I have two main units, two MegaPixelDisplay, two keyboards and two mise.
type Computer
country USA
year 1989
os NextStep
cpu Motorola MC68040
speed 25 MHz
ram 8 MB
graphic 1120 x 832
colors 4 black, white and shades of grey
sound DSP Motorola 56001
ports SCSI, SCSI2 external port, DSP, video putput, NeXT laser printer, RS323 (2), ethernet
The NeXT NeXTstation — The Computer That Birthed the Web
The NeXT NeXTstation, released in 1990 as a more affordable alternative to the original NeXT Cube, was part of the product family that produced some of the most consequential computing achievements of the late 20th century. On October 12, 1988, Steve Jobs introduced the NeXT Computer at San Francisco’s Davies Symphony Hall — a machine that, while commercially disappointing, would prove extraordinarily influential. NeXT shipped only about 50,000 total units across its entire product range, yet the NeXTSTEP operating system that ran on these machines became the foundation of Apple’s macOS, iOS, and every Apple product in existence today.
The World Wide Web — Born on a NeXT
The most consequential use of any NeXT computer was at CERN in Geneva, where British computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee used a NeXT Cube to develop the World Wide Web in 1990-1991. The NeXTcube on which Tim Berners-Lee developed the World Wide Web at CERN also hosted the world’s first web server; the label on the machine reads: ”This machine is a server. Do not power down!” The NeXTSTEP operating system’s object-oriented development environment made it practical to develop the HTTP protocol, HTML markup language, and first web browser in a remarkably short time. Every web page viewed on every device today traces its origins to software written on a NeXT machine.
NeXTSTEP — The Operating System That Became macOS
When Apple acquired NeXT in December 1997 for $429 million — primarily to get Steve Jobs back and to obtain NeXTSTEP — the operating system was renamed Rhapsody and eventually became Mac OS X. The interface paradigms, development frameworks, and architectural principles of NeXTSTEP are directly present in every version of macOS, iOS, iPadOS, and watchOS. The Objective-C programming language developed for NeXTSTEP remained Apple’s primary development language until Swift replaced it in 2014.
The NeXTstation
The NeXTstation was the ”pizza box” form factor alternative to the cube-shaped original NeXT Computer — a flat, horizontal chassis that sat under a monitor and was priced more accessibly than the iconic cube. The NeXT Computer was introduced at a price of US$6,500, while the NeXTstation brought NeXT capability to a broader range of institutional buyers. Using the same Motorola 68030 processor and NeXTSTEP operating system as the cube, the NeXTstation provided the same extraordinary development environment and object-oriented software capabilities in a more conventional desktop form factor.