NeXT cubes or slabs.

From: R. Stricklin <red_at_bears.org>
Date: Mon Jun 29 14:36:28 1998

On Fri, 26 Jun 1998, Seth J. Morabito wrote:

> Wow! Here's a device I've never heard of. Fringe-classic, I suppose, but
> cool enough that I really want one from the sounds of it.

It's a pretty cool little frob, yes.

> Are they near-impossible to find now? I'd love to run Mac emulation
> in a window on my Nitro slab. (40MHz of raw burning black NeXT
> power :)

I hate you. (: I forget if the Nitro was the NeXT prototype or the
aftermarket accelerator made by (I think) Spherical Solutions.

The Daydreams show up on rare occasion in comp.sys.next.marketplace. There
was one for sale there, actually, just the other day. They sell from $250
to $400. Generally, people snap them up when they see them and don't wait
for a better-priced one to come along.

The emulation isn't perfect.. because the NeXT uses its DSP for sound
reproduction, and the Daydream needs it to talk to the ROMs, you don't get
sounds under MacOS. Also, it's not a window-type emulation. The Daydream
software is a special kernel image that allows the NeXT to boot into MacOS
(7.x -- I'm running 7.5.5). Because the Daydream reports itself as an LC
(which are the ROMs it uses), you cannot use 7.6 or newer.

I've also found that DiskCopy doesn't seem to work under the Daydream Mac.
But other than that, it's very good. I get performance somewhere around
that of a Quadra 800 on my non-turbo slab.

None of this stuff is 10 years old yet, but it's been abandoned and is
otherwise just way too cool.

ok
r.
Received on Mon Jun 29 1998 - 14:36:28 BST