end up in slots 2-4 isn't clear, but judging from what they crammed
into slot 1, you could get an awful lot into that 12" cube!
 
Regarding 2, they had a cute demo, in which they simulated a 9" Mac
screen on theirs and then expanded out to full size. During this,
there was the interesting gesture of acknowledging that the Mac was
based on ideas pioneered at Xerox PARC. Not clear whether this gesture
should be seen as a tip of the hat to Xerox or a kick in the shins
to Apple.
 
Regarding 3, they seem to be willing to force the early customers
to spend more so that later in life, software developers won't feel
hobbled by the "least common denominator" effect (e.g.  128K Macs).
On the other hand, for what they force you to buy, they asking a pretty
low price. To university customers, the base machine costs $6500.
You can't get much Mac II for that kind of money...
 
Their laser printer is distinctly smaller than a Laserwriter. It's
based on a Canon engine and connects directly to the cube. It combines
the low cost of direct wire interconnect with full Postscript capability
(which is all done in the cube). The thing costs only $2000. It prints
at 400 dpi, which almost doubles the areal density and is claimed
to give clearly visible improvement. (I didn't see any output.) For
compatibility, it will print at 300 dpi, which Jobs referred to as
"draft mode". To use it as a network print server, you currently need
a cube with it to handle the Postscript, etc. Perhaps a bundled print
server configuration will come out later.
 
They showed a movie about their automated assembly line, which they
say produces the boards literally untouched by human hands. They had
snazzy looking video/laser scanners controlling robot arms for
pick-and-place, unattended soldering for both surface mount and
through-hole components, and so on. I don't know much about the state
of the art in this area, but the movie made it all look pretty
impressive.
 
The software is based on Mach, NFS and Display Postscript. They program
in Objective C, and provide an applications environment called NextStep.
This consists of their own window package, a pair of tools called
Interface Builder and Connect (similar to Luca's DialogEditor) and
a library of objects and interactors which can be plugged together
to build an application. (Of course, you would typically need to code
up some new objects of your own in Objective C). The window system
does a *very* effective job of using the grayscale and halftoning
to give an almost tactile 3-D feel to the windows. There are little
beveled edges and pretty icons everywhere that provide a very "warm"
feel to the whole thing. You can drag fully painted windows (not just
outlines) around the screen in real time. It also has pop-up/tear-off
menus, a nice icon "docking" facility, etc. The trash can has been
replaced by a black-hole icon.
 
Perhaps the biggest news about NextStep is that they have licensed
it to IBM. (This was rumored, of course, but then so was the idea
that the machine was made of magnesium, or that it had X-Windows in
ROM.) This is a clear bid to draw more application developers into
the pool. What it will really mean in the long run (wrt presentation
manager, etc) is hard to say.
 
Of course, availability of application software will ultimately
determine the fate of the machine and the company. They seem to see
Unix compatibility as important in initial sales, but claim that "once
you see NextStep applications, you'll never want to run old Unix
applications again". To increase the attractiveness of the new system,.
they are bundling a large amount of software in the base price:
 
  Mach (incl NFS, and TCP/IP)
  Display Postscript
  NextStep (Window system, UI building tools)
  Mathematica
  Franz CommonLisp
  Objective C
  SyBase SQL Server database
  Unix compatible mail program (Postcard-like)
  WriteNow (basic word processor)
  Music synthesis software
  Digitized sound software
  Digital Library (Merriam Webster dictionary/thesaurus, Oxford
    Dictionary of Quotations, complete works of Shakespeare, etc.)
  (and probably one or two other things I've forgotten...)
 
They demonstrated several applications, and all the software seemed
to perform well. Of course, they are undoubtedly still in tapdance-
through-the-minefields mode. They did *not* allow any hands-on usage
of the running machines displayed in the lobby.
 
To close the event, they had a Bach duet played by the NeXT machine
(on synthesized harpsicord) and a violinist from the SF Symphony. It
was a nice touch, very much in keeping with the tone of the morning,
which seemed distinctly off to one side from the nerds-to-businessmen
axis that Apple has traversed over the years.
 
