NeXT Computers

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NeXT, Inc. (later NeXT Computer, Inc. and NeXT Software, Inc.) was founded in 1985 by Steve Jobs. It was based in Redwood City, California, and developed and manufactured a series of computer workstations intended for the higher-education and business markets.

NeXT was founded by Steve Jobs after he was forced out of Apple, taking with him former Apple employees  Joanna Hoffman, Bud Tribble, George Crow, Rich Page, Susan Barnes, Susan Kare, and Dan'l Lewin.

Ross Perot invested $20 million in exchange for 16 percent of NeXT's stock, and subsequently joined the board of directors in 1988.

In 1986, Jobs recruited the famous graphic designer Paul Rand to create a brand identity for $100,000. He created a 20-page brochure detailing the brand, including the precise angle used for the logo (28°!) and a new company name spelling, NeXT.

A team led by Avie Tevanian, who was a Mach kernel engineer at Carnegie Mellon University, was to develop the NeXTSTEP operating system. The hardware division, led by Rich Page—one of NeXT's cofounders who had previously led Apple's Lisa team—designed and developed the hardware. NeXT's first factory was completed in Fremont, California, in 1987.

The NeXT Computer and NeXTSTEP operating system.

The first  “NeXT Computer” was based on the 25 MHz Motorola 68030 central processing unit (CPU) with between 8 and 64 MB of random-access memory (RAM), a 256 MB magneto-optical (MO) drive, a 40 MB (swap-only), 330 MB, or 660 MB hard disk drive, 10BASE2 Ethernet, NuBus, and a 17 inch  MegaPixel grayscale display measuring 1120 by 832 pixels. The magneto-optical (MO) drive manufactured by Canon Inc. was the primary mass storage device.

In 1989, NeXT struck a deal for former Compaq reseller Businessland to sell the NeXT Computer in select markets nationwide. Selling through a retailer was a major change from NeXT's original business model of only selling directly to students and educational institutions.

Also In 1989, Canon invested US $100 million in NeXT, for a 16.67  stake and with the condition of using the NeXTSTEP environment with its own workstations and being NeXT's distributor in Japan.

The NeXT Computer was first released on the retail market in 1990, for US$9,999.

The NeXTcube, and the NeXTstation

Nicknamed "the slab" for its form-factor of a low-rise box, as Steve Jobs forbade "pizza box", so  as not be compared with Sun workstations that were known as this. The magneto-optical drive was replaced with a 2.88 MB floppy drive, and then a CD-ROM drive. Colour graphics were available only the NeXTstation Color, and on the NeXTdimension graphics processor hardware for the NeXTcube. The new computers were cheaper and faster, with the new Motorola 68040 processor.

In 1992, NeXT launched "Turbo" variants of both the NeXTcube and NeXTstation, with a 33 MHz 68040 processor and the maximum RAM capacity increased to 128 MB. NeXT sold 20,000 computers in 1992.

Software

NeXT computers were delivered with Wolfram Mathematica pre-installed. Several developers used the NeXT platform to write pioneering programs.

Tim Berners-Lee used a NeXT Computer in 1990 to create the first Web browser and Web server; accordingly, NeXT was instrumental in the development of the World Wide Web.

NeXT systems were used by professors for scientific and engineering applications, and for developing newspaper layouts using News. The games Doom, Doom II: Hell on Earth, and Quake were developed by iD Software on NeXT machines. Other games based on the Doom engine, such as Heretic and Hexen: Beyond Heretic by Raven Software, as well as Strife by Rogue Entertainment, were also developed on NeXT hardware using iD's tools.

Other commercial programs were released for NeXT computers, including Altsys Virtuoso, a vector drawing program with page-layout features which was ported to Mac OS and Microsoft Windows as Aldus FreeHand v4, and the Lotus Improv spreadsheet program. The systems were bundled with a number of smaller built-in applications, such as the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary, Oxford Quotations, the complete works of William Shakespeare, and the Digital Librarian search engine to access them.

1993–96: NeXT Software, Inc.

NeXT withdrew from the hardware business in 1993 and the company was renamed NeXT Software, Inc.

CEO of Sun Microsystems Scott McNealy announced plans to invest $10 million in 1993 and use NeXT software in future Sun systems. NeXT partnered with Sun to create OpenStep which is NeXTSTEP's application layer hosted on a third party operating system.

Returning to the original business plan, products based on OpenStep were released, including OpenStep Enterprise, a version for Microsoft's Windows NT. WebObjects, a platform for building large-scale dynamic web applications was launched and used by businesses, including Dell, Disney, WorldCom, and the BBC. Eventually WebObjects was used solely to power Apple's iTunes Store and most of its corporate website, until the software was discontinued.

NeXT released much of the NeXTSTEP system as a programming environment standard called OpenStep. It marketed OPENSTEP for Mach, its own OpenStep implementation, for several original equipment manufacturers (OEMs).

Return to Apple

Apple acquired NeXT on February 7, 1997 for $429 million in cash, which went to the initial investors and 1.5 million Apple shares, which went to Steve Jobs.

Jobs returned to Apple as a consultant, then later appointed as interim CEO. In 2000, Jobs took the CEO position as a permanent assignment, holding the position until his resignation on August 24, 2011; Jobs died six weeks later on October 5, 2011 from complications related to a relapsed pancreatic neuroendocrine tumour.

