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Home > Classic Macintosh Section > Introduction of the NeXT Cube
View all posts by: John Ward | View all posts in category: Macintosh History Most serious Mac users would admit that OS X owes as much or more of its origins to NeXTSTEP, the NeXT OS, than classic Macintosh OS. Steve Jobs left Apple in 1985 after a struggle with then CEO, John Sculley, whose myopic view of the computer industry nearly destroyed Apple in the 1990s. Jobs went on to found NeXT, which failed to find widespread acceptance in the market place. The software lived on but the NeXT computer system was an utter failure. Thankfully, in 1996, Apple bought NeXT for $402 million, bringing Jobs back to the company he founded. In 1997 he became Apple's interim CEO after the directors lost confidence in and ousted then-CEO Gil Amelio in a boardroom coup.  Image Credit: Macworld, January 1989 Jobs is famous for his introduction of the Macintosh computer in 1984. This event is well documented and information can be found on the event all over the Internet. However, few know the story of the introduction of the NeXT late in 1988. Steve Jobs had such a hold over the Macintosh community even at this late date that a whole edition of Macworld was primarily devoted to the NeXT computer. In Macworld, January 1989, Jerry Borrell wrote a commentary on the introductory ceremony of the NeXT. What follows is a brief look at his description of the event.  Image Credit: Macworld, January 1989 Excerpts from Macworld, January 1989, Jerry Borrell: The setting: a symphony hall in a major city. It is glass and concrete on the outside, subdued and human on the inside. A capacity crowd has arrived, slowly filling every seat in the auditorium. All have produced photo identification with their invitation to enter. Many media people, including many with cameras, are turned away. Their job is to wait, noses pressed to the glass outside, and make the finish look like a Hollywood event. There is talk of the dinner the night before. Of H. Ross Perot and Steve Jobs holding forth to a select crowd of potential customers, university advisors, and analysts. The machine crashed twice during dinner. The thought of the potential for disaster skirts one's consciousness, and then is gone. The lights dime, come up again, and Jobs walks out to applause that would warm any conductor's heart. He is confident, happy, but thin. Three years is too long a time for this man to be out of the limelight. He begins by telling us that all computers have a life span of ten years. The PC is dying, the Mac has peaked, and now his machine is going to be the personal computer of the 1990s. The opening slide is of the classical sandstone porticos at Stanford University. By the third paragraph, Steve has convincingly positioned the machine as the "scholars workstation." The target for this computer will be 3000 universities, 45,000 departments, 600,000 faculty members, and 12 million students. Steve credits 23 carefully selected advisors, the heads of computer centers at colleges and universities across the country, with having guided the machine to this point. We are impressed - credentials have been proffered and look good. We still hadn't seen the actual computer, but Steve makes a transition to a discussion of what's inside the box. He starts with a list of ten items that NeXT had been given from the members of Academe: 5-MIPS processing, floating-point processing, array processing, 8 MB of RAM, at least 100 MB of disk capacity, unified imaging and printing, a 1-megapixal display, transparent networking, and UNIX for the end user. OK. Does a good showman set himself up to look foolish before a crowd like this? Of course not; he raises questions and has an answer for each. But a great showman knows how to stretch it out - and Steve Jobs did just that (apparently, nothing much has changed in 20 years - Vectronic). "We wanted to do more," he says, "We wanted fast networks, great sound, an architecture expandable through the 1990s, a machine that is small and quiet, and an affordable laser printer." Jobs goes on to explain that a 68030 CPU chip from Motorola, handles the interface and is supported by a floating-point processor. There is a digital-signal processor chip that is very fast and dedicated to array processing (sound, facsimile, image processing, and graphics). In addition, there are 12 other CPU chips that shuttle data back and forth on the board. "We had a revelation that it's not the processor but the data flow in and out of computers that limits them," Steve tells us. So NeXT added enough processing to the machine to solve many of these problems. The software designers couldn't have enjoyed figuring out all of this, but that's our problem.
