Review of the antique computer company NEXT
Everyone knows that the appetite comes with eating, and this is how I have with old computers that I collect and plans to create a real museum sometime.
I had a dream and I wanted to carry it out, get a computer company NEXT. For those who do not know, this company was founded by Steve Jobs, yes, yes, the very one from Apple. He founded NEXT in 1985 when he was fired from Apple. I was always amazed by the fact that in a few years the company was already able to produce its computers and not just some boxes of standard Chinese x86 parts, but their own non-compatible computers with their operating system and software! Their first computer was called
NEXT Computer and had:
- 32-bit Motorola 68030, 25 MHz processor
- 8-64 MB of RAM
- 256 MB magneto-optical disk
- hard drive 330-660 mb
- network
- 17 inch black and white monitor
In the photo below, Steve Jobs and NEXT Computer:
')
The configuration at that time is very powerful, the computer was created first of all for the needs of universities and delivered only to them. I saw on the Internet such a computer labeled as personal mainframe. And so it was, because up to as much RAM as, for example, 64 mb, ordinary pisyuk came only in the other half of the 90s. Yes, and magneto-optical disks in the 80s were very expensive, as well as hard drives. The computer was created from the very beginning with the concept of 3M, this RAM is more than 1 megabyte, performance is at least 1 megaflop and display with a resolution of 1 megapixel (the actual resolution is slightly less than 1120 × 832 pixels, which gives 931,840 pixels, which is still greater than 1024 * 768, the standard resolution of computers since the mid-90s!) But with this configuration, the computer was very expensive, so in 1989 the company took many steps to sell more computers and thus reduce the cost, and in 1990, computers of the new line stupid for sale. They were called NeXTcube and NeXTstation, there were several other varieties of these computers, such as turbo and color, respectively, faster and with color monitors. I want to say that these computers were used by many programmers. So John Carmack wrote such iconic games as Wolfenstein 3D and DOOM, and Tim Berners-Lee created the first web browser and web server.
Since all these computers sold very little, in comparison with other computers, it is very difficult and cheap to get something from NEXT now. I could only find the weakest NeXTstation computer with black and white graphics.
This is how it looked:
And now actually my device. I apologize, I couldn’t take a photo in full beauty because there is no place in the house right now where to put it, but on the floor and against the background of the carpet my heart didn’t allow me to photograph this technique. And so the system unit itself, the form factor
Pizza box, dimensions: 36.5 * 39.5 * 6.5 cm. Quite heavy because the body is made of metal, something based on aluminum. The 17 inch monitor is also very heavy and with a metal stand. When I picked it up (by the way, he came to me in his own boxes!) I immediately noticed the high quality workmanship. The case is made of thick metal, the motherboard is very well made, all the details are neatly soldered, there are no burrs anywhere. Not at all what a new technique.
And so the system unit, front and rear view:
The power supply, immediately universal 110-220 volts, without any switches, as in laptops, then the network, the monitor connector, which is powering the monitor, as well as sound, microphone, and keyboard + mouse interface. The keyboard is connected to the monitor, the mouse is on the keyboard, everything is like in old Macs, but here the input devices are standard, not compatible with other computers. Next on the system unit is some kind of DSP port, now I can’t find it and I don’t remember, but it seems to be for a printer. Then to the left of the serial ports, and the very first to the left, is the SCSI port.
Now we look under the hood:
Immediately striking is the fact that there are almost no cables. SCSI hard drive is worth it so that small cables are connected directly to the motherboard. Further noticeable cable from the drive (which is and power), the wires from the power supply cooler and a few wires from the power supply itself. All finished with wires! I liked how the power supply was made here, it is pressed to the computer case with snaps. And already the computer case is used as a radiator for cooling the power supply. The cooler blows down under the case where it cools it. It turns out that the dust is not collected in the unit, but is blown out, where it is simply to be removed, without the need to climb inside the computer!
Then we have a processor, by the way, I remembered for the configuration of the machine
-Processor: Motorola 68040RC25 - 25 MHz
- Operational memory: 8 mb (8 SIMM30 modules exactly as in 286-386 computers)
-Winchester: 1.7 GB (but big, double height, because old)
-Floppik: 2.88 mb, ejecting diskettes software
I think I will replace the Winchester with a newer one, and I will try to transfer the system with the Norton Ghost prog (as disk to disk), I hope it works.
