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SCaNeWSSCaNeWSSCaNeWSSCaNeWSSCaNeWSSCaNeWSSCaNeWSSCaNeWSSCaNeWSSCaNeWSSCaNeWSSCaNeWSSCaNeWSSCaNeWSSCaNeWSSCaNeWSSCaNeWSSCaNeWSSCaNeWSSCaNeWSSCaNeWSSCaNeWSSCaNeWSSCaNeWSSCaNeWS Southern California NeXT ™ Users Group VOLUME 1, NUMBER 4 SCaNeWS ©1991 Newsletter MAY 1991 All Rights Reserved After a six-week absence, SCaN and SCaNeWS are should consider contacting Lighthouse and con- back. SCaN meetings have moved to a new night, tinuing this valuable service. the first Tuesday of every month, in an coordinative effort with SNuG (the San Diego NeXT User Last month’s well-attended meeting featured a Group) to attract a greater variety of speakers to the NeXTstation Color Computer demonstrated by Southern California NeXT community. This Rick Jackson of NeXT: all of those Scene images month’s SCaNeWS is a little shorter than some of its and movies we’ve all grown accustomed to in gray- predecessors, to leave room for this month’s supple- scale took on a new vibrancy in 4096 onscreen col- ment, a tutorial on Interface Builder and Object-Ori- ors. With a high probability that the ented Design in the NeXTstep Environment. This NeXTdimension board will be demonstrated at the tutorial was presented by Mike Mahoney at this May meeting at UCLA, we can expect to be dazzled year’s ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors yet again. in Computing Systems to an international audience, and we’re pleased to be able to include it as an ap- If you would like to host a SCaN meeting at your lo- pendix to this month’s newsletter. cation, contact one of the SCaN officers. MAY INTRO NeXT Introduces NeXTedge . 2 Lorraine Rapp CONTENTSNeXT Ships 8000 CPUs in [email protected] First Quarter . .2 Also included in this month’s issue is a press release Bang Bits: Excerpts from the concerning NeXTedge, a new customer support pro- CONTENTS April Bay Area NeXT User gram; info on NewsGrazer, a nifty graphical inter- Group Meeting . 4 face to rn available via anonymous ftp (invaluable OFF THE NET for navigating high-traffic groups like CONTENTS NewsGrazer . 5 comp.sys.next!); an update to the ongoing FAQ; and The End of the Big Green Disk? . .5 excerpts from the April Bay Area NeXT User Group Spring 1991 NeXT on Campus . .6 meeting. Of special note is a plea from Lighthouse CONTENTS Design for an interested party to carry on the tradi- Updates to FAQ . 9 tion of the Big Green Disk, a compilation of all the SCaN and SCaNeWS information . .10 best public domain and shareware software avail- CONTENTS able for the NeXT. Any individual or organization SUPPLEMENT: with some extra time and an Internet connection Interface Builder and Object-Oriented CONTENTS Design in the NeXTstep Environment NeXT Press NeXT equipment, as well as a "Motorola has a very successful menu of additional service op- history servicing UNIX systems," tions, support products and educa- said Carol Dickson, vice president tion courses. marketing and sales for Motoro- la's Field Service Division, head- "The trend in the computer indus- quartered in Dallas. "We are very NeXT INTRODUCES try is for vendors to take greater pleased to be adding NeXT to our NeXTedge: responsibility for post-sales ser- program." COMPREHENSIVE vice and support through all chan- SERVICE, SUPPORT, nels," said Paul Vais, director of NeXT Computer, Inc. designs, TRAINING PROGRAM NeXTedge at NeXT. "We decided manufactures and markets profes- Motorola Will Provide Hardware to take responsibility one step fur- sional workstations, which com- Service ther, to offer our customers ser- bine the power and networking of vice, support and training that is today's most advanced worksta- REDWOOD CITY, Calif., April 4, as innovative and high-quality as tions with the ease of use and pro- 1991 NeXT Computer, Inc. today NeXT computers themselves. ductivity applications of today's announced NeXTedge, a program With this goal in mind, we created best personal computers. NeXT's that encompasses all NeXT's NeXTedge." professional workstation systems hardware service, software sup- promise to enhance the way port and customer education. Motorola Agreement groups of people work together in In March, and as part of the NeX- the 1990s. NeXT is headquar- NeXT also announced that it has Tedge program, NeXT expanded tered at 900 Chesapeake Drive, signed an agreement with the its existing partnership with Mo- Redwood City, California, 94063. Field Service Division of Motoro- torola to include service of NeXT la Inc.'s Computer Group under computers. The two companies NeXT SHIPS 8,000 CPUs IN which Motorola will be NeXT's have a long, established relation- FIRST QUARTER preferred service provider in the ship: NeXT shipped the first Makes NeXT One of Leading U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico, computer to be powered by Mo- Professional Workstation Ven- with primary responsibility for torola's 68040 microprocessor, dors providing hardware service to and all NeXT computers also in- NeXT's direct customers. corporate Motorola's 56001 Digi- REDWOOD CITY, Calif., April 4, tal Signal Processor (DSP) chip. 1991 NeXT Computer, Inc. today NeXTedge will enable customers Under the auspices of NeXTedge, announced that it shipped 8,000 to obtain support and service from Motorola's nationwide network of NeXT CPUs during the first quar- wherever they purchase their field engineers will provide hard- ter of 1991, which ended March NeXT equipment: directly from ware service for NeXT customers. 