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Next Cube Resources

gkarris

gkarris

macrumors G3
Original poster
Dec 31, 2004
8,301
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"No escape from Reality...”
I'm hoping to get my Next Cube running. Was wondering if anyone knows of any good resource websites to help with it (like getting a copy of the original OS on a CD).

My Next Cube works, but it comes up with some Unix like screen, asking something???

Thanks!
 
gkarris said:
(like getting a copy of the original OS on a CD).
Click to expand...
Sadly, we are long past Apple's support program for these old systems (where you could have gotten a free copy of NEXTSTEP 3.3 for NeXT hardware). Copies pop up on ebay from time to time and BlackHole, Inc. has been granted the rights from Apple to sell copies to people.

I strongly suggest NEXTSTEP 3.3 for 68030 systems (or 68040 systems with 32 MB of memory or less). OPENSTEP tends to be a little resource intensive for NeXT hardware, and only a few apps actually require OPENSTEP to run. While NEXTSTEP 2.x would run even better (speed wise), 3.3 has been patched for a number of bugs (including Y2K issues) and is the most compatible OS for software written for NeXT systems.
 
you could always try the port of netbsd for your machine. personally, i find such esoteric hardware more trouble than it's worth. it's fun at first but then what else do you do with it? i once had a sun sparcstation ipc and used it as a webserver. nice little lunch box-sized computer. but then the novelty went away.
 
jhu said:
personally, i find such esoteric hardware more trouble than it's worth. it's fun at first but then what else do you do with it? i once had a sun sparcstation ipc and used it as a webserver. nice little lunch box-sized computer. but then the novelty went away.
Click to expand...

Why does that matter ?

This is the classic / collectors forum, not power computing, or super computing central.
 
840quadra said:
Why does that matter ?

This is the classic / collectors forum, not power computing, or super computing central.
Click to expand...

it certainly matters for those who don't have large amounts of storage space to place physical objects in.
 
jhu said:
you could always try the port of netbsd for your machine. personally, i find such esoteric hardware more trouble than it's worth. it's fun at first but then what else do you do with it?
Click to expand...
Well, if your idea of running a NeXT system is shoehorning a port of NetBSD into it, it is easy to see how you could arrive at such a conclusion. I would never even consider using such a system.

Basically, the philosophy of running old Macs is pretty much the same as running other old hardware. Once you try to run stuff on old hardware that it really wasn't design to run on that system (or really don't have any useful purpose), you've set yourself up for failure.

Your example of a SPARCstation IPC is perfect... odds are you were running software that wasn't really designed to be run on a system which runs at about the same speed as a Quadra 900. Were you running Solaris 2.6 or earlier on it? And exactly how interesting is a web server supposed to be anyways?

As for what you can do with a NeXT system... that is pretty easy to answer. Basically, anything you would normally do with a system of the mid 90s. Once you get past finding a copy of NEXTSTEP to run on the system, the number of apps that are now free for NEXTSTEP (or greatly reduced in price) can make an old NeXT system very productive.