Here is a photo of the processor and memory:
And this is a keyboard. By the way, an interesting point, the keyboard has a button for turning on and off a computer (and there is no button on the system at all) And there are also buttons for adjusting the brightness and contrast of the monitor, everything is just like on laptops now!
When enabled, a boot sign appears and then the system asks for a username and password, of course I'm sitting as root, I hope the hacker attack is not terrible for me :)
This is what my computer looks like, I have already found and launched a calculator :)
Also in the system were found other programs, some kind of mathematics, where I understood that you can read anything and even draw graphs and figures, probably something like MathCad. Also, some paint was found, a program for drawing flowcharts, network settings, a task manager, through which tasks were successfully killed :)
As well as the great and mightycommand line console. However, I didn’t take anything but ls, although I don’t know much about Unix systems :)
It is also interesting that if you turn on the computer with the hard drive turned off, then we can work in the console that starts immediately with the firmware, you can directly write to the registers and to the memory, very interesting) And when you press the power button, the system will ask what we will do.
I got acquainted with the programs a little, the interface is not very familiar and complex. If you use the program, the menu from it hangs in the left corner of the screen, and the mouse does not move very quickly. In all programs there are a lot of hotkeys, you can see that everything is designed for their great use. I also did not connect to the Internet as my provider wants to bind to the MAC, and I don’t have a router yet.
Also, I have a motherboard from the NeXTcube computer, it is also very well made and when you take it in hand, it does not crunch with plastic like new motherboards, you take it in your hands and you feel the thing!
I also have some books from this computer:
At the expense of the company NEXT, I will say that in 1996 it was bought by Apple, and the developments from NextSteep were further used in OS X systems, and Steve, you all know what he did next.
The network has a website computers NEXT:
http://www.nextcomputers.org/
There are also some videos:
http://www.nextcomputers.org/NeXTfiles/Videos/
Very interesting latest video "The_Machine_to_Build_the_Machines" how to make NEXT computer motherboards
Here is such a reviewer, I hope I did not tire you?
Now the computer is packed and waiting for the best time to please people, like about a hundred of my other exhibits! It’s just the opportunity to place everything beautifully and humanly not now, but I hope it will be!
(I can not transfer to the old iron, there is no karma :()
I had a dream and I wanted to carry it out, get a computer company NEXT. For those who do not know, this company was founded by Steve Jobs, yes, yes, the very one from Apple. He founded NEXT in 1985 when he was fired from Apple. I was always amazed by the fact that in a few years the company was already able to produce its computers and not just some boxes of standard Chinese x86 parts, but their own non-compatible computers with their operating system and software! Their first computer was called
NEXT Computer and had:
- 32-bit Motorola 68030, 25 MHz processor
- 8-64 MB of RAM
- 256 MB magneto-optical disk
- hard drive 330-660 mb
- network
- 17 inch black and white monitor
In the photo below, Steve Jobs and NEXT Computer:
')
The configuration at that time is very powerful, the computer was created first of all for the needs of universities and delivered only to them. I saw on the Internet such a computer labeled as personal mainframe. And so it was, because up to as much RAM as, for example, 64 mb, ordinary pisyuk came only in the other half of the 90s. Yes, and magneto-optical disks in the 80s were very expensive, as well as hard drives. The computer was created from the very beginning with the concept of 3M, this RAM is more than 1 megabyte, performance is at least 1 megaflop and display with a resolution of 1 megapixel (the actual resolution is slightly less than 1120 × 832 pixels, which gives 931,840 pixels, which is still greater than 1024 * 768, the standard resolution of computers since the mid-90s!) But with this configuration, the computer was very expensive, so in 1989 the company took many steps to sell more computers and thus reduce the cost, and in 1990, computers of the new line stupid for sale. They were called NeXTcube and NeXTstation, there were several other varieties of these computers, such as turbo and color, respectively, faster and with color monitors. I want to say that these computers were used by many programmers. So John Carmack wrote such iconic games as Wolfenstein 3D and DOOM, and Tim Berners-Lee created the first web browser and web server.
Since all these computers sold very little, in comparison with other computers, it is very difficult and cheap to get something from NEXT now. I could only find the weakest NeXTstation computer with black and white graphics.
