Manufacturer | NeXT, Redwood City, California |
---|---|
Type | Workstation |
Release date | October 12, 1988 |
Introductory price | US$6,500(equivalent to $16,700 in 2023) |
Discontinued | 1991 |
Operating system | NeXTSTEP, OPENSTEP |
CPU | Motorola 68030 @ 25 MHz, 68882 FPU @ 25 MHz, 56001 DSP @ 25 MHz |
Memory | Shipped with 8 MB, expandable to 64 MB using 4 MB SIMMs |
Storage | 256 MB magneto-optical drive, optional 330 MB or 660 MB hard disk |
Display | MegaPixel 17" monitor |
Graphics | 1120×832, four-level grayscale |
Sound | Built-in speaker |
Input | 85-key keyboard, 2-button mouse |
Connectivity | Ethernet |
Power | 300 Watts, 3 Amperes |
Dimensions | 1-foot (305 mm) die-cast magnesium cube-shaped case |
Successor | NeXTcube |
NeXT Computer (also called the NeXT Computer System) is a workstation computer that was developed, marketed, and sold by NeXT Inc. It was introduced in October 1988 as the company's first and flagship product, at a price of US$6,500(equivalent to $16,700 in 2023), aimed at the higher-education market. [1] It was designed around the Motorola 68030 CPU and 68882 floating-point coprocessor, [2] with a clock speed of 25 MHz. Its NeXTSTEP operating system is based on the Mach microkernel and BSD-derived Unix, with a proprietary GUI using a Display PostScript-based back end. According to the Science Museum Group, "The enclosure consists of a 1-foot (305 mm) die-cast magnesium cube-shaped black case, which led to the machine being informally referred to as 'The Cube'." [3]
The NeXT Computer was renamed NeXTcube in a later upgrade. The NeXTstation, a more affordable version of the NeXTcube, was released in 1990.
The NeXT Computer was launched in October 1988 at a lavish invitation-only event, "NeXT Introduction – the Introduction to the NeXT Generation of Computers for Education" at the Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco, California. The next day, selected educators and software developers were invited to attend—for a $100 registration fee—the first public technical overview of the NeXT computer at an event called "The NeXT Day" at the San Francisco Hilton. It gave those interested in developing NeXT software an insight into the system's software architecture and object-oriented programming. Steve Jobs was the luncheon's speaker.
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In 1989, BYTE magazine listed the NeXT Computer among the "Excellence" winners of the BYTE Awards, stating that it showed "what can be done when a personal computer is designed as a system, and not a collection of hardware elements". Citing as "truly innovative" the optical drive, DSP and object-oriented programming environment, it concluded that "the NeXT Computer is worth every penny of its $6,500 market price". [4] It was not a significant commercial success, failing to reach the high-volume sales of the Apple II, Commodore 64, Mac, or IBM PC compatibles. This was mainly blamed on the computer's substantial price, and the fact that there was not a great demand for the system outside of the higher-education market. The workstations were mainly sold to universities, financial institutions, and government agencies. [5]
A NeXT Computer and its object-oriented development tools and libraries were used by Tim Berners-Lee and Robert Cailliau at CERN to develop the world's first web server (CERN httpd) and web browser (WorldWideWeb).
The NeXT platform was used by Jesse Tayler at Paget Press to develop the first electronic app store, called the Electronic AppWrapper, in the early 1990s. Issue #3 was first demonstrated to Steve Jobs at NeXTWorld Expo 1993.
Pioneering PC games Doom , Doom II , and Quake (with respective level editors) were developed by id Software on NeXT machines. Doom engine games such as Heretic , Hexen , and Strife were also developed on NeXT hardware using id's tools. [6]
NeXT technology provisioned the first online food delivery system called CyberSlice, using GIS based geolocation, on which Steve Jobs performed the first online order of pizza with tomato and basil. CyberSlice was curated into the Inventions of the 20th Century, Computer Science [7] at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. [8] [9]
NeXT, Inc. was an American technology company headquartered in Redwood City, California that specialized in computer workstations for higher education and business markets, and later developed web software. It was founded in 1985 by CEO Steve Jobs, the Apple Computer co-founder who had been forcibly removed from Apple that year. NeXT debuted with the NeXT Computer in 1988, and released the NeXTcube and smaller NeXTstation in 1990. The series had relatively limited sales, with only about 50,000 total units shipped. Nevertheless, the object-oriented programming and graphical user interface were highly influential trendsetters of computer innovation.
