Technology: Soul of The Next Machine

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The design of the machine is equally advanced. Most of the serious hardware is encased in a 1-ft. cube that can sit on the floor, leaving only the keyboard and a streamlined monitor to clutter a desktop. Yet the cube packs plenty of power. To bolster the performance of its main microprocessor, the top-of-the-line Motorola 68030, Next added one chip that specializes in fast numerical computations and a second one to handle sound and music.

For customers who would use the machine for desktop publishing, Next offers a Display PostScript system in which the image on the computer screen precisely matches what will appear on the printed page. For musicians, language students and other users who may want to record or transmit voice messages, the machine comes equipped with a microphone that can convert a sound into bits and bytes and then reproduce it with uncanny accuracy.

For programmers, the computer tries to marry two important software technologies: the Unix operating system favored by scientists and engineers and the user-friendly screen displays popularized by the Mac. Other companies have also painted over the complexity of Unix's commands with easily understood screen images, but Next goes further. It provides programmers with a set of graphic tools dubbed NextStep that allows them to build their own snazzy screen displays without having to write a line of code. The programmer simply selects images from a palette of prefabricated components and drops them into place, a feature Jobs claims could cut the time it takes to write software by a factor of ten.

Not everyone is bowled over by the machine. William Gates, chairman of Microsoft and champion of a competing software system, declined to attend the unveiling. "That would be lending too much credibility," he sniffed. "There's nothing revolutionary about it." Another software developer points out that Jobs has been associated with as many commercial failures as successes, including the ill-fated Apple III and Lisa machines.

Next does face some difficult hurdles. Last week it still lacked several features that had been promised in its advance publicity, including a color screen, a built-in facsimile machine, a high-speed modem and the ability to display video images from a television or VCR. Moreover, its $6,500 price tag is more than twice what Jobs predicted, even though it may prove to be competitive. Most troubling is that after three years of development, the computer's main system software is still not ready for release to the general public, and is not likely to be ready for six to eight months. That delay will ^ give competitors -- notably Apple and Sun -- time to deliver new or improved machines.

But for now Next has captured the hearts and minds of some influential people. Says Shaffer: "It's the kind of computer that will excite programmers. They will want to work on this machine." In this business, making a computer with soul may be half the battle.