Talk:NeXT

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[edit] Technology

I don't think the comparison to 8088/8086/286s is appropriate time-wise. By the time the NeXT was released, 386s were definitely in use, and I think even the 486 was not too far off. Also, when my college received our NeXT cubes, we already had some Mac II computers, with color. I think we even had Macc IIci and IIsi models.

[edit] Sentence Correction

This sentence needs to be re-worded: "Basically the drive itself, while faster than a floppy, was simply not fast enough to run a Unix based OS as its primary medium." It sounds like the OS is the primary medium of the MO drive, where it is in fact the MO drive that is the primary medium for the OS.

Changed to: "...was simply not fast enough to run as the primary medium for a Unix-based OS." ABoerma 13:25, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sneakernet Link

Sneakernet could probably be an article link.

[edit] WebObjects

We need to create a paragraph about WebObjects. It's an important NeXT product that still exists. -- tooki 17:07, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Major Copyedit

I have gone through and performed a pretty serious copyedit... I also added a large number of {{fact}}s. It's important to remember that this article is about NeXT, not Apple, so I removed a lot of statements about OS X that weren't directly related to NeXT's software contributions. Themillofkeytone 16:00, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] This is a Good Article

After reviewing the article, I've determined it to meet the qualifications for GA status. It is well written, comprehensive, and of a good neutral tone. The last copyedit by User:Themillofkeytone seems to have done the trick.

The biggest step for improvement now would be filling all the {{fact}} templates with actual citations. If anyone wanted to help the article out, verifying and citing a few of those little facts would go a long way!

Keep up the good work, folks. Phidauex 15:43, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Irrelevant Apple Stuff

The last paragraph lists every new Apple machine that was released during the transition from PPC to Intel processors. These details are tangential overkill in an article about NeXT. No one who comes here to learn about the NeXT corporation needs to know the specific date the Apple MacBook was released. Just say when the transition began or ended and be done with it. emw 15:42, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Fixed, removed the specifics about Apple. — Wackymacs 15:49, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] NeXT's software was a BSD Variant

'NeXT's software was originally intended to be used as the foundation for Mac OS X[2], however they opted to base it on a BSD variant instead.'

This is not accurate. NeXTStep was a Mach 2.5-derived kernel with a BSD server which provided most of the UNIX services. During the Rhapsody era, Apple imported a lot of NetBSD code into the BSD component, to replace ageing 4.2BSD parts. With OS X, they imported more FreeBSD code. They also took a load of userland components from NetBSD and FreeBSD, although some (e.g. top) are still the NeXT versions.

If you read the XNU (OS X kernel) source code (or Amit Singh's excellent book on the subject) you will see a large number of source files with copyright notices dating back to 1996 and earlier. Most of these were present in NeXT's operating system and do not originate from any other BSD system.

The new IOKit, based on Embedded C++ replaces the old NeXT driver kit based on Objective-C (for performance reasons), but this is entirely new, and not found in any other OS.

At the kernel level, OS X is an updated OPENSTEP. At the API level (Cocoa) it is an updated OPENSTEP. The window server component was re-written in a large part to take advantage of the features of modern 3D cards, and to address some issues with DPS (e.g. the fact that it is not possible to determine how long a program written in a Turing-complete language will take to execute, making scheduling of drawing difficult).

--David Chisnall 13:52, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Glass Staircase

So which office had the glass staircase? The first or the second? It is mentioned as being in both.Geneffects 22:10, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] NeXTcube name

This article mistakenly refers to the first-generation NeXT workstation as the "NeXTcube"; this name was only officially used for the second-generation '040-based cube. The original NeXT model was simply called the "NeXT Computer" (or "NeXT Computer System") in NeXT's literature - see the brochure. Also, looking at the brochure scans, the company seems to have been called "NeXT, Inc." at the time of the original launch, and later changed to NeXT Computer, Inc. Letdorf 10:47, 10 April 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Continuity issues

This article, says Steve Jobs resigned from Apple Computer. Yet the Steve Jobs article says he was fired ClEeFy

Jobs was marginalized from any active role in the company and subsequently resigned. In upper management, this is one way executives get fired. Gwen Gale (talk) 07:49, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Net income , gross revenues not present in the right side box

can some one please place these values as found in all the other company portals. thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nikhilhuilgol (talk • contribs) 07:02, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] When did the Intel port of NeXTSTEP start?

Though a minor point, I have some reason to think (a private e-mail message by Jobs) that it started before 1992. Is this 1992 date based on good sources? If not, then from the message I got in Sep 1991 it seems they were already at work then. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gctwnl (talk • contribs) 00:13, 2 January 2008 (UTC)


[edit] The missing citation for statement "The NeXT Computer was slower than many Unix workstations becoming available at that time, but cost about half as much"

I think that the New York Times article "The Executive Computer; Fresh Momentum for Unix, but Still Hurdles to Clear" [1] is acceptable a source, but I have chosen not to add it because do not know the proper way to do so. --AdamTheWebMan (talk) 23:54, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

As I now read the article, it doesn't say so. It says the NeXT computers were of comparable performance to other UNIX workstations, but cost about half as much. ›mysid (☎∆) 19:12, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
It actually says that a Sun color IPC was $8,995 and a color Nextstation was $7,995.--NapoliRoma (talk) 19:20, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] removed "NeXT To Return in 2009?"

