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I bought a NeXTStation through the University program back in '92. That was the low end model, 8MB RAM, 120MB disk. The disk was too small for the development t

I bought a NeXTStation through the University program back in '92. That was the low end model, 8MB RAM, 120MB disk. The disk was too small for the development tools, but it was quickly swapped out for a 400MB and I bumped it up to 20MB. 25Mhz '040, SCSI, 10BaseT (!!), plus the crazy framebuffer based printer that used a video interface. (I have one of those too.) It's at my friend house now, he just managed to revive it after assorted false starts over the past few months. I have yet to actually see it running myself. In hindsight, one of the things that made the NeXT, or more specifically, NeXTSTEP amazing, was what it could do given the hardware of the day. The stand out was Display PostScript. What an absolute marvel of the time. That it could actually perform. Here was a system with a full boat windowing and GUI system, built on the full PS rendering model (INCLUDING the alpha channel), in real time, with a few MB of memory and a 25MHz '040. When you dragged a window. You dragged the window. The entire thing, not just a frame. That was a big deal. I remember the heresy of people posting "rich" news poss to USENET using the whatever the news application was called in the day. This was before there was a MIME standard, just making stuff up everyday. I think it would be a marvel to have the original source code ported, straight up, "bugs and all" to modern hardware. Specifically thinking having NS ported to an off the shelf Raspberry Pi. I don't know if we have anything like that today. Creeping features have exploded...everything on a modern *NIX system. I don't think you can run XClock in 8MB of RAM today. If NS was usable (I won't say it was fast, my memory doesn't go back that far, and after seeing several vintage machines, none of them were "fast", we just didn't know any better), just imagine how usable it would be on something even as small as a modern Raspberry Pi. But it was a great machine. It handled my USENET and email feed over my 2400 baud Hayes Smartmodem with aplomb.

mpweiher 5y ago
> Specifically thinking having NS ported to an off the shelf Raspberry Pi. Not original NS, but GNUstep runs on the Raspi. Install scripts here: https://github.com/plaurent/gnustep-build https://github.com/plaurent/gnustep-build > If NS was usable (I won't say it was fast, NS was definitely more than "usable", it seemed very snappy at the time. GNUstep runs very nicely on the Raspi.
- whartung 5y ago
  > NS was definitely more than "usable", it seemed very snappy at the time. Indeed, it's just that I've become quite jaded when it comes to computer speeds. All of the older machines were "fast" or better back in the day, but we only had other current machines to compare them too. My friend, who has my NeXT, also has a G4 Cube. That thing waking up from "sleep" is GLACIAL. It just takes forever. I'm sure it was snappy and "fast" at its time. Today, perhaps, not so much. But, still, it was a great testament to what could be done on such limited hardware.

mpweiher 5y ago

> Specifically thinking having NS ported to an off the shelf Raspberry Pi. Not original NS, but GNUstep runs on the Raspi. Install scripts here: https://github.com/plaurent/gnustep-build https://github.com/plaurent/gnustep-build > If NS was usable (I won't say it was fast, NS was definitely more than "usable", it seemed very snappy at the time. GNUstep runs very nicely on the Raspi.

whartung 5y ago
> NS was definitely more than "usable", it seemed very snappy at the time. Indeed, it's just that I've become quite jaded when it comes to computer speeds. All of the older machines were "fast" or better back in the day, but we only had other current machines to compare them too. My friend, who has my NeXT, also has a G4 Cube. That thing waking up from "sleep" is GLACIAL. It just takes forever. I'm sure it was snappy and "fast" at its time. Today, perhaps, not so much. But, still, it was a great testament to what could be done on such limited hardware.