This is how it looked:
And now actually my device. I apologize, I couldn’t take a photo in full beauty because there is no place in the house right now where to put it, but on the floor and against the background of the carpet my heart didn’t allow me to photograph this technique. And so the system unit itself, the form factor
Pizza box, dimensions: 36.5 * 39.5 * 6.5 cm. Quite heavy because the body is made of metal, something based on aluminum. The 17 inch monitor is also very heavy and with a metal stand. When I picked it up (by the way, he came to me in his own boxes!) I immediately noticed the high quality workmanship. The case is made of thick metal, the motherboard is very well made, all the details are neatly soldered, there are no burrs anywhere. Not at all what a new technique.
And so the system unit, front and rear view:
The power supply, immediately universal 110-220 volts, without any switches, as in laptops, then the network, the monitor connector, which is powering the monitor, as well as sound, microphone, and keyboard + mouse interface. The keyboard is connected to the monitor, the mouse is on the keyboard, everything is like in old Macs, but here the input devices are standard, not compatible with other computers. Next on the system unit is some kind of DSP port, now I can’t find it and I don’t remember, but it seems to be for a printer. Then to the left of the serial ports, and the very first to the left, is the SCSI port.
Now we look under the hood:
Immediately striking is the fact that there are almost no cables. SCSI hard drive is worth it so that small cables are connected directly to the motherboard. Further noticeable cable from the drive (which is and power), the wires from the power supply cooler and a few wires from the power supply itself. All finished with wires! I liked how the power supply was made here, it is pressed to the computer case with snaps. And already the computer case is used as a radiator for cooling the power supply. The cooler blows down under the case where it cools it. It turns out that the dust is not collected in the unit, but is blown out, where it is simply to be removed, without the need to climb inside the computer!
Then we have a processor, by the way, I remembered for the configuration of the machine
-Processor: Motorola 68040RC25 - 25 MHz
- Operational memory: 8 mb (8 SIMM30 modules exactly as in 286-386 computers)
-Winchester: 1.7 GB (but big, double height, because old)
-Floppik: 2.88 mb, ejecting diskettes software
I think I will replace the Winchester with a newer one, and I will try to transfer the system with the Norton Ghost prog (as disk to disk), I hope it works.
Here is a photo of the processor and memory:
And this is a keyboard. By the way, an interesting point, the keyboard has a button for turning on and off a computer (and there is no button on the system at all) And there are also buttons for adjusting the brightness and contrast of the monitor, everything is just like on laptops now!
When enabled, a boot sign appears and then the system asks for a username and password, of course I'm sitting as root, I hope the hacker attack is not terrible for me :)
This is what my computer looks like, I have already found and launched a calculator :)
Also in the system were found other programs, some kind of mathematics, where I understood that you can read anything and even draw graphs and figures, probably something like MathCad. Also, some paint was found, a program for drawing flowcharts, network settings, a task manager, through which tasks were successfully killed :)
As well as the great and mighty
It is also interesting that if you turn on the computer with the hard drive turned off, then we can work in the console that starts immediately with the firmware, you can directly write to the registers and to the memory, very interesting) And when you press the power button, the system will ask what we will do.
I got acquainted with the programs a little, the interface is not very familiar and complex. If you use the program, the menu from it hangs in the left corner of the screen, and the mouse does not move very quickly. In all programs there are a lot of hotkeys, you can see that everything is designed for their great use. I also did not connect to the Internet as my provider wants to bind to the MAC, and I don’t have a router yet.
Also, I have a motherboard from the NeXTcube computer, it is also very well made and when you take it in hand, it does not crunch with plastic like new motherboards, you take it in your hands and you feel the thing!
I also have some books from this computer:
At the expense of the company NEXT, I will say that in 1996 it was bought by Apple, and the developments from NextSteep were further used in OS X systems, and Steve, you all know what he did next.
The network has a website computers NEXT:
http://www.nextcomputers.org/
There are also some videos:
http://www.nextcomputers.org/NeXTfiles/Videos/
Very interesting latest video "The_Machine_to_Build_the_Machines" how to make NEXT computer motherboards
Here is such a reviewer, I hope I did not tire you?
Now the computer is packed and waiting for the best time to please people, like about a hundred of my other exhibits! It’s just the opportunity to place everything beautifully and humanly not now, but I hope it will be!
(I can not transfer to the old iron, there is no karma :()
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/169485/
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