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NeXT: Steve Jobs’ Dot.com IPO That Never Happened

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Re: NeXT: Steve Jobs’ Dot.com IPO That Never Happened

#71

Post by wjbr »

mahrain wrote: post #67
KirinDave wrote: post #26

My father was a lead in hardware engineering and manufacturing at NeXT. I have tons of footage of the amazing assembly technology that they used. I wonder if people would be interested in it. It was heavily top secret at the time, but NeXT built their own custom robotics system (called thor) and had all sorts of amazing in-house manufacturing tech that was incredibly automated. The hardware itself was just beautiful,…

There's an old video on Youtube called 'The Machine to build the Machines' which goes in-depth on their automated assembly line for mainboards. Could be a nice intro.

'The Machine to build the Machines' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sT6aphdX0rI

Re: NeXT: Steve Jobs’ Dot.com IPO That Never Happened

#72

Post by aaronbrethorst »

gcb0 wrote: post #70
milcron wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIRC the cases were made out of magnesium. There are videos of lighting them aflame on youtube.

I recall the journalist wanting a pic for the cover of NeXT is dead edition. and even in a industrial oven he had a hard time igniting the magnesium. I think he never did. probably a magnesium alloy

Oh, it burned: http://simson.net/hacks/cubefire.html

Re: NeXT: Steve Jobs’ Dot.com IPO That Never Happened

#73

Post by lispm »

milcron wrote: post #42
ci5er wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't Lisp machines always ahead of their time? What killed them? The advances in COTS microprocessors that also killed the minicomputer?

Yep... Lisp machines were thoroughly in the "mini"computer (cabinet-sized) category and completely missed out on the microcomputer revolution. IBM PCs were cheaper and got the job done. To an extent. The AI winter didn't help Lisp's popularity.

> Lisp machines were thoroughly in the "mini"computer (cabinet-sized) category and completely missed out on the microcomputer revolution.

Symbolics and TI both developed microprocessors for Lisp in the 80s. TI promoted their Lisp chip as the 'Megachip' enabling the 'Compact Lisp Machine'. It was the first microprocessor which integrated around a million transistor functions.

Both put the Lisp Machine for example on small Apple Nubus cards and inside an Mac II. The TI MicroExplorer and the Symbolics MacIvory were popular Lisp Machines.

This is a MacIvory board which contains a Lisp processor, a Weitek numerics chip and memory:

http://fare.tunes.org/files/pics/lispm/2003-01-19-lispm-maci...

A Mac II with a Lisp Machine inside:

https://i.imgur.com/b3XkHpS.jpg

This is a picture of two Symbolics NXP 1000 Lisp machines, which also use Lisp chip:

http://lispm.de/symbolics-nxp1000-inside/thumbnails/IMG_3044...

Basically the size of a typical pizza box machine at that time.

Re: NeXT: Steve Jobs’ Dot.com IPO That Never Happened

#76

Post by Angostura »

bitwize wrote: post #7
zeveb wrote: post #6

The article in general is pretty good, but this is off: > The Macintosh’s operating system was showing its age, especially compared to Microsoft’s Windows 95. I don't think that there was ever a point where Systems 7, 8 or 9 were worse than Windows 95.

While Apple was faffing about with Taligent and Copland, Microsoft shipped something that provided preemptive multitasking and memory isolation for 32-bit apps. Windows 95 was a collection of hacks that never should've worked but it put Apple behind the 8 ball to bring its OS tech into the present.

Oh, I rather liked OpenDOC.

Re: NeXT: Steve Jobs’ Dot.com IPO That Never Happened

#77

Post by masklinn »

hota_mazi wrote: post #63
zeveb wrote: post #6

The article in general is pretty good, but this is off: > The Macintosh’s operating system was showing its age, especially compared to Microsoft’s Windows 95. I don't think that there was ever a point where Systems 7, 8 or 9 were worse than Windows 95.

When it came out, Windows 95 blew everything out of the water, including AmigaOS. Which was itself vastly superior to anything else at the time, including the various Mac OS. It took years for Apple to even support preemptive multitasking, they were easily 5 if not 10 years behind (and still kind of are today).

> When it came out, Windows 95 blew everything out of the water

Surely not in a technical sense. OS2/Warp and NeXT already existed and BeOS would be released a few months later able to play multiple videos in real time (playing MP3 on Windows would preclude doing anything else with the machine for a few more years, lest you liked skipping).

Re: NeXT: Steve Jobs’ Dot.com IPO That Never Happened

#78

Post by georgeecollins »

masklinn wrote: post #77
hota_mazi wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When it came out, Windows 95 blew everything out of the water, including AmigaOS. Which was itself vastly superior to anything else at the time, including the various Mac OS. It took years for Apple to even support preemptive multitasking, they were easily 5 if not 10 years behind (and still kind of are today).

> When it came out, Windows 95 blew everything out of the water Surely not in a technical sense. OS2/Warp and NeXT already existed and BeOS would be released a few months later able to play multiple videos in real time (playing MP3 on Windows would preclude doing anything else with the machine for a few more years, lest you liked skipping).

Windows 95 was the best mass market OS at that time. Yes OS2/Warp and NeXT existed, but they were not popular. The Mac and Amiga OSs were inferior at that point.

Re: NeXT: Steve Jobs’ Dot.com IPO That Never Happened

#79

Post by mrkgnao »

KirinDave wrote: post #26

My father was a lead in hardware engineering and manufacturing at NeXT. I have tons of footage of the amazing assembly technology that they used. I wonder if people would be interested in it. It was heavily top secret at the time, but NeXT built their own custom robotics system (called thor) and had all sorts of amazing in-house manufacturing tech that was incredibly automated. The hardware itself was just beautiful,…

Just in case you're counting replies, yes! Bring your dad too, it'd be an honor for a ton of people who haven't met anyone from that age, let alone had a parent with stories like that :)

Re: NeXT: Steve Jobs’ Dot.com IPO That Never Happened

#80

Post by kls »

tambourine_man wrote: post #54
kls wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, watching a Photoshop filter lock up an entire machine was painful in those days. Not to mention all of the other random beach balls one would get. I actually came over to the Mac (for my home machine) for a little while after the writing was on the wall for the Amiga and it felt like a painful step backwards. At work we had been running NeXt boxes for a while, which made it's deficiencies all the more apparen…

>Not to mention all of the other random beach balls one would get Beach balls were a Next invention, which was bright along to OS X. It was monochrome originally and supposed to represent the terribly slow CD-ROM. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinning_pinwheel#From_NeXTSte... Classic Mac OS had a wrist watch: https://i.stack.imgur.com/orvO6.png

We always called the black and white spinner the beach ball and the colored one from OSX the pinwheel. May be a terminology thing, but I was talking about the old black and white spinner in MacOS. If one did any kind of video, image or 3d editing, it was not far behind and pretty much locked the computer up until whatever processing was done.
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