🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <5649@nosc.NOSC.MIL> Moose@nosc.NOSC.MIL writes:
> Does anyone invision the floppy drives that ship with NeXT's to be  
> replaced with128MB EO's(3.5")??  I know that the cost per MB is  
> cheaper than floppies, and the drives are much faster than regular  
> floppies(28ms).
> 

These drives are already available -- in black cases too -- for anyone who  
might need them.  There is no reason why NeXT should manufacture their own.

As for replacing the floppies with them, it's not a good idea.  The original  
NeXT internal optical was too expensive for software distribution, even at the  
original $50/disk price.  And most software companies don't need 128 MB of  
storage (no to mention 256 MB) to distribute software -- I mean how much clip  
art, examples, etc... do you want to stuff into Illustrator, Mathematica,  
etc...?  Unless you want to distribute an entire OS, but NeXT is using CD-ROM  
for that purpose, and CD's are smaller, lighter, more durable and hold about  
600 MB!  A 128 MB device, although faster, would fail because of these same old  
reasons:

1) Expensive media -- several 1.44 MB floppies @ $0.50 each can do the job.

2) Expensive drive -- Raises the price of a NeXTstation by at least $1000.

3) File sharing & interplatform compatibility -- everyone uses floppies.

4) Demand -- not everyone needs such a high capacity removable storage device.

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Eskandar Ensafi   |   esky@marathon.cs.ucla.edu