NeXT Computer System

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 6500, aimed at the higher-education market. It was designed around the Motorola 68030 CPU and 68882 floating-point coprocessor, with a clock speed of 25 MHz. Its NeXTSTEP operating system is based on the Mach and BSD-derived Unix, with a proprietary GUI using a Display PostScript-based back end. The enclosure consists of a 1-foot (305 mm)  cube-shaped black case, which led to the machine being informally referred to as "The Cube", Cube 030, or NeXT Cube.

In 1990, the NeXT Computer was succeeded by the Motorola 68040-based NeXTcube and NeXTstation, faster models in the same cube form factor and new pizza-box design, respectively.

Launch
The NeXT Computer was launched in October 1988 at a lavish invitation-only event, "NeXT Introduction – the Introduction to the NeXT Generation of Computers for Education" at the in San Francisco, California. The next day, selected educators and software developers were invited to attend—for a $100 registration fee—the first public technical overview of the NeXT computer at an event called "The NeXT Day" at the San Francisco Hilton. It gave those interested in developing NeXT software an insight into the system's software architecture and object-oriented programming. Steve Jobs was the luncheon's speaker.

Reception
In 1989,  magazine listed the NeXT Computer among the "Excellence" winners of the BYTE Awards, stating that it showed "what can be done when a personal computer is designed as a system, and not a collection of hardware elements". Citing as "truly innovative" the optical drive, DSP and object-oriented programming environment, it concluded that "the NeXT Computer is worth every penny of its $6,500 market price". It was, however, not a significant commercial success, failing to reach the level of high-volume sales like the Apple II,, Macintosh, or Microsoft Windows PCs. The workstations were sold to universities, financial institutions, and government agencies.

Legacy
A NeXT Computer and its object-oriented development tools and libraries were used by Tim Berners-Lee and at  to develop the world's first   and web browser.

The NeXT platform was used by Jesse Tayler at Paget Press to develop the first electronic, the in the early 1990s. Issue #3 was first demonstrated to Steve Jobs at NeXTWorld Expo 1993.

Pioneering PC games ', ', and  (with respective level editors) were by  on NeXT machines. games such as ', ', and  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 in Washington DC.

Articles

 * The NeXT Computer by Tom Thompson and Nick Baran, Byte. 1988-11.