NeXT's operating system was ported to Macintosh hardware, combining it with the legacy application layer of Mac OS, a combination that would yield Mac OS X.

NeXT’s innovative object-oriented NeXTSTEP operating system and development environment (Interface Builder) were highly influential.

Though not very profitable, the company had a wide-ranging impact on the computer industry. Object-oriented programming and graphical user interfaces became more common after the 1988 release of the NeXTcube and NeXTSTEP. The technologically successful platform was often held as the trendsetter when other companies started to emulate the success of NeXT's object-oriented system.

Timeline for NeXT :

Date Event
1642 Blaise Pascal creates the Pascaline, or Pascal's calculator
21 Aug 1888 William Seward Burroughs patents his calculating machine
8 Jan 1889 Herman Hollerith patents punch card technology
1928 Introduction of 80-column IBM punch card format
31 Mar 1951 The first UNIVAC is sold to the United States Census Bureau
4 Nov 1952 CBS News uses a UNIVAC computer to predict election
1962 The first commercial modem is manufactured
21 Dec 1968 The Apollo Guidance Computer flies to the moon
1 Mar 1973 Xerox Alto personal computer is developed at Xerox PARC
24 Jan 1974 Scicon quits SHA
Mar 1980 News Article : Complete off-the-shelf applications systems
Oct 1980 News Article : MUSE to receive cash support for software-transfer project
Jun 1981 News Article : Micro in each school is Thatcher's pledge
Aug 1981 News Article : Minister finds funds for information technology
Apr 1982 News Article : Next One hits routine tasks
6 Oct 1983 News Article : Melbourne House New Game
20 Feb 1985 Olivetti buys 49 percent stake in Acorn Computers Ltd.
1 Aug 1985 News Article : Amstrad plans 16-bit portable based on Z800 chip and to be IBM compatible
17 Sep 1985 Steve Jobs leaves Apple to start NeXT
24 Oct 1985 News Article : Atari's megabyte monster
5 Nov 1985 News Article : Amstrad sets its sights on IBM
7 Nov 1985 News Article : Clive's New Year micros
1988 The NeXT (68030 CPU) computer is introduced after two years of research
6 Aug 1991 Tim Berners-Lee publishes the first ever website
16 Apr 1994 Acorn releases the Risc PC 600
20 Dec 1996 Apple buys NeXT, and Steve Jobs returns
9 Nov 2004 Mozilla releases Firefox 1.0


Hardware Products

NeXT Cube N1000

NeXT Cube N1000
1st January 1988
The NeXT Computer and the NeXT Cube was developed and sold by NeXT from 1988 until 1993.

Manufacturer : NeXT
Type : Computer

NeXTstation N1100

NeXTstation N1100
1990
NeXTstation was a high-end workstation computer developed, manufactured and sold by NeXT from 1990 until 1993.

Manufacturer : NeXT
Type : Computer

NeXTstation N1100 (2)

NeXTstation N1100 (2)
March 1990
NeXTstation was a high-end workstation computer developed, manufactured and sold by NeXT from 1990 until 1993.

Manufacturer : NeXT
Type : Computer

Spectrum Next

Spectrum Next
2018
This computer is seen as the spiritual successor to the ZX Spectrum.

Manufacturer : SpecNext Ltd
Type : Computer


Software Products

Disk Caddy Containing Many NeXT Discs

Disk Caddy Containing Many NeXT Discs
Unknown
Various Programs and Utilities, mainly font disks: Adobe Type Library 2 Disks Paste Up 3 Disks Metroscan Program 2 Disks Mshare 2 Disks Pixel Magician 3 Disks Adobe Copperplate Gothic 1 Disk Monotype...

Manufacturer : Next
Type : Software

Pages by Pages 1.0 and 1.5.1

Pages by Pages 1.0 and 1.5.1
Unknown
Pages by Pages ObjectBased technology takes word processing, desktop publishing, and presentation a step further - seamlessly integrating them into an easy to use package which provides expert design...

Manufacturer : Next Step
Type : Software

Impact!

Impact!
1985
Business Graphics for the Amiga Graphical data management for positive results!

Manufacturer : The Next Frontier Corporation
Type : Software

Auto Route The Intelligent Map

Auto Route The Intelligent Map
1988
Early version of the huge selling route planning software.

Manufacturer : Next Base
Type : Software

Acorn CD-R Pre-Production Disc

Acorn CD-R Pre-Production Disc
1990
For Next Technology...

Manufacturer : Next
Type : Software

CDTV Work In Progress

CDTV Work In Progress
1990
Pre-Production Interactive Learning '90 - Edinburgh Disc prepared by Next technology and mastered by Nimbus Records Ltd.

Manufacturer : Next
Type : Software

CD-ROM Sampler for Archimedes

CD-ROM Sampler for Archimedes
1990
...

Manufacturer : Next Technology
Type : Software

AutoRoute Express UK & Ireland 3.04

AutoRoute Express UK & Ireland 3.04
1992
...

Manufacturer : NextBase
Type : Software

Autoroute Express

Autoroute Express
1992
Early Route Planning Software ...

Manufacturer : Next Base
Type : Software

NextSTEP 3.1

NextSTEP 3.1
1993
NeXTSTEP was an object-oriented, multitasking operating system developed by NeXT in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Manufacturer : NeXT
Type : Software


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