But as with any vintage system, the answer to the "what can you do with it?" question usually comes down to what software is available for it. Here are some of the free software titles available for NEXTSTEP:
OpenWrite (Lighthouse Design) OpenWrite is a full-featured and easy to use word processor.
Concurrence (Lighthouse Design) Concurrence is a presentation program, similar to Keynote... infact Jobs used Concurrence to make many of his keynote presentations.
Diagram! (Lighthouse Design) Diagram! is a drawing application for business and technical professionals. Designed with a rich feature set and easy-to-use drawing palettes, its ideal for a wide variety of general-purpose drawings from basic organization charts to business process models, brainstorm drawings to object-oriented/CASE graphics and database design. It was the template for OmniGraffle, and OmniGraffle can even read Diagram! documents.
ParaSheet (Lighthouse Design) ParaSheet is a full-featured traditional spreadsheet.
Quantrix (Lighthouse Design) Quantrix is a multi-dimensional spreadsheet and takes advantage of NeXT's analytical framework.
WetPaint (Lighthouse Design) WetPaint is a powerful, general-purpose paint and image manipulation program.
TIFFany II (Caffeine Software) TIFFany II is a professional image processing program capable of advanced image manipulation and batch image processing. Apple bought this software and used it as the foundation of Core Image.
OmniWeb (Omni Group) OmniWeb is a web browser with a ton of cool features, including source editing with syntax coloring.
OmniPDF (Omni Group) OmniPDF is a PDF reader.
ToyViewer (Ogihara) ToyViewer is a simple image manipulation and editing program.
PStill PStill is a PDF distiller.
Geomview (Geometry Center) Geomview is a program for creating and rendering mathematical objects.​
Here are a few of the free software titles available that require OPENSTEP:
ToyAlbum (Ogihara) ToyAlbum can create albums of image directories allowing users to browse them easily.
Chronographer (Calle Mayo) Chronographer is a planner/organizer. Chronographer's time-management concepts are based, in part, on principles developed by Dr. Stephen R. Covey and presented in his books First Things First and The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.
PixelNhance (Caffeine Software) PixelNhance is an intuitive image correction/manipulation program.​
This is some great software that isn't free:
Create (Stone Design) Create is an illustration, page layout and web design program.
DataFile (Stone Design) DataPhile is a Database Manager. Create your own databases with sounds, files, rich text, money, booleans and URL fields.
3DReality (Stone Design) 3DReality is an easy 3D modeling and rendering program.
CheckSum (Stone Design) CheckSum is a basic accounting program.
FrameMaker (Frame) FrameMaker is a document processor designed to handle large or technical content.
WriteUp (AFS) WriteUp is a full-featured and easy to use word processor based on PasteUp.
PasteUp (AFS) PasteUp was the first major page layout program for NeXT.
Pages (Pages) Pages is a template driven combination of a word processor and page layout program.
Illustrator (Adobe) Illustrator is Adobe's premiere illustration program which takes advantage of the NeXT Postscript environment.
WordPerfect WordPerfect was the standard for word processors.
Mathematica (Wolfram Research) Mathematica was designed to take advantage of the NeXT's environment for creating custom interfaces for using Mathematica's kernel. Version 3 of Mathematica on NeXT systems still has many advantages over Mathematica on other platforms with later versions.​
So the idea that you can't do anything with an old NeXT system really means that you haven't taken the time to find out what can be done with it. You can do a lot with these older systems.

:rolleyes:

So sure, you could put NetBSD on a NeXT system... but that is how you end up with esoteric hardware that is more trouble than it's worth. :D
 
RacerX said:
Well, if your idea of running a NeXT system is shoehorning a port of NetBSD into it, it is easy to see how you could arrive at such a conclusion. I would never even consider using such a system.

Basically, the philosophy of running old Macs is pretty much the same as running other old hardware. Once you try to run stuff on old hardware that it really wasn't design to run on that system (or really don't have any useful purpose), you've set yourself up for failure.

Your example of a SPARCstation IPC is perfect... odds are you were running software that wasn't really designed to be run on a system which runs at about the same speed as a Quadra 900. Were you running Solaris 2.6 or earlier on it? And exactly how interesting is a web server supposed to be anyways?

So sure, you could put NetBSD on a NeXT system... but that is how you end up with esoteric hardware that is more trouble than it's worth. :D
Click to expand...

the reason i installed netbsd on the thing was because its footprint is a lot smaller than sun os. i didn't have a monitor, keyboard, mouse, or cd-rom drive for the machine. and it only had a 300 mb harddrive. it was fun making a serial cable for the thing and booting/installing over the network. but after that, i just got bored. if i had wanted to make it more of a workstation, i'd have to go buy all the items i mentioned and a larger hard drive; it was this part that was more trouble than it's worth, not the installation of netbsd. of course, there was also the physical storage space issue.
 
So let me get this straight... your comment saying "i find such esoteric hardware more trouble than it's worth" about a NeXT system was based on your limited experience with a Sun system... a system for which you have no monitor, keyboard, mouse or CD-ROM drive. A system on which you've never even seen running any of it's original software.

jhu said:
but after that, i just got bored. if i had wanted to make it more of a workstation, i'd have to go buy all the items i mentioned and a larger hard drive; it was this part that was more trouble than it's worth, not the installation of netbsd.
Click to expand...
But of course, the parts that would have given you any real taste of what using a Sun is all about was where you drew the line.

What you've described is like getting an old Porsche with no wheels, no interior, no steering wheel, no windshield and running the engine on ethanol... and then proclaiming that all classic cars aren't worth taking the trouble to drive anymore.

The only way you could have less experience with Suns would be to have never heard of them. And I can't see anyway of translating that (lack) of experience with Sun systems to a thread about NeXT systems. :eek:
 
Sorry, to revive such a relic, but I have came upon a NeXt Cube, for about $10 from a local garage sale... What a great machine.
 
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