Mastodawn

this is going to need a big cleanup and slowly working through the hardware to see what needs tlc but, for now, here is the NeXT haul

from left to right and top to bottom:

- 17-inch MegaPixel monochrome hi-res monitor
- three non-ADB keyboards and matching mice
- NeXT External SCSI CD-ROM
- NeXTStation
- NeXTStation
- NeXTStation Turbo
- NeXTStation Color
- NeXT SoundBox (a glorified speaker)
- (2) NeXT Laser Printers

of all of it, i'm most excited about the monitor and the soundbox. this is the very rare N4000A monitor which has a crt tube that lasts *much* longer than the original design which dims after extended use

the soundbox - well, 😅 i never imagined i'd find one in the flesh in my lifetime

#vintageApple #retroComputing #next

also rescued were these original diskettes

i'm not sure if Maple V and Mathematica for NeXT were ever preserved, but i'll totally see if the disks are still good and make backups to IA

i can only imagine how happy the graduate students were to torture undergrad MATH 210 students with these. these all came from a university of alberta department

#yeg #UofA #math #retroComputing

Colin Burgess Nov 26

@vga256 what a splendid haul!

I can’t wait to see what happens NeXT!

@colinburgess i'm looking forward to getting one of them up and running with NeXTStep, perhaps for this year's #marchintosh

skategoat 🐐 🇵🇸Nov 26

@vga256 can we get some pics of that manual?

@vga256 oh my I'm jealous

@DosFox it lured me into the shoals like a siren. my wallet hurts 😭

@vga256 awww still! Glad they got saved

Karl Matthias 🇺🇦Nov 26

@vga256 what a haul! I had several NeXT boxes back in the day and a NeXTlaser printer, too. You probably know this, that the SoundBox is required to hook the display to several of the models. My TurboColor had one. I hope you also got its cable.

@relistan yup, i was very lucky to get the soundbox for the turbo colour. i have a big pile of cables to go through, so i'm sure the y-connector will be in there somewhere 🤞

Light The Unicorn!Nov 26

@vga256 That is a *lot* of fun in one picture right there.

Awesome haul!!

@LightTheUnicorn i can't wait to start digging!

@vga256 Amazing :D

Amin Girasol Nov 27

@vga256 absolutely brilliant! Congratulations!

Daveography 🇨🇦

Wow, this is an amazing find! Nicely done, can't wait to see what you're able to do with them!

@Daveography i'm really excited to get them up and running for marchintosh. someone else mentioned running Plan 9 on it too

Karl Baron Feb 27

@vga256 @Daveography You're not gonna wait for NeXTvember?!?!

/ducks and runs

@kalleboo damn you for reminding me that i promised i’d get one up for marchintosh 😂

CharlieG Nov 27

Aaron Mahler Nov 27

@vga256 Nice acquisition there! Wish my N4000 was the newer model without the dimming issues. I was lucky to get two soundboxes with my slab and cube and wasn’t aware they were relatively rare. I haven’t gotten ahold of a printer yet, though.

My cube has a few chips and scratches, but coming to accept it as part of its history instead of pursuing the complex repaint I had in mind.

*Edit: misread and thought there was an unpictured cube in the mix. Question on cosmetic condition withdrawn.

@halfpress yes. i found an N4000 15 years ago, and mine has the same dimming problems. i'm going to try adjusting the internal focus/drive potentiometer soon and see if i can breathe a tiny bit of contrast back into it.

i can only drool over a cube - i've never seen one in the wild here, ever.

today i learned that the soundbox is *required* to boot the slab color, since it handles mouse/keyboard signal translation. i had no idea - i just assumed it was an option for sound and not a requirement.

Aaron Mahler Nov 27

@vga256 I was super lucky to score the cube and slab together from a generous colleague at Apple a year or so ago. Along with one of the color monitors, two or three soundboxes, couple of keyboards and mice and some random cables. I’ve since put BlueSCSI in both and made them multi-bootable across versions of NeXTStep and OpenStep. I bought the N4000 from someone else and it’s… ok… responded a bit to the pot adjustment. But as an art piece on my desk when not running, total win. :)

@halfpress yeow!! that is one helluva generous colleague. great idea to use the bluescsi for multibooting - i'll probably try something similar with my scsi2sd.

frustrating that these tubes are toast once the phosphorus breaks down. i'm curious if a crt rejuvenator would have any luck at improving the cathode

Aaron Mahler Nov 27

@vga256 when a lot of colleagues (before my time) moved from Infinite Loop to Apple Park, they were reportedly sitting outside office doors in hallways and other places as e-waste.

Mine didn’t come from Apple, though. He got them from Solomon Brothers as I recall based on a couple property stickers I saw on at least the slab or display.

@halfpress that's fascinating because (in a Nextworld keynote by jobs) i posted yesterday, he specifically talks about how next started courting the banking sector to replace their terminals with nextstations

Aaron Mahler Nov 27

@vga256 NOTE: you CAN boot them without the soundbox if needed. I forget what the scenario was that caused me to need to do that at first… perhaps I missing the right display cable early on.

For headless boot: touch pins 6 and GND on the DB-19 NeXT monitor out with a 470 Ohm resistor.

@halfpress ah yeah - i should have clarified, they'll boot, but they won't have keyboard/mouse control.