31. It was NeXT's first full quar- NeXT or through a value-added Motorola has approximately 450 ter shipping its new line of work- reseller (VAR), dealer or other field engineers at 150 U.S. and 6 stations. distribution channel. NeXTedge Canadian locations, who have (continued on next page) provides a one-year warranty ser- been trained in hardware and vice that is bundled with all UNIX systems since 1981. SCaNeWS• 2 • NeXTPress Professional Workstations Unlike other workstation vendors, Professional workstations repre- NeXT has a wide assortment of (continued from previous page) sent a rapidly emerging new cate- breakthrough productivity appli- gory of UNIX workstations. cations, such as Lotus Improv and All of NeXT's shipments were Professional workstation users re- WordPerfect (both shipping now). into the professional workstation quire the power, networking and These applications are superior in category, making NeXT one of multitasking capabilities of UNIX functionality to, but compatible the leading vendors in this seg- workstations, but also need a with, their versions on other plat- ment. Professional workstations, computer that runs personal com- forms. They also have the ability unlike traditional scientific/tech- puter-like productivity applica- to read files by other spreadsheet nical workstations, are UNIX tions and is easy to use. These and word processing vendors, workstations designed for non- users work in areas such as pub- thus making them compatible technical users. lishing, financial services, enter- with 80 percent of the installed tainment/advertising, medical and base of software. Lastly, NeXT is "In our first full quarter shipping legal services, government and the only computer company fo- the new systems, we think NeXT higher education. cusing on interpersonal comput- has nearly matched market leader ing, with built-in, easy-to-use Sun in shipments to the profes- Customers in non-technical fields electronic mail that allows every- sional workstation segment," said generally purchase workstations one in an organization to use Steven P. Jobs, president and CEO rather than personal computers voice, text and graphics to keep of NeXT. "Customers are begin- for three reasons: to develop mis- each other informed. ning to grasp the benefits of sion-critical custom applications; NeXT's concept of 'UNIX for to run networking-intensive in- NeXT's family of professional mere mortals' and they like what stallations; and to run more pow- workstations comprises the they see." erful versions of productivity NeXTstation and NeXTcube, applications than are available for which began shipping in Novem- Comparing NeXT's first quarter personal computers. In time, ber 1990; NeXTstation Color, 1991 with other vendors' most re- NeXT believes, they will also de- which began shipping on March cently reported sales, NeXT tied mand greater interpersonal com- 12; and NeXTdimension, due to with Digital Equipment Corpora- puting capabilities to increase be available to customers in May. tion in the overall workstation group productivity and collabora- NeXT's first quarter shipment market. In the professional work- tion. numbers do not include the two station category, NeXT ran a close color products. All four systems second to market leader Sun Mi- NeXT computers have the tech- are based on Motorola's 68040 crosystems. nology that commercial users are microprocessor. seeking as they migrate to work- Sixty percent of NeXT's sales station technology. NeXTstep, Distribution were to customers in business and NeXT's graphical user interface One of NeXT's challenges in 1991 government and 40 percent were and application development en- is to structure its distribution strat- to universities. More than 30 per- vironment, offers the most power- egy to match the quality of its cent of NeXT's 8,000 CPUs were ful and easiest to use environment products. In the first stage of this sold internationally to customers for custom application develop- program, NeXT is rapidly ex- in Europe and Asia. NeXT coor- ment. NeXT's systems also pro- panding its dealer base in the dinates its European activities vide