Yoinked the following for myriad reasons:

Since the early period after the millennium rumors have been circulating in the back rooms of 1 Infinite loop Cupertino, California that NeXT is to make a comeback. Some employes have reportedly seen large black MacPro cases with a covered up logo in place of the usual Apple Logo, being hurriedly transported in and out of rooms. In February 2007 an employe was added to the apple payroll under the heading "New and Continuing Product Division", the name of this employee is Maxx Kai-Morten who previously worked for the now defunct Quicksilver (UK) software. From the very limited information that has been leaked, the new machine could be based upon the current MacPro and the OS would be based around Mac OS 10.5. As to be expected with NeXT the computer would have an insane spec and be very cutting edge. NeXT was also rumored to make a comeback around the 2003 area but these plans never came to fruition as apple was concentrating all its energy on the iPod. From the time that the product development started the NeXT computer should be due for release in early 2009, although this is yet to be confirmed by Apple from the time that the project started and the amount of time that has been spent on the project the product is now more than overdue.

[edit] Diskless workstations

At the time of release in 1989, some workstations were not shipped with a hard drive, such as the DECstation 3100 and SPARCstation 1. Floppy disks were used to load the OS and additional software, meaning users needed to swap between floppy disks to load an ever-growing number of applications.

This is nonsense. Diskless workstations did exist, but they used a fileserver for their mass storage (and booting), not floppy disks. I can't think of any UNIX workstations contemporaneous with the NeXT Computer which used floppies as their primary mass storage medium - that would have been impractical. Letdorf (talk) 11:41, 16 April 2008 (UTC).

I reworded it slightly. — Wackymacs (talk) 12:28, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Merge NeXT(UK) and NeXT articles

Does anyone think that the NeXT (UK) and the NeXT articles should be merged? (86.134.36.96 (talk) 19:06, 3 May 2008 (UTC))

  • No. Because none of it is referenced, and it all seems dubious. (And that NeXT (UK) article is up for deletion). — Wackymacs (talk) 19:57, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Some notes and ideas after copy-editing

At the request of Wackymacs, I've done some copy editing on the article. A lot of this was just simple grammar and formatting corrections which I haven't listed here. Three persistent errors to watch out for:

  • misuse of italics (used for names of books, films, albums but not for software and hardware or company names)
  • companies are singular, not plural ("Apple used the software for its site", not "Apple used the software for their site")
  • in the context of an article about a US company and only quoting US dollars, the US before figures isn't needed (or is needed at most on the first example), not at random after that.

Like many a Wikipedia article, this degrades a little over the course of the text. Here's a list of broader problems which I think need to be addressed in the article but will leave other editors to consider implementing.

  • The successor element in the former company infobox seems redundant.
  • Most of the inline references in the lead seem unnecessary and arbitrary to me, as they don't refer to controversial facts and they're all sourced in the body (I haven't followed any previous discussion on this topic though.
  • I don't think the OpenStep 5.0 reference is needed in the lead (and I'm not sure it's supported by the cited text); also, this point isn't made anywhere in the body text, where it would be more appropriate (if it's justified).
  • The section headings need work. 'Early years' is uninformative and could perhaps be replaced with 'Founding Next'. The subsequent sections are all quite long and could do with being divided up (certainly the hardware section could be split between the two main generations). The Apple section is mostly about the development of OS X, not the acquisition, so should also be renamed. I don't think the ", Inc." is needed in the subheadings either, just at the first reference to that version of the company name in the text.
  • The early history was a bit garbled, so I reordered it to make it more chronological.
  • The comment about late release of Macs needs a more precise time frame.
  • Most of the direct quotations in the article seem gratuitous to me -- included because they sound pithy rather than because they advance our understanding of the topic. The "five years ahead" quote is arguably well-known enough to merit inclusion, but needs to be set in context (what release date was missed?) The "bue jeans" quote adds nothing. The Gates and McNealy material could be presented more succinctly, and needs a topic sentence explaining the context (presumably reactions to NeXT from other industry players).
  • I think a brief explanation of what a wet lab simulation is (not just a Wikilink) would help general reader comprehension. Ditto for a Mach-based system.
  • While the article goes to some lengths to contrast the specifications for the NeXT Computer and its competitors, it doesn't say anything about an equally important factor: the price. Material on this is needed (there's discussion of the 'dorm room ambition' of an affordable machine but the high price is rather ignored subsequently).
  • "The drive was not sufficient to run as the primary medium" needs clarification, Not big enough? Not fast enough?
  • The material about NeXTWorld magazine and the expo doesn't sit well where it's currently located. Might work as a separate section on 'The NeXT Community' after the corporate culture section. More specific dates on the tenure of the editors would be good. Were the four volumes four individual magazines, or four years' worth of publication? (Volume is an odd term to use in a non-academic context.)
  • The processor port history was uncomfortably tangled with the material about NeXT ceasing systems manufacture. I've moved some stuff around here, but it probably needs further work.
  • Did the Sun investment go through?
  • The discussion of the development of Mac OS X is much too detailed in the context of an article about NeXT. The key points seem to me to be that the tools were ported to Mac and Intel platforms, that many key features were retained in OS X, and that platform independence remained a primary goal; the detail on Carbon, Blue Box, Yellow Box etc. is excessive and liable to confuse the reader. Definitely could use some trimming. Also, the details of what got included don't need repeating in the impact section, I'd argue.
  • The corporate culture section would benefit from a discussion of whether any of these innovations survived at Apple or influenced other companies, assuming that material can be sourced.
  • The section on Macs in the impact discussion needs some more context: if 10 million users had shifted, how many hadn't? Do we have more recent figures for OS X sales? What proportion of the overall computer market does this represent?
  • The list of sites that use WebObjects doesn't need repeating.
  • The stuff that's not included in Mac OS X (Display PostScript and tear-off menus) hasn't ever been mentioned before; it should be dropped or explained more fully earlier in the article. (I'd personally just dump it.

Hope this has been helpful, happy to clarify any comments here or explain other changes. Gusworld (talk) 01:26, 2 May 2008 (UTC)