NeXT Computer

The NeXT Computer (also called the NeXT Computer System) was a high-end workstation computer developed, manufactured and sold by Steve Jobs's company NeXT from 1988 until 1990. It ran the Unix-based NeXTSTEP operating system. The NeXT Computer was packaged in a 1-foot (305 mm) die-cast magnesium cube-shaped case, which led to the machine being informally referred to as "The Cube". It cost US$6500.

A NeXT Computer was used by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN to develop the world's first web server software, CERN HTTPd, and also used to write the first web browser, WorldWideWeb. This workstation became the world's first web server on the Internet.

The NeXT Computer was superseded by the NeXTcube in 1990. The NeXT Computer was not a great commercial success. However, some are still used around the world as servers and hobbyist desktops.

Hardware

Uniquely, the NeXT Computer featured a magneto-optical drive in place of the more usual hard disk, though the latter was available as an option. The workstation came with a 1120×832 pixel four-level grayscale MegaPixel 17" monitor (with built-in speakers).

The 68030 CPU was supported by a 68882 FPU for faster mathematical performance, a 56001 digital signal processor (DSP) for multimedia work and two custom-designed 6-channel direct memory access (DMA) channel controllers, which allowed much of the input/output (I/O) processing to be offloaded from the CPU to boost the speed of common tasks.

See also

• NeXTcube
• NeXTstation
• Power Mac G4 Cube
• 3M computer

External links

• The Best of NeXT Collection
• NeXT Computer brochure
• BYTE preview of the NeXT Computer
• NeXTarchive
• old-computers.com — NeXTcube
• NeXTComputers.org