Dave
 
------- End of Forwarded Message
 
 
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    Posted w/o permission, hope you don't mind, Dave.

    There's also an active discussion in ASIMOV::MARKETING.  hit KP7,
    etc.

    Of what use is 1 megapixel of 4 shades of gray (actually, black,
    white and two shades of gray)?  2 bit planes?  *2* bit planes?!?!!!
    
    len.
    

    Maybe it's not 2 bit planes; it just says 2 planes.  Maybe the two
    planes are a byte/pixel each.  
    Tom

    The long descriptions in the MACINTOSH and ASIMOV::MARKETING notes
    file say that the "4 gray level shading is used effectively to make
    displays almost three-dimensional."  What little I've seen of this
    machine on TV shows rendering that looks quite nice at a distance.
    Given the visually pleasing display of the Macintosh, it would not
    be surprising at all if the display looks good by design.  Given
    the hefty software in the Mac ROM, and the digital signal processor
    in the Next machine, it would not be surprising at all if they do
    stuff like dithering and other shading algorithms as standard.
    
    BTW, the Thursday _Wall Street Journal_ has a nice summary article
    on the machine, the company, and Jobs.  Vaporware dept.:  they're
    not shipping until next June (?!).
    
    Wes

    how about monochrome 1008x800 with 2 planes (isn't that what the Hedley
    Amiga monitor is supposed to have?)  Does this mean CBM can start
    advertising the Hedley + A2000 as a NextJr?  :-)
    
    -Dave

RE: .9


    how about Hedley + A2000 as almost next? ;-)

 	-SES

Bear in mind that to many people, color is for toys, and real works
takes place on a nice, SHARPLY FOCUSED flicker-free monochrome tube.

This is, of course, the bottom line reason why I suffer with an Atari-ST
and TOS rather than enjoy the many benifits of the Amiga's OS.

To me, the NEXT sounds like GREAT home computer.  The thing's got a 9600
baud modem (okay, it uses the DSP and software) included in the BASE PRICE.
BBoard systems will never be the same again.

(Of course, Next is TEN TIMES the cost of my Atari system.)

I'm not sure if this is what they had in mind, but with 2 bits/pixel,
it becomes possible for a NEXT to do smooth animation in a window, by
writing pixels in the off-plane between animation frames, and hitting
the color map once during the next vertical retrace. Animation in a
window is not possible with fewer than two bitplanes.

I wonder if they have window-specific color maps?

    	Excuse my pessimism, but I'm not really impressed with the NeXT
    at all.  I LIKE color graphics, and that's one of the reasons I
    bought my Amiga.  Granted, the NeXT comes with a lot of things built
    into it, but at $6500, it couldn't POSSIBLY be aimed at college
    students.  And this is the DISCOUNT price?  Yes, $6500 is a TERRIFIC
    deal for what you get, which is a noticeable improvement on current
    computers, but I know VERY few students who could even think about
    afforded a computer like that.  It would be a wonderful computer
    for a group purchase,  but I think it is going to end up just like
    the MAC II at my University.  A lot of Ahs, Oohs, and "Sorry, can't
    afford it until after college" remarks.  So, I don't see this monster,
    as good as it may be, as being serious competition for the Amiga.
    If I want that kind of ability, I'll go buy a VAX or something.
    :-)
    
     - Chris
    
    * Please excuse me if I'm wrong.  It's quitting time, and I'm tired.
    

    re .-1
    
    According to another long article on NeXT that's been making its way
    around the net, NeXT is aimed at the higher education market, but not
    necessarily at students.  As you pointed out, they're too expensive
    for students, so you'd expect to find them in shared-resource areas,
    not in dorm rooms. 
    
    Also according to this article, NeXT's target is a $3000 workstation.
    