NeXTSTEP is a discontinued object-oriented, multitasking operating system based on the Mach kernel and the UNIX-derived BSD. It was developed by NeXT Computer, founded by Steve Jobs, in the late 1980s and early 1990s and was initially used for its range of proprietary workstation computers such as the NeXTcube. It was later ported to several other computer architectures.
IBM PC–compatible computers are technically similar to the original IBM PC, XT, and AT, all from computer giant IBM, that are able to use the same software and expansion cards. Such computers were referred to as PC clones, IBM clones or IBM PC clones. The term "IBM PC compatible" is now a historical description only, since IBM no longer sells personal computers after it sold its personal computer division in 2005 to Chinese technology company Lenovo. The designation "PC", as used in much of personal computer history, has not meant "personal computer" generally, but rather an x86 computer capable of running the same software that a contemporary IBM PC could. The term was initially in contrast to the variety of home computer systems available in the early 1980s, such as the Apple II, TRS-80, and Commodore 64. Later, the term was primarily used in contrast to Apple's Macintosh computers.
OpenStep is an object-oriented application programming interface (API) specification developed by NeXT. It provides a framework for building graphical user interfaces (GUIs) and developing software applications. OpenStep was designed to be platform-independent, allowing developers to write code that could run on multiple operating systems, including NeXTSTEP, Windows NT, and various Unix-based systems. It has influenced the development of other GUI frameworks, such as Cocoa for macOS, and GNUstep.
The Motorola 68000 series is a family of 32-bit complex instruction set computer (CISC) microprocessors. During the 1980s and early 1990s, they were popular in personal computers and workstations and were the primary competitors of Intel's x86 microprocessors. They were best known as the processors used in the early Apple Macintosh, the Sharp X68000, the Commodore Amiga, the Sinclair QL, the Atari ST and Falcon, the Atari Jaguar, the Sega Genesis and Sega CD, the Philips CD-i, the Capcom System I (Arcade), the AT&T UNIX PC, the Tandy Model 16/16B/6000, the Sun Microsystems Sun-1, Sun-2 and Sun-3, the NeXT Computer, NeXTcube, NeXTstation, and NeXTcube Turbo, early Silicon Graphics IRIS workstations, the Aesthedes, computers from MASSCOMP, the Texas Instruments TI-89/TI-92 calculators, the Palm Pilot, the Control Data Corporation CDCNET Device Interface, the VTech Precomputer Unlimited and the Space Shuttle. Although no modern desktop computers are based on processors in the 680x0 series, derivative processors are still widely used in embedded systems.
Lotus Improv is a discontinued spreadsheet program from Lotus Development released in 1991 for the NeXTSTEP platform and then for Windows 3.1 in 1993. Development was put on hiatus in 1994 after slow sales on the Windows platform, and officially ended in April 1996 after Lotus was purchased by IBM.
WorldWideWeb is the first web browser and web page editor. It was discontinued in 1994. It was the first WYSIWYG HTML editor.
NeXTstation is a high-end workstation computer developed, manufactured and sold by NeXT from 1990 until 1993. It runs the NeXTSTEP operating system.
WriteNow is a word processor application for the original Apple Macintosh and later computers in the NeXT product line. The application is one of two word processors that were first developed with the goal that they be available at the time of the Mac product launch in 1984, and was the primary word processor for computers manufactured by NeXT. WriteNow was purchased from T/Maker by WordStar in 1993, but shortly after that, WordStar merged with SoftKey, which ultimately led to its discontinuation. It had a combination of powerful features, excellent performance, and small system requirements.
