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Nitro
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Joined: 22 Oct 2005
Posts: 363
Location: Littleton, Colorado USA
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 Posted: Mon Jan 21, 2008 10:02 am Post subject: New NeXT RISC Workstation photos |
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Special thanks go out to Tom LaFleur for sending in pictures of his NeXT RISC Workstation prototype.
(click to enlarge)
Edit 2/11/2008: Tom sent in these additional pictures shown below.
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Nitro
Folding for a cure - Team MacOS X
Last edited by Nitro on Mon Feb 11, 2008 1:07 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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pergamon
Joined: 30 Dec 2005
Posts: 141
Location: Indiana
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| Posted: Mon Jan 21, 2008 10:30 am Post subject: |
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Awesome! Thanks for sharing these!
Does anyone know what parts number the motherboard and case are? Are there any pictures of the bottom of the case, or closeups of the area around the NeXT logo on the motherboard? |
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krfkeith
Joined: 15 Dec 2006
Posts: 127
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| Posted: Mon Jan 21, 2008 11:07 am Post subject: |
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Does it work?
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Computolio
Joined: 06 Feb 2006
Posts: 39
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| Posted: Mon Jan 21, 2008 11:11 am Post subject: |
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| I see absolutely zero chips on that board. You tell me. |
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ericj
Joined: 04 Aug 2006
Posts: 92
Location: Olney, Maryland
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| Posted: Mon Jan 21, 2008 12:26 pm Post subject: |
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| Computolio wrote: | | I see absolutely zero chips on that board. You tell me. |
Yeah, I was kinda disappointed when I noticed that on the older pictures a while ago. Either way, nothing is publicly available that can run on it (there was an internal version of NS 3.0 for it).
Eric
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cuby
Joined: 12 Jan 2006
Posts: 93
Location: Dortmund, Germany
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| Posted: Mon Jan 21, 2008 1:27 pm Post subject: |
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| Whow, looks like a lot of custom chips were used in the NRW's design. What a shame there is no working machine around. Wasn't there some guy who had tech docs on the NRW? |
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nextchef
Joined: 17 Aug 2006
Posts: 916
Location: Missouri, USA
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| Posted: Mon Jan 21, 2008 1:46 pm Post subject: |
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Great pics, and thanks to the provider and poster for sharing them.
A slab with a little extra bit added on the bottom, and the ridges shifted down. I especially like the cutout/overhang created in the front. No more scratching up the logo by pushing the keyboard into it on ones desk.
Optical digital audio in and out connectors on the side...
Too bad it never had a chance to strut its stuff.
Chef
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Chef
NeXTCube, NeXTStation mono, Color, & TurboColor. SGI O2-1600SW, Indigo2, VW320/540, Sparc 5-10-20, HP-712/80 |
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krfkeith
Joined: 15 Dec 2006
Posts: 127
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| Posted: Mon Jan 21, 2008 4:05 pm Post subject: |
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well, I may be able to contact someone who worked at NeXT maybe we can dig up some more info. If anyone were to clone a NeXT system, this would be it. Now there were two proposed versions. One used a Moto 88000. The other used PowerPC. If they had an internal version of NS for it, then more likely than not, there was a working version.
*Pulls out detective hat and maginifying glass*
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rice0067
Joined: 07 Jan 2006
Posts: 56
Location: Malden MA USA
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| Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 1:20 pm Post subject: NRW |
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What I find interesting in these pictures is the inclusion of some new technology as well as some older legacy parts that even in the mid 90's was losing favor.
I'm talking about the optical audio in and out, and the bnc ethernet.
I guess floppies were still the thing then too. I'm a little surprised that in this revision they weren't thinking about an internal CD-ROM. Also interesting is the lack of a DSP port, but as seen from the discussion on the multiple DSP cube board, the PPC chips were rapidly making a dedicated DSP chip obsolete. Looking at the memory slots it looks like it may have been possible to max out at least with 256meg ram.. at time of sale, and then 512 when the 64mb chips came out. (would be interesting to know if the 128 mb 72pin chips would even fit space- wise).
and lastly.. I do like that the power supply had an extra power out port for plugging in the monitor... I always thought that was a great feature on some of the macs of the time.
I heard that at least one of these was running... would have been cool to see it. |
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pergamon
Joined: 30 Dec 2005
Posts: 141
Location: Indiana
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| Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 1:35 pm Post subject: Re: NRW |
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| rice0067 wrote: | What I find interesting in these pictures is the inclusion of some new technology as well as some older legacy parts that even in the mid 90's was losing favor.