    - Z

    maybe it's just me, but doesn't NeXT seem like overkill for most
    university applications?  At $6500 it seems like a great buy, but
    what if you only need to spend $1000-$3000 to get the job done?
    Can you justify the extra $3500 because it's a neat toy you've
    just got to have to do your research?  :-)
    
    -Dave

    Apart from the r/w CD-ROM (CD-RAM?) what's the big deal?  As someone
    said earlier the Amiga architecture was revolutionary when it appeared.
    The Next architecture seems rather ordinary.  I mean, what Jobs
    has done is to graft existing technology together (albeit in a nice
    way).  I'm still waiting for someone to explain why this approach
    is the next generation, and why it will avoid the 'glide-slope'
    of approaching obsolescence.

    Those who speculated earlier about the cost of the Next box outside
    universities are wasting their time.  Jobs announced at the launch
    that the Next will ONLY be available for the U.S. UNIVERSITY MARKET!
    The rest of us, apparently, can go to buggery.

    Two or three articles about the NeXt machine in todays VNS....
    
    				Alan T.
    
    
    
 Next - Come comments/info about its first machine
   And some don't even consider it a breakthrough machine. "Frankly, I'm
 disappointed," says William H. Gates, the founder of Microsoft Corp. "Back in
 1981, we were truly excited by the Macintosh when Steve showed it to us
 because when you put it side-by-side with another computer, it was unlike
 anything anybody had seen before" because of its distinctive graphics. But
 with regard to the Next computer, he says, "In the grand scope of things, most
 of these features are truly trivial." Although Microsoft develops popular
 programs for Apple and IBM personal computers, Mr. Gates says there's "no
 way" he will have his programmers write software for the Next anytime soon.
 "Steve is going to talk revolution in the computer business, but unfortunately
 you'll find more similarities than differences between his machine and other
 workstations," adds Mr. Joy of Sun Microsystems, probably Next's main
 competitor. "And some of the differences that glitter now may well tarnish in
 a while." Next's Japanese vendors, who sell the company everything from chips,
 monitors and laser-printer engines to a pioneering removable optical-disk
 storage device, have granted the company open terms of payment. Even though
 Next has yet to ship a computer, Tandem Computer Inc. has virtually donated
 much of the equipment that Next is using to set up an information-systems
 department powerful enough for a company with broad-based channels of
 distribution. consultants and other vendors say they grant Next deep
 discounts - as much as 50% off - in return for the free publicity that
 supplying the company generates. "The idea appears to be to seed the nerds and
 enthusiasts and let them make the computer look good, much like hobbyists
 transformed the original Apple II into a broadly popular machine," says David
 Grady, who publishes the Grady Report, a newsletter on computers in education.
 "Once it's established in the universities, they can take it into the
 mainstream." Mr. Jobs is betting that the Next computer, which he contends is
 much easier to program than personal computers or other workstations, will
 make a big splash right away. According to John P. Crecine, one of three Next
 directors and the president of the school of information at Georgia Institute
 of Technology, the company hopes to ship between 25,000 and 30,000  computers
 after deliveries to customers begin next year. (Next will ship some to
 software developers late this year.) Assuming that Next charges the full
 $6,500 prices, its revenue will approach $175 million if those sales targets
 are met. Judging from the interest shown by university officials who have seen
 the machine, Next won't have much trouble selling it initially. The crucial
 operating-system software called MACH came from outside Next. So did many
 features of the computer's slick look and feel. And so did much of the
 applications software bundled with it, such as the mathematics program and
 programming languages.
	{The Wall Street Journal, 13-Oct-88, p. A1}

 IBM - Licenses software from Next, Adobe Systems and Stepstone
   IBM, as expected, said it has licensed some of the software inside the Next
 machine. IBM hopes the Next software will make it easier to program and use
 IBM technical workstations. That is a market in which IBM has lagged, but is
 planning a big push to gain new ground. Like Apple's Macintosh, the Next
 software lets a user execute complex commands by pointing to visual symbols on
 a screen. IBM said it also licensed software by two other companies whose
 programs are used in the Next system: Adobe Systems Inc. of Palo Alto, Calif.,
 and closely held Stepstone Corp. of Sandy Hook, Conn.
	{The Wall Street Journal, 13-Oct-88, p. A16}

