Actually the slabs are very common in the U.S evidently because of
the contract NeXT had with the CIA. Cubes aren't that much rarer...
just more expensive. Two places where you can go for NeXT equipment
are:
http://www.deepspacetech.com
http://www.orb.com
The latter (Sam Goldberger) is in Mill Valley, California. I think
Deep Space is in New Mexico. There used to be some guy on the east
coast but he seems to have disappeared... odd since he seemed to have
most of the CIA inventory. I seem to remember his warehouse lease
expired and he had some kind of blowout sale last year!
Since I'm an Openstep developer, in my mind they aren't really
antiques... though the CPU clock rates are low by todays standards
they still perform very well for day-to-day use because the software
(OS, application framework and display mode) layers were engineered
very efficiently. The platform is just barely ten years old and
still very modern if not futuristic.
The "PrinterWorks" I believe, still sells laserprinters for them.
With these, you can essentially turn a NeXT Cube or station into a
Win 95/NT printing engine via Samba networking, have it run your web
server, and use it to run many applications that would make both
Windows and plain old Unix jealous if they were jealous kinds of
Operating Systems.
If all else fails, there's also comp.sys.next.marketplace, where
everyone is trying to sell what they have right now.
Collectable items include extra DSP memory, the ancient ISDN modem
that worked through the DSP port, Ariel Digital Microphones, Digital
Ears [a Digital Sound I/O system].
Also... the 20 " monitors were _beautiful_ to work nexst to. Before
I sold mine I always felt like I was almost living inside my NeXT.
But they are oh so heavy!
Cubes are ultra-ergonomic. The cases very somewhat depending on
when they were made. I like the cases the early 68030 machines...
they had less ventilation I think but they looked cooler... more
metalic somehow.
thomas100_at_home.com
Received on Fri Jun 26 1998 - 09:17:29 BST