I'm talking about the optical audio in and out, and the bnc ethernet.
I guess floppies were still the thing then too. I'm a little surprised that in this revision they weren't thinking about an internal CD-ROM. Also interesting is the lack of a DSP port, but as seen from the discussion on the multiple DSP cube board, the PPC chips were rapidly making a dedicated DSP chip obsolete. Looking at the memory slots it looks like it may have been possible to max out at least with 256meg ram.. at time of sale, and then 512 when the 64mb chips came out. (would be interesting to know if the 128 mb 72pin chips would even fit space- wise).
and lastly.. I do like that the power supply had an extra power out port for plugging in the monitor... I always thought that was a great feature on some of the macs of the time.
I heard that at least one of these was running... would have been cool to see it. |
Actually the strangest thing I think is the ISDN port. Not many machines had that. I've got a Sun Sparc Voyager that has ISDN built-in, and that's the only other machine I've ever heard of that had it built-in or standard.
While BNC was certainly on the way out, I don't think it would have been considered obsolete yet in the very early 90s.
Optical audio in/out is still pretty common.
I hadn't noticed the lack of DSP port. The DSP port was always an interesting addition to me. I always suspected that's where Be got the idea for the GeekPort on the BeBox. Incidentally, I think the BeBoxes have a DSP in them as well. I know the Hobbit prototypes did, and I'm pretty sure the PPC based production ones did too. I'll have to crack one open when I get home and check. |
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nextchef
Joined: 17 Aug 2006
Posts: 916
Location: Missouri, USA
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| Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 1:46 pm Post subject: Re: NRW |
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| pergamon wrote: |
Actually the strangest thing I think is the ISDN port. Not many machines had that. I've got a Sun Sparc Voyager that has ISDN built-in, and that's the only other machine I've ever heard of that had it built-in or standard. |
If memory serves, didn't the SGI Indys (the pizzabox blue ones) come with an ISDN port, along with an AUI and 10baseT connectors. It was the port next to the ethernet jack that had the red sticker to keep you from plugging stuff in accidentally. Will have to look when I get home, but that is what I remember.
Chef
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Chef
NeXTCube, NeXTStation mono, Color, & TurboColor. SGI O2-1600SW, Indigo2, VW320/540, Sparc 5-10-20, HP-712/80 |
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pergamon
Joined: 30 Dec 2005
Posts: 141
Location: Indiana
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| Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 1:53 pm Post subject: Re: NRW |
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| nextchef wrote: | | pergamon wrote: |
Actually the strangest thing I think is the ISDN port. Not many machines had that. I've got a Sun Sparc Voyager that has ISDN built-in, and that's the only other machine I've ever heard of that had it built-in or standard. |
If memory serves, didn't the SGI Indys (the pizzabox blue ones) come with an ISDN port, along with an AUI and 10baseT connectors. It was the port next to the ethernet jack that had the red sticker to keep you from plugging stuff in accidentally. Will have to look when I get home, but that is what I remember.
Chef |
Indeed, you are correct: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SGI_Indy
I guess I never paid much attention to the ports on the Indys. Mine's in storage an hour away right now  |
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nextchef
Joined: 17 Aug 2006
Posts: 916
Location: Missouri, USA
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| Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 3:41 pm Post subject: Re: NRW |
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Every once in a while the stars and planets align, the old synapses in my brain decide to actually fire correctly, and out comes another piece of basically useless trivia. 
Chef
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Chef
NeXTCube, NeXTStation mono, Color, & TurboColor. SGI O2-1600SW, Indigo2, VW320/540, Sparc 5-10-20, HP-712/80 |
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zaphodgjd
Joined: 27 Jan 2008
Posts: 3
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| Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2008 9:29 pm Post subject: |
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I once heard a story from a friend of mine that worked at NeXT that the SGI Indy owed a LOT of it's heritage to this never manufactured machine.
No idea if it was true or not, just second hand, but interesting.
Graeme. |
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pentium
Joined: 23 Jun 2006
Posts: 847
Location: Kamloops, BC
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| Posted: Mon Jan 28, 2008 2:30 pm Post subject: |
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Now that you mention it, it does have some similar connections.
The first thing that looks identical is the location of the floppy drive, the second being the rear connections though they are not the exact same.
Even the scsi and PSU placement look the same
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