 Next - Software programmers embrace Next
   "The Macintosh was a revolution, but software developers paid the price,"
 Steve Jobs told 3,000 people at Davies Symphony Hall Wednesday. "It's a bear
 to develop software for the Mac," said Jobs, who led the Macintosh development
 team at Apple. Jobs touched a sympathetic cord when he addressed the
 programmers in the audience, saying his new computer eliminates the most
 time-consuming task facing Macintosh software developers: tailoring software
 to the computer's sophisticated user interface. Software programmers won't
 have the same problem with the Next computer since that step has been
 eliminated. That revelation won applause from programmers. Jonathan Seybold,
 president of Seybold Publications Inc., which publishes newsletters on desktop
 publishing, said the computer's "ground-breaking" technology will dramatically
 reduce the time it takes to develop new programs. "It could cut that time in
 half, depending on the complexity of the program," he said. The technology,
 called NextStep, won the endorsement of IBM, which plans to offer the software
 with future computers. Esther Dyson, editor of Release 1.0, an industry
 newsletter published in New York, said the IBM pact will motivate software
 developers to write software for the Next machine. Adobe Systems Inc. has
 already put its stamp on the new machine. Its Display Postscript software is
 incorporated in every machine and allows the computer to display graphics and
 text more accurately on the screen. Other companies have also embraced the
 new machine. Frame Technology Corp., a 2-year-old San Jose, Calif., firm,
 plans to introduce professional publishing software for the Next computer in
 mid-1989. The Next computer includes a variety of software that comes
 "bundled" with the machine, at no extra cost, including a computer language
 known as Allegro Common Lisp, which is sold by Franz Inc., a young Berkeley,
 Calif., firm. Another company that has software packaged with the Next
 computer is Sybase Inc. of Emeryville. It is providing database software.
 David Liddle, chairman of Metaphor Computer Systems, a Mountain View, Calif.,
 company, and a pioneer in user interface technology, said Next's computer is
 going to "catch the current software development community by surprise."
	{The Nashua Telegraph, 14-Oct-88, p. 9}
    

    OK.  I give up.  Just WHAT is it about the NeXT interface that allows
    easier programming?
    
     - Chris
    

Re: .19

>Just WHAT is it about the NeXT interface that allows easier programming?

As far as I can tell, I believe Jobs is claiming the system is easier
to program because all of the software is "object oriented."  The
interface to the system software is designed for Objective C, one of
the two object oriented variations of the C language (the other is
variation is C++).

Objective C is follows the dynamic binding philosophy of Smalltalk.
C++ has more static bindings, and generally runs faster.  C++ is
probably the far more popular of the two languages.

By the way, Apple now uses object oriented programming to write all
of their stuff.  Don't know why Next thinks its object oriented
programming is better than Apple's.

The NEXT development environment includes a user interface editor,
similar in concept, I would imagine, to the resource editors available
for the Atari-ST that I've seen and used.  For classes of applications
where the user interface is static, these tools will greatly speed the
time it takes to develop the user interface to an application, something
that, with all this fancy graphics and menus, can take a long time with
justy ordinary programming.

Of course, if you can get it for the Atari, it can't possibly be TOO
revolutionary.

    re .20, .21
    
    So, all this amounts to is that Jobs is just boasting about integrating
    several useful, but longstanding software and model packages into
    his computer.  That's fine.  It's a nice "idea."  (This kind of
    thing has been done before)  But I wish he wouldn't call it new
    or revolutionary.  I just can't see myself paying an extra $3000
    for the extra stuff.  I expected much more from Jobs.
    
     - Chris
    

    
    I remember reading a comparison between the Amiga and Mac system
    routines in BYTE a few years back.  The author, who had programmed
    both systems, praised the Amiga for it's wealth of built in tools.
    
