Also available in podcast form on the great Mac Folklore Radio: https://macfolkloreradio.com/2022/03/01/next-cube-aa001032.h...
Burning a NeXTCube (1993)
41–50 of 73 posts
Re: Burning a NeXTCube (1993)
#42"The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 9 has a chassis made of carbon fiber and magnesium" [1] - anyone burnt one of those?
[1] https://www.reviewgeek.com/102979/lenovo-thinkpad-x1-carbon-...
Re: Burning a NeXTCube (1993)
#43Back in 1997 I went dumpster diving and got my hands on eight NeXTcubes that a company was getting rid of. Ok, it wasn't exactly dumpster diving, like the time in about 1983 that I got hundreds of blank floppies, but they were on the curb and when I asked they said, sure, take them. I was excited to get the score, but I didn't really need eight of them. So I told a bunch of friends they could share the wealth. By the…
These are starting to get really hard to find too. I picked one up many years ago for a couple hundred bucks because I really liked them. Very cool machines. Last I checked they're $3000-8000 each on eBay.
Re: Burning a NeXTCube (1993)
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
As someone who's been living in the US for a while, but who grew up, lived, and worked in Germany all my life before, I'm not sure what you mean. Me and engineers I knew were humans who liked fun (and especially had curiosity), too. As long as proper safety precautions are taken, why not? Seems like it wasn't very different here, either: > "I need to have an MDS --- a Material Date Safety Shet --- on the paint before…
Sure but would you expect Fraunhofer (or something like that) to just give away resources and human hours to just burn a computer case? Of course Europeans have fun, that was just hyperbole; but institutionally speaking, it’s an extremely rigid place. You might even question whether it was ok to spend those resources. Maybe it wasn’t. But every time I go to the USA I’m positively impressed by how much they have the f…
It's not something I would expect to happen in the US today; the 90s were a very different time. Maybe due to 9/11? But the same amount you're impressed here, I as an American am also surprised. It feels like this story is from a different country than the USA to me. All we do now is follow the rules.
Re: Burning a NeXTCube (1993)
#45When I was a kid, I'd go to the hobby shop and get a little jar that had magnesium strips in it. Then I'd go home and light them. Seeing metal burn was mind boggling to me, as it seemed until then that organic things burn, not metal. Anyway, had I been in the position of the author, I would have gotten a thin strip of magnesium (easy to get going) and put that on top of the case, lit the strip, and let that ignite th…
When I was a kid, my dad always carried one of those magnesium fire starter things [1] on his keychain, and whenever we went camping he would use it to start the fire instead of matches. He never used it the way it was intended, though, which is to shave off a little pile of magnesium flakes and light that. (He used cotton from a pill jar as tinder instead.)
So 30 years later, I had one of these things in my backpack (along with a waterproof container of cotton) and I decided to get over my ADD and try the intended method with magnesium flakes. It eventually worked, but it was so much effort compared to just lighting something made of cellulose that it was hardly worth it. I think these were originally made as survival tools for pilots, so maybe having it be water-agnostic was a factor in the design, though.
[1] https://www.cheaperthandirt.com/magnesium-fire-starter-u.s.-...
Re: Burning a NeXTCube (1993)
#46Living in Europe, I’m deeply amazed at how much help and support he got for free from a bunch of people from one of the most important (and expensive) laboratories in the world. All of that just to basically have some fun and take some pictures. I’m absolutely sure that here he would never have any support to do this. We unfortunately have forgotten how to have fun and be creative here in the old world.
I’m deeply amazed at how much help and support he got for free from a bunch of people from one of the most important (and expensive) laboratories in the world As a former journalist, it truly is amazing the amount of free information that comes out of America's government, and the vast number of truly helpful people who work there. I can't count the number of times I didn't understand something I read in a federal do…
For what it's worth, I've also met FOIA people who are very excited by the mission of FOIA. So many government employees are really there for the mission of it! They rarely make the news, but my esteem for government workers has mainly grown the more contact I've had with them.
Re: Burning a NeXTCube (1993)
#47"This was a collapsing metal failure, melting into a pool of fire and being consumed by it. Perhaps it was a more accurate representation of NeXT's true reality."
As a former NeXT developer, I can confirm this as spot-on foreshadowing.
Re: Burning a NeXTCube (1993)
#48"This was a collapsing metal failure, melting into a pool of fire and being consumed by it. Perhaps it was a more accurate representation of NeXT's true reality." As a former NeXT developer, I can confirm this as spot-on foreshadowing.
Considering the Phoenix like rise the platform made, it was accurate at the time but short sighted.
Re: Burning a NeXTCube (1993)
#49"The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 9 has a chassis made of carbon fiber and magnesium" [1] - anyone burnt one of those? [1] https://www.reviewgeek.com/102979/lenovo-thinkpad-x1-carbon-...
Magnesium frame, carbon fiber and epoxy touch surfaces. It would be real black and smelly.
Re: Burning a NeXTCube (1993)
#50"This was a collapsing metal failure, melting into a pool of fire and being consumed by it. Perhaps it was a more accurate representation of NeXT's true reality." As a former NeXT developer, I can confirm this as spot-on foreshadowing.
Considering the Phoenix like rise the platform made, it was accurate at the time but short sighted.
Eh, sort of. Important parts of the OS did eventually get recycled. But NeXT was sold in 1996, and OS X didn't come out until 2001. And the hardware ambitions were a total crater. I'd say it worked out much better for Jobs than NeXT.