Using a laser pointer, Steve went on waxing enthusiastic about the internal architecture of the computer. The sound? CD quality, of course. A modem won't be ready until next year. An "Aah" is heard from the audience at the first sign that the computer is not quite finished. NeXT chose NuBus (used by the Mac II) for its internal communication. A second, more enthusiastic "Aah" begins to well up when Steve notes that the NuBus in the NeXT runs at two to three times the backplane speeds in the Mac II. Ethernet is built-in, of course, there's a SCSI port - "Aah" - and the machine is plug and play compatible with external devices for the Macintosh, but it runs at four times the speed. People are making little grunts of appreciation; there are lots of smiles. The hardware is very good. Steve says he would love to show some slides of how the computer is made, but he's decided instead to show a movie. The film starts like an early George Romero flick - white type on a black background, high camp. Then it switches to the most polished corporate setting imaginable. The board fabrication is done by robots, with all surface-mount technology. The floor of the place is polished to a smooth gloss, and the lighting makes it look like a modern office. At the end of the film, we get a glimpse of the computer. A black, 1-square-foot-cube, with a tiny logo in the center. Then, at last, he shows us the computer itself. The design is everything you might expect. The cube can reside anywhere - only the keyboard, monitor, and mouse clutter your workspace. The machine has an open architecture and holds up to three additional cards. Best of all, the cable connecting the monitor and the CPU is 10 feet long. With the matching printer, it all looks like a high tech line from the Sharper Image catalog or from Porsche Designs. By now the audience is eating out of Steve's hand. One audience member allows that if the machine has software he'll turn in his Mac at home and by one of these. All of this before the machine is turned on. We don't even know if it runs yet and people are singing its praises. Then Steve turns on the computer and it runs a cute demo that first emulates the IBM PC, then the Mac, and then launches into Aaron Copland's "Fanfare for the Common Man." The clouds projected on high are replaced by a sea of shining stars. The demo image on the symphony stage shows three windows opening simultaneously with no perceptible slow down. Now its Steve's turn to be pleased. The machine didn't crash. He pats it appreciatively and announces a piece of the hardware he has saved for last. The computer has no floppy drive, instead using a 256 MB removable, erasable optical drive. "Some four years before other companies can implement the technology," he says, "We bet our company on this." Everyone is impressed. Then we're given a break and it's only as we troop out of the hall that some developers can be heard wondering how software distribution will work. The erasable disks cost $50 apiece (floppies cost $1). Never mind, there are machines outside for the people to see. The tough announcements - software, pricing, and programming - are saved for after the break. Steve goes into more detail about NeXTSTEP, the NeXT's software architecture. Loud "Oohs" and "Aahs" are again heard from the audience. Steve wastes little time explaining the fact that all the software rests on a UNIX base, because there is no need. UNIX is transparent to the user. The developer environment looks even better. The toolkit features all object-oriented programming routines. The Interface Builder allows for fast construction of working interfaces. And the software architecture, NeXTSTEP, renders UNIX useable to "mere mortals." At last the price: $6,500 for education users. No mention of retail prices, but one can assume an end user price of about $10,000. Suddenly the machine looks more like competition for Sun Microsystems than for Apple. The shipping date? System software version 0.8 ships now to developers. Version 0.9 ships in the first quarter of 1989 to "aggressive end users." Version 1.0 ships in the second quarter of 1989. This is a machine that will not ship to most end users until the summer of 1989 at the earliest. That understated fact brings the announcement back to reality. You can't even march down to your local dealership and see one of these things until next summer. Nevertheless, the price receives a strong round of applause. It's a good price considering what we've seen. The pricing presentation is followed by some prerecorded endorsements of the machine from software developers. To close the program, a violinist from the San Francisco symphony is brought out to play a movement from a concerto. His accompanist? The NeXT Cube. At center stage are two pools of light, one for the musician, one for the black cube that is on a stand at shoulder level. For 15 minutes we hear the two playing together and it's not bad. After the applause for both, and a bow from Steve, the show is over. Lights come up and Steve thanks everyone. There is an odd sense of vulnerability about it all. The announcement went well, the computer looks great, and the early adapters are enthusiastic. But the machine isn't shipping, there's no NeXT magazine. We're all left waiting, and next year is a long time in the world of computing. |
