🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <5305@prls.UUCP> gardner@prls.UUCP (Robert Gardner) writes:
>Other than SYSTAT we have been unable to find anything that will plot
>3-dimensional data (hidden line removal, rotations, contour plots, etc.).
>This lack almost scuttled our proposal to purchase a reasonably large no.
>of Macs for technical use. Anyone seen anything?
>
>Another product that would be useful would be a package of GKS-style
>graphics subroutines (similar to DISSPLA) for use in MPW. Of course, a
>lot of this is supplied by the Mac Toolbox, but support for plotting
>data in 2- and 3-dimensions would be useful.

Have you thought of leaving the bulk of the work on the host and using the
Macs for graphic terminal emulation to produce the required plots.  A terminal
emulator like Versaterm PRO allows Tek4014 and 4105 emulation with ability to
zoom and capture diagrams as MacDraw type pictures.  This allows a great deal
of flexibility and finding something host based that produces Tek style output
is probably pretty easy.  Of course, if you don't have a "host", forget it.

>Although the technical market gets ignored a lot by Mac publishers/
>developers, with Apple trying to push the Mac II into the technical
>market, I hope things start to change. (I wonder how the Mac II can
>face the onslaught of DEC, Sun, and Apollo, though. Their prices are
>now so low for volume purchasers that they were almost price-competitive
>to our purchase of Mac SE's!! Software was lacking, though. Anyway,
>that's another story for another message...)

Buyer beware, personal views follow:

The way I see it so far; Sun/Apollo/DEC? workstations are nice machines, but
the software is the killer.  Those companies appear to be heavily discounting
now that they don't fully run the market and the low end machines are edging
into the picture.  But the so called "low end" machines still enjoy low end
pricing of their software.  Since a software budget can easily eclipse a
hardware budget, for any machine, it still doesn't make economic sense to
go with the so called "high end."  After all, the software doesn't really
matter.  The hardware doesn't really matter.  Getting the job done is what
matters.

Now, I'm probably about to start a war of epic proportions so let me just
remind everyone that this is comp.sys.mac and if you have comments, mail them.

Now, people will say, what do you about expensive software.  They'll say that
they *give* you UN*X on every machine.  I look at that and say that's the
problem.  UN*X belongs in the backend, not on the workstation.  The
workstation is a user interface engine and shouldn't be bogged down with
running UN*X.  All it needs is great graphics and support routines in ROM
and a streamlined kernel (preferably with multitasking) to manage
user interface resources.  Sounds a lot like a Mac (as soon as they work out
the multitasking).

So, what do I see as today's big challenge?  Not to turn everyones workstation
into a general purpose computer.  Not to share the job among many workstations
acting as general purpose computers.  The challenge is to share the job among
many dissimiliar machines, allowing each machine to do what it does best.
And right now, it looks like the Mac is best suited to meet the challenge.
-- 
"The value of knowledge lies not in its accumulation,        Howard C. Simonson
   but in its utilization."    E. Green                      amdahl!howard

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