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. It was designed around the Motorola 68030 CPU and 68882 floating-point coprocessor , 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 ( 304.8 mm ) die-cast magnesium cube-shaped black case, which led to the machine being informally referred to as 'The Cube'."
10-792: 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
20-462: A floppy disk drive. NeXT offered a 68040 system board upgrade (and NeXTSTEP 2.0) for US$ 1,495 (equivalent to $ 3,490 in 2023). A 33 MHz NeXTcube Turbo was later produced. NeXT released the NeXTdimension for the NeXTcube, a circuit board based on an Intel i860 processor, which offers 32-bit PostScript color display and video-sampling features. The Pyro accelerator board replaces
30-577: 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. In 1989, BYTE magazine listed the NeXT Computer among the "Excellence" winners of
40-568: The NeXTSTEP operating system . The NeXTcube Turbo is a development of the earlier NeXTcube. It differs from its predecessor in having a 33 MHz 68040 processor. The NeXTdimension board can also be used in the NeXTcube Turbo. There was also a very rare accelerator board known as the Nitro; between 5 and 20 are estimated to have been made. It increased the speed of a NeXTcube Turbo by replacing
50-466: 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". The workstation was not a significant commercial success, failing to reach
60-627: 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 at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. NeXTcube The NeXTcube is a high-end workstation computer developed, manufactured, and sold by NeXT from 1990 to 1993. It superseded
70-548: 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. Next Computers were mainly sold to universities, financial institutions, and government agencies. A NeXT Computer and its object-oriented development tools and libraries were used by Tim Berners-Lee and Robert Cailliau at CERN to develop
80-416: 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 (equivalent to about $ 19,000 in 2023) list price. The NeXTcube is the successor to the original NeXT Computer, with a 68040 processor, a hard disk in place of the magneto-optical drive , and
90-542: The standard 25 MHz processor with a 50 MHz one. Tim Berners-Lee created the World Wide Web at CERN in Switzerland on the NeXTcube workstation in 1990. NeXTcube Turbo The NeXTcube Turbo is a high-end workstation computer developed, manufactured and sold by NeXT . It superseded the earlier NeXTcube workstation and is housed in the same cube-shaped magnesium enclosure. The workstation runs
100-673: 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. NeXT technology provisioned
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