4 ms·

As the Beach Boys used to sing: Wouldn't it be nice? I know this guy who collects old computers, who also has a NeXT workstation at home. I was always so envio

by krylon 12y ago

As the Beach Boys used to sing: Wouldn't it be nice? I know this guy who collects old computers, who also has a NeXT workstation at home. I was always so envious of him. Now, I might be able to have my own. Sort of. At least, with emulation you don't need to worry about fragile 20-year-old hardware breaking.

smacktoward 12y ago
When I was in college, my department had a computer lab that was nothing but row upon row of shiny NeXT cubes. Unfortunately, for some reason it belonged to the university's communications department, not their computer science department, so nobody who had access to those machines had the foggiest idea what to do with them. Throwing a bunch of early '90s communications majors onto a real UNIX workstation desktop turned out to not be the smartest idea. Who'da thunk? Kinda the story of NeXT in a nutshell, I guess -- all that potential, more or less completely wasted until it was injected into the near-dead body of Apple...
- krylon 12y ago
  The idea of putting a bunch of normal everyday computer users in front of a Unix system manages to fill me, at the same time, with joy, fear and surrealism (if that is an emotion). At work, I oversee a network of about 70-90 Windows clients, mostly in the hands of users who are pretty clueless when it comes to computers. Sometimes I cannot help but think what it would be like if all those computers ran a Unix system. Some aspects of my work would become easier (no more dreaded Patchdays!), but realistically, those dreaded PEBKAC-calls from users asking simple but tedious/annoying questions would turn into torrent that would make my phone melt. Sigh Still, one cannot help but wonder what the world would be like if either everybody used a Unix system, or if Microsoft hadn't won and we would have a flourishing diversity of operating systems. (I'm not saying the result would be better - I'm just saying I am intensely curious to know but don't want to live in such a world without knowing ahead of time if it would be an improvement on the current situation.) Maybe next lifetime, maybe in another parallel universe, we'll find out.
  - lstamour 12y ago
    If you consider OS X as Unix, you might not need a parallel universe, just another decade or two? ;-)
  - porsupah 12y ago
    Back at Trilobyte, circa 1994-1997, everyone, without exception, had a NeXT (a NeXTstation or a Cube, depending on need). So everyone had email, fax, and so forth. The workload on the IT guys, as far as the NeXT kit went? Pretty much zero, other than folks like me wanting a bit more memory and disk (in my case, for a MU* or two, which was approved without trouble).
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  > Unfortunately, for some reason it belonged to the university's communications department, not their computer science department, so nobody who had access to those machines had the foggiest idea what to do with them. Throwing a bunch of early '90s communications majors onto a real UNIX workstation desktop turned out to not be the smartest idea. Who'da thunk? For basic non-programming uses of a computer, I remember the NeXT being sort of a the polar opposite of the PC where the Mac was the center of the scale -- the apps were generally better than Mac apps (which were generally better than PC apps), but there were fewer of them on each step from PC->Mac->NeXT. And I seem to recall that the key general-usage ones were bundled with the NeXT, so I would have thought they would have, for the time, made very good machines for a communications department, if the work that would go into making use of any computers effectively was done. Sure, they were UNIX workstations, but one of the things about them is that you could use them without being really conscious of that.
- rcarmo 12y ago
  I used a Cube for a year or so when I was in college. Ironically, we were working on instrumenting NFS, which we couldn't do directly, so it was mostly a thin client (and an excellent mail/editing station). I don't think anything came close, though, and still miss it even though I use Macs these days.
davelnewton 12y ago
Old hardware can be surprisingly robust; after many moves essentially all my 20-40yr old hardware is still running. Everything was discrete and some boards look like they were soldered by dropping a pail of molten lead on them.

by krylon 12y ago

smacktoward 12y ago

When I was in college, my department had a computer lab that was nothing but row upon row of shiny NeXT cubes. Unfortunately, for some reason it belonged to the university's communications department, not their computer science department, so nobody who had access to those machines had the foggiest idea what to do with them. Throwing a bunch of early '90s communications majors onto a real UNIX workstation desktop turned out to not be the smartest idea. Who'da thunk? Kinda the story of NeXT in a nutshell, I guess -- all that potential, more or less completely wasted until it was injected into the near-dead body of Apple...

krylon 12y ago
The idea of putting a bunch of normal everyday computer users in front of a Unix system manages to fill me, at the same time, with joy, fear and surrealism (if that is an emotion). At work, I oversee a network of about 70-90 Windows clients, mostly in the hands of users who are pretty clueless when it comes to computers. Sometimes I cannot help but think what it would be like if all those computers ran a Unix system. Some aspects of my work would become easier (no more dreaded Patchdays!), but realistically, those dreaded PEBKAC-calls from users asking simple but tedious/annoying questions would turn into torrent that would make my phone melt. Sigh Still, one cannot help but wonder what the world would be like if either everybody used a Unix system, or if Microsoft hadn't won and we would have a flourishing diversity of operating systems. (I'm not saying the result would be better - I'm just saying I am intensely curious to know but don't want to live in such a world without knowing ahead of time if it would be an improvement on the current situation.) Maybe next lifetime, maybe in another parallel universe, we'll find out.
- lstamour 12y ago
  If you consider OS X as Unix, you might not need a parallel universe, just another decade or two? ;-)
- porsupah 12y ago
  Back at Trilobyte, circa 1994-1997, everyone, without exception, had a NeXT (a NeXTstation or a Cube, depending on need). So everyone had email, fax, and so forth. The workload on the IT guys, as far as the NeXT kit went? Pretty much zero, other than folks like me wanting a bit more memory and disk (in my case, for a MU* or two, which was approved without trouble).
dragonwriter 12y ago
> Unfortunately, for some reason it belonged to the university's communications department, not their computer science department, so nobody who had access to those machines had the foggiest idea what to do with them. Throwing a bunch of early '90s communications majors onto a real UNIX workstation desktop turned out to not be the smartest idea. Who'da thunk? For basic non-programming uses of a computer, I remember the NeXT being sort of a the polar opposite of the PC where the Mac was the center of the scale -- the apps were generally better than Mac apps (which were generally better than PC apps), but there were fewer of them on each step from PC->Mac->NeXT. And I seem to recall that the key general-usage ones were bundled with the NeXT, so I would have thought they would have, for the time, made very good machines for a communications department, if the work that would go into making use of any computers effectively was done. Sure, they were UNIX workstations, but one of the things about them is that you could use them without being really conscious of that.
rcarmo 12y ago
I used a Cube for a year or so when I was in college. Ironically, we were working on instrumenting NFS, which we couldn't do directly, so it was mostly a thin client (and an excellent mail/editing station). I don't think anything came close, though, and still miss it even though I use Macs these days.

davelnewton 12y ago

Old hardware can be surprisingly robust; after many moves essentially all my 20-40yr old hardware is still running. Everything was discrete and some boards look like they were soldered by dropping a pail of molten lead on them.