NeXT Computer (also called the NeXT Computer System) is a workstation computer that was developed, marketed, and sold by NeXT Inc. It was introduced in October 1988 as the company's first and flagship product, at a price of , aimed at the higher-education market. It was designed around the Motorola 68030 CPU and 68882 floating-point coprocessor, The workstation was not a significant commercial success, failing to reach the high-volume sales of the Apple II, Commodore 64, Mac, or IBM PC compatibles. This was mainly blamed on the computer's substantial price, and the fact that there was not a great demand for the system outside of the higher-education market. Next Computers were mainly sold to universities, financial institutions, and government agencies.

Pioneering PC games Doom, Doom II, and Quake (with respective level editors) were developed by id Software on NeXT machines. Doom engine games such as Heretic, Hexen, and Strife were also developed on NeXT hardware using id's tools.

NeXT technology provisioned the first online food delivery system called CyberSlice, using GIS based geolocation, on which Steve Jobs performed the first online order of pizza with tomato and basil. CyberSlice was curated into the Inventions of the 20th Century, Computer Science at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.

Architecture

The NeXT Computer features three Motorola-manufactured chips: the Motorola 68030 CPU, a Motorola 68882 Floating Point Unit, and a Motorola 56001 digital signal processor.

See also

  • Previous, emulator of NeXT hardware
  • NeXTstation
  • NeXTcube
  • NeXTcube Turbo
  • NeXT character set
  • Power Mac G4 Cube

References

  • Byte Magazine, November 1988: The NeXT Computer Facsimile, Full text
  • Simson Garfinkel's NeXT pages including NeXTWorld Magazine
  • The Best of NeXT Collection
  • NeXT Computer brochure (page 7 contains a full size image of the circuit board)
  • old-computers.com — NeXTcube
  • Photos of black hardware