4 ms·

I've got a NeXTstation, AKA "pizza box," the black m68k workstation hardware. There's really nothing special about it electrically other than an onboard DSP. It

by _moof 5y ago

I've got a NeXTstation, AKA "pizza box," the black m68k workstation hardware. There's really nothing special about it electrically other than an onboard DSP. It's a pretty standard 68040-based computer. The case though... gorgeous. Hard to imagine recreating that. Agreed though, the headline is a little odd. I was expecting something akin to that guy who designed and fabbed a new logic board for an SE/30. That would've been a feat, especially since those Motorola processors are so hard to come by now.

andi999 5y ago
Wasn't the casing out of magnesia... I always thought if I get one I will be worried it will go down in a blaze on new years eve if somebody touches it with a sparkler. (I have somehow very specific counter factual worries, since I do not own one)
- mumblemumble 5y ago
  It was a magnesium alloy that turned out to be devilishly difficult to get going in practice. See this article that adolph linked in another comment: https://simson.net/ref/1993/cubefire.html https://simson.net/ref/1993/cubefire.html
  - BoxOfRain 5y ago
    Out of all the things I expected to see today, a very detailed description of the conditions required to set an NeXT cube on fire was pretty near the bottom of the list.
  - jandrese 5y ago
    > "This is so NeXT," I told Sally. "Everything works great in the tests, then when you try to make it work for real, in the field, nothing works. They build a computer out of magnesium, and it doesn't even burn!" LOL
- _moof 5y ago
  It is, yes. Don't take it outside on holidays :)
sixothree 5y ago
Do you happen to know if you can run NeXTStep on vintage Apple hardware or maybe SPARCstations? I have some various IIcx and quadras and sparc 10, 20, etc. Maybe a pizmo macbook?
- johndoe0815 5y ago
  Sparcstation 4, 5, 10 and 20 models (and the Voyager) can run NeXTstep. For the 10 and 20, it depends on the CPU. Sun SuperSPARC modules should work, but Ross HyperSPARC CPUs are not supported. NeXTstep only supports one CPU, additional CPUs are ignored. Later models (UltraSPARC) are not supported, unfortunately there is also no support for earlier SuperSparc Sun 4m (e.g. the LX) or Sun 4c systems. I have a SparcStation 20 with 512 MB RAM and the 24 bit framebuffer RAM expansion, this is a great machine for NeXTstep. If you happen to have an hp PA-RISC machine, some models using the PA7100 CPU (e.g. the "Gecko" 712-series) are also supported and are really nice NeXTstep machines. Vintage Apple hardware does not work with NeXTstep directly, but you can run Rhapsody (essentially NeXTstep for PowerPC with a System 9-like UI) on early G3 Macs. The Motorola 88k-based NRW (NeXT RISC workstation) was unfortunately canceled when NeXT decided to leave the hardware business...
  - NexRebular 5y ago
    Just a while ago installed NeXTSTEP on a HP 9000 712/60 for playing around with the original DoomEd. Runs great except for having not found PA-RISC DooM client binaries or sources for recompiling.
    - johndoe0815 5y ago
      The DoomEd source code seems to be available at https://github.com/DrinkyBird/DoomEd https://github.com/DrinkyBird/DoomEd and it's Objective C code, so I would expect this to compile on NeXTstep/PA-RISC (but I haven't tried). If you don't have a compiler set up on the PA-RISC machine, you should be able to cross-compile or generate a fat binary from ProjectBuilder on NeXTstep/intel.
    - classichasclass 5y ago
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
jjtheblunt 5y ago
omg can't agree more: i sooooo wish i had kept my NeXTstation Color from 1992 just to have its amazing magnesium case. just beautiful mechanical engineering / materials design. also feel that way about my parents' long sold 1969 LawnBoy 2-cycle engine lawn mower, also magnesium, sturdy engineering, and with which i mowed countless lawns as a kid to save money for computer stuff and sports stuff.

by _moof 5y ago

andi999 5y ago

Wasn't the casing out of magnesia... I always thought if I get one I will be worried it will go down in a blaze on new years eve if somebody touches it with a sparkler. (I have somehow very specific counter factual worries, since I do not own one)

mumblemumble 5y ago
It was a magnesium alloy that turned out to be devilishly difficult to get going in practice. See this article that adolph linked in another comment: https://simson.net/ref/1993/cubefire.html https://simson.net/ref/1993/cubefire.html
- BoxOfRain 5y ago
  Out of all the things I expected to see today, a very detailed description of the conditions required to set an NeXT cube on fire was pretty near the bottom of the list.
- jandrese 5y ago
  > "This is so NeXT," I told Sally. "Everything works great in the tests, then when you try to make it work for real, in the field, nothing works. They build a computer out of magnesium, and it doesn't even burn!" LOL
_moof 5y ago
It is, yes. Don't take it outside on holidays :)

sixothree 5y ago

Do you happen to know if you can run NeXTStep on vintage Apple hardware or maybe SPARCstations? I have some various IIcx and quadras and sparc 10, 20, etc. Maybe a pizmo macbook?

johndoe0815 5y ago
Sparcstation 4, 5, 10 and 20 models (and the Voyager) can run NeXTstep. For the 10 and 20, it depends on the CPU. Sun SuperSPARC modules should work, but Ross HyperSPARC CPUs are not supported. NeXTstep only supports one CPU, additional CPUs are ignored. Later models (UltraSPARC) are not supported, unfortunately there is also no support for earlier SuperSparc Sun 4m (e.g. the LX) or Sun 4c systems. I have a SparcStation 20 with 512 MB RAM and the 24 bit framebuffer RAM expansion, this is a great machine for NeXTstep. If you happen to have an hp PA-RISC machine, some models using the PA7100 CPU (e.g. the "Gecko" 712-series) are also supported and are really nice NeXTstep machines. Vintage Apple hardware does not work with NeXTstep directly, but you can run Rhapsody (essentially NeXTstep for PowerPC with a System 9-like UI) on early G3 Macs. The Motorola 88k-based NRW (NeXT RISC workstation) was unfortunately canceled when NeXT decided to leave the hardware business...
- NexRebular 5y ago
  Just a while ago installed NeXTSTEP on a HP 9000 712/60 for playing around with the original DoomEd. Runs great except for having not found PA-RISC DooM client binaries or sources for recompiling.
  - johndoe0815 5y ago
    The DoomEd source code seems to be available at https://github.com/DrinkyBird/DoomEd https://github.com/DrinkyBird/DoomEd and it's Objective C code, so I would expect this to compile on NeXTstep/PA-RISC (but I haven't tried). If you don't have a compiler set up on the PA-RISC machine, you should be able to cross-compile or generate a fat binary from ProjectBuilder on NeXTstep/intel.
  - classichasclass 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

jjtheblunt 5y ago

omg can't agree more: i sooooo wish i had kept my NeXTstation Color from 1992 just to have its amazing magnesium case. just beautiful mechanical engineering / materials design. also feel that way about my parents' long sold 1969 LawnBoy 2-cycle engine lawn mower, also magnesium, sturdy engineering, and with which i mowed countless lawns as a kid to save money for computer stuff and sports stuff.