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- Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
- Path: sparky!uunet!think.com!ames!agate!stanford.edu!leland.Stanford.EDU!news
- From: spagiola@frinext.stanford.edu (Stefano Pagiola)
- Subject: Re: 486's and NeXTSTEP
- Message-ID: <1992Nov11.173406.525@leland.Stanford.EDU>
- Sender: news@leland.Stanford.EDU (Mr News)
- Reply-To: spagiola@frinext.stanford.edu
- Organization: DSO, Stanford University
- References: <kb13877@pro-storm.cts.com>
- Date: Wed, 11 Nov 92 17:34:06 GMT
- Lines: 55
-
- Brian Rogers writes
- > I've often wondered about NeXTSTEP for 486. How much does
- > it cost? Is it affordable for a Joe Schmoe like me? For that
- > matter, hearing you mention NeXTSTEP in the context of fast,
- > LocalBus, ectc. 486's is rather discouraging at times -- My
- > wallet cringes.
- >
- OK. First, price. Nothing has been announced yet. A $1000 price
- was bandied about at one time (ie competitive with other Unix
- offerings like SCO or Solaris), but latest rumors place it lower than
- that. I expect to see it in the $700 range. Before you freak out,
- bear in mind that this includes a whole lot of goodies that you'd
- normally pay extra for. Multimedia Mail. A suite of networking
- software including Netware client software. A variety of apps.
- More.
-
- Second, system requirements. To get good (ie equivalent to NeXT's
- own hardware) performance, you'll need pretty heavy-duty equipment,
- including fast data buses. Getting data to your display in
- particular will be a bottleneck. But to a large extent you can make
- your own price/performance trade-offs. (Dell and some other makers
- will be selling pre-configured systems with NeXTSTEP pre-installed,
- or you can build your own system by mix and matching components).
-
- The bottom line is that this is a very powerful OS, and it requires
- powerful hardware to run on. But make no mistake, if you think
- you'll wait for NT and not have to get the same kind of powerful
- hardware, you're wrong. The only reason all these new OSs can do the
- things they do is by having muscle to back them. Look at Windows
- 3.1; tried running it on a 286 lately? Yeah, it'll run, but you
- wouldn't want to do it every day. Ditto on NT; it might run on 386s
- etc, but it won't be pleasant. Look at OS/2; seen the minimum
- equipment specs? So yes, NeXTSTEP has high system requirements, but
- so will all other top-of-the-line OSs.
-
- Is it affordable? That depends on your budget. Is it worth it? I
- think definitely.
-
- > Or could I run NeXTSTEP and a plain ol' 386DX-33?
-
- You can pick your own performance with NeXTSTEP (ie put a slower
- graphics card, get slower display) but you cannot, repeat, cannot run
- it on 386. Period. It requires a 'true' 486 (ie some cheapo 486
- clones won't work either).
-
- I have a copy of the latest 'Questions and Answers' on NeXTSTEP 486
- that I'll be glad to email a copy of to anyone who requests it.
-
-
- --
- -
- Stefano Pagiola
- Food Research Institute, Stanford University
- spagiola@frinext.stanford.edu (NeXTMail encouraged)
- spagiola@FRI-nxt-Pagiola.stanford.edu (NeXTMail encouraged)
-