Article View: comp.sys.mac
Article #33351Re: NeXT press release (very long but i
From: gillies
Date: Sun, 16 Oct 1988 00:58
Date: Sun, 16 Oct 1988 00:58
23 lines
1560 bytes
1560 bytes
One thing people tend to overlook in PC's and even workstations is a
powerful I/O system. This was a central concept in the first personal
computer, the Alto. Every descendant of the Alto strived to improve
the I/O throughput.
I think it's safe to say that NO pc in the marketplace has a very high
bandwidth I/O system (the kind that can look at back-to-back packets
on the ethernet while simultaneously doing BITBLT's on the screen and
making progress on some tasks). In fact, most vendors take the
opposite attitude -- "We want the system to be extremely cheap, so all
I/O will be done in software, and bottlenecked by the main CPU".
Apple is notorious for this -- it allows them to fix their design
mistakes with new ROMs.
If the NeXT really delivers such a muscular I/O system without kluges,
then I'm completely sold on their architecture. This may be the
biggest hidden innovation in their machine.
Don Gillies, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Illinois
1304 W. Springfield, Urbana, Ill 61801
ARPA: gillies@cs.uiuc.edu UUCP: {uunet,ihnp4,harvard}!uiucdcs!gillies
Technical Details
Message-ID:
<76000296@p.cs.uiuc.edu>Path:
arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!uwvax!oddjob!tank!uxc!uxc.cso.uiuc.edu!a.cs.uiuc.edu!p.cs.uiuc.edu!gilliesReferences:
<5423@juniper.uucp>Show Full Headers
Complete Article Headers
Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!uwvax!oddjob!tank!uxc!uxc.cso.uiuc.edu!a.cs.uiuc.edu!p.cs.uiuc.edu!gillies From: gillies@p.cs.uiuc.edu Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac Subject: Re: NeXT press release (very long but i Message-ID: <76000296@p.cs.uiuc.edu> Date: 16 Oct 88 00:58:00 GMT References: <5423@juniper.uucp> Lines: 23 Nf-ID: #R:juniper.uucp:5423:p.cs.uiuc.edu:76000296:000:1092 Nf-From: p.cs.uiuc.edu!gillies Oct 15 19:58:00 1988