Conference 7.286::atarist

272.0. "NeXT - Steve Jobs' 68030 machine" by LDP::WEAVER (Laboratory Data Products) Thu Oct 13 1988 19:54

(...lots of header stuff elminated...)

From: redell (David Redell)
Date: 12 Oct 1988 1919-PDT (Wednesday)
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

    
    
    	...all this, for the price of a Hyundai. With the IBM merger,
    	this could get quite interesting. What amazed me most was the
    	fact that EVERY news media carried the 'event'. Never saw
    	that for a computer before ( although I saw the computer a
    	dozen times max, and saw Jobs the rest).
    
        				Les
    					 \8^)
    

    
    
    	   For those interested in this 'puter, there is now a notesfile
    for it.
    	   It's on SHALOT::NeXT.
    					Les
    					 \8^)