Microcosm or CERN Museum was an interactive exhibition presenting the work of the CERN particle physics laboratory and its flagship accelerator the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). It first opened to the public in 1990 and closed permanently in September 2022, to be replaced by the Science Gateway in 2023. The final version of the exhibition opened in January 2016, developed by CERN in collaboration with Spanish design team Indissoluble.
Rhapsody is an operating system that was developed by Apple Computer after its purchase of NeXT in the late 1990s. It is the fifth major release of the Mach-based operating system that was developed at NeXT in the late 1980s, previously called OPENSTEP and NEXTSTEP. Rhapsody was targeted to developers for a transition period between the Classic Mac OS and Mac OS X. Rhapsody represented a new and exploratory strategy for Apple, more than an operating system, and runs on x86-based PCs and on Power Macintosh.
Interface Builder is a software development application for Apple's macOS operating system. It is part of Xcode, the Apple Developer developer's toolset. Interface Builder allows Cocoa and Carbon developers to create interfaces for applications using a graphical user interface. The resulting interface is stored as a .nib file, short for NeXT Interface Builder, or more recently, as an XML-based .xib file.
The NeXTcube is a high-end workstation computer developed, manufactured, and sold by NeXT from 1990 to 1993. It superseded the original NeXT Computer workstation and is housed in a similar cube-shaped magnesium enclosure, designed by frog design. The workstation runs the NeXTSTEP operating system and was launched with a $7,995 list price.
Richard Page is an alumnus of Apple Inc. He was an Apple Fellow at Apple Computer in the 1980s, and later joined Steve Jobs at NeXT.
The NeXT Laser Printer [NeXT PN N2000] was a 400 DPI PostScript laser printer, sold by NeXT from late 1988 to 1993 for the NeXTstation and NeXTcube workstations and manufactured by Canon Inc. It included an adjustable paper tray, which enabled it to print on several paper sizes including A4, letter-size, and those of legal and envelope varieties. It was very similar to other printers based on the Canon SX engine, such as the Apple LaserWriter II series and HP LaserJet II/III, although those other printers only printed at 300x300 dpi. Some parts are interchangeable with the LaserJet II/III.
The history of the personal computer as a mass-market consumer electronic device began with the microcomputer revolution of the 1970s. A personal computer is one intended for interactive individual use, as opposed to a mainframe computer where the end user's requests are filtered through operating staff, or a time-sharing system in which one large processor is shared by many individuals. After the development of the microprocessor, individual personal computers were low enough in cost that they eventually became affordable consumer goods. Early personal computers – generally called microcomputers – were sold often in electronic kit form and in limited numbers, and were of interest mostly to hobbyists and technicians.
The Music Kit was a software package for the NeXT Computer system. First developed by David A. Jaffe and Julius O. Smith, it supported the Motorola 56001 DSP that was included on the NeXT Computer's motherboard. It was also the first architecture to unify the Music-N and MIDI paradigms. Thus it combined the generality of the former with the interactivity and performance capabilities of the latter. The Music Kit was integrated with the Sound Kit.
Andrew "Andy" C. Stone is an American computer programmer best known for his iOS app Twittelator, which to date has sold over a million units for the iPhone and the iPad. The founder, director, and principal programmer for Stone Design Corporation, Albuquerque, New Mexico. In his 25 plus year career as a programmer, he has published over 35 software titles for Hypercard, the NeXT workstation, Mac OS X, and for iOS iPhones and iPads. He retired from software development in 2015.
The NeXT Introduction, sub-titled "the Introduction to the NeXT Generation of Computers for Education", was a lavish, invitation-only gala launch event for the NeXT Computer. It was described as a multimedia extravaganza. It was held at the Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco, California on Wednesday October 12, 1988. The event ran from 9:30am till 12 noon. Attendees were all given a unique launch event poster.
Canon Computer Systems, Inc. (CCSI), sometimes shortened to Canon Computer, was an American subsidiary of Canon Inc. formed in 1992 to develop and market the parent company's personal computers and workstations. The subsidiary also assumed the responsibility of marketing Canon's printers and photocopiers, which were formerly sold by other Canon divisions. It went defunct in January 2001.