    Speaking as a non-programmer, I had difficulty relating to any of
    this, but the author presented, in flow chart format, what was required
    in each system to open a window and scroll some text.  (I think
    that was the example given; anyone remember?)
    
    The gist was that it took a lot more work on the programmer's part
    to make the Mac do things.  What was essentially one or two steps
    with the Amiga took a dozen or so different steps on the Mac.
    
    As an occasional Mac user, I wonder about this, since the Mac simply
    blows the Amiga away in neatness of it's interface.  Apparently,
    programmers put in a lot of sweat to make it happen.
    
    I suspect that NeXT has provided a wealth of easy ways to program
    the interface.  I can't wait to see one work, but I guess I'll have
    to.
    
    Ed.

Re: .23

>    The gist was that it took a lot more work on the programmer's part
>    to make the Mac do things.  What was essentially one or two steps
>    with the Amiga took a dozen or so different steps on the Mac.

That is true.  The Mac's windowing system was designed for a 128k machine
with no possibility of adding memory (Apple originally believed that
adding more memory was a great evil).  They designed their windowing system 
to use as little memory as possible, and to force the application to
do all the work.

When you click on a Mac window, the application must pop the window
to the front, and redraw from scratch any parts of the window that
was previously hidden.

On an Amiga, all of that entire operation would be handled by the
system without the application ever finding out.  The system save
a copy of any piece of a window that is obscured, and can restore
an obscured piece of a window by just doing a memory copy using the
blitter.
    
>    As an occasional Mac user, I wonder about this, since the Mac simply
>    blows the Amiga away in neatness of it's interface.  Apparently,
>    programmers put in a lot of sweat to make it happen.

Part of the problem is that the Amiga provides painless compatibility with
older paradigms for the user interface.  With the Amiga, you can open
a window as a file using the filesystem, and treat it as a
more or less VT100 compatible terminal.  A lot of Amiga programs fall
down on the user interface because you can take a random program
for a character cell terminal and run it in a window with no changes.

With the Mac, you would suffer just as much writing a character
cell terminal program as a snazzy gadget loaded program.  Since you
basically have to do a redesign anyway, you might as well do the
job right.

Writing a Mac-like program for the Amiga is easier that writing a
Mac-like program for the Mac.  However, writing a Unix-like program
for the Amiga is easier that writing a Mac-like program for the
Amiga.

    re: a lot of sweat
    
    that could be the secret.  I've seen some amazing stuff done on
    computers I regard as brain dead because their OS didn't offer
    functions to do reasonable things easily.  It appears that 
    programmers are basically lazy --- if the OS will do most of the
    work for you, why bother doing anything different.  If you have
    to write your own routines to twiddle the bits, why not make it
    look better while you're doing that.
    
    I remember reading an interview with the author of PAWN in a ST
    magazine.  The author complained about how hard it was to program
    the Amiga version because the operating system didn't support 
    screens that dropped down from the top.  It only had support for
    pull up/down screens.  Guess they had to do some programming instead
    of just making OS calls :-)
    
    -Dave
         

Newsweek has a cover story on Steve Jobs introduction of the NeXT machine.
It also has some neat pictures of the beast.


John

    re .26 - Yep, and the really obnoxious thing about the cover article
    is its assertion that Jobs has "put the fun back into computing".
    
    What sort of network connection (if any) does this "revolutionary"
    machine have built into it?
    
    len.
    

    re .27
    
    	The NeXT machine has a thin-wire Ethernet.
    
    
    	Also the R/W Optical disk is NOT CD-ROM compatible. I was at
    DECUS and DEXPO last week and saw the same drive on a UVAX.
    DEC with the help of 3rd party vendors "has it now".
    
    		Steve Peters
    		

    Steve Jobs will present NeXT at the next BCS general meeting, Nov 30, 
    7:30, at Symphony Hall.  

    - Z