I was recently kindly donated a NeXT Step NeXT Cube by a colleague at work.
It's a late 1992 2nd generation model, with the Motorola 68040 CPU running at 25Mhz, with a respectable 8MB of RAM, and a 5.25 600MB SCSI winchester drive.
Up until this point, I had only ever really read about the NeXT systems and OS, although we did have one at my college, it used to sulk in a corner and I don't think it actually worked.
So, follow me now as I go down the rabbit hole to find out what I can about this mythical beast........
I collected the cube, its monitor and printer from my colleague and was truly amazed that it was all still in it's original packaging, a true collectors gem if ever there was one!
Once I got it home I started of course, by admiring the design of this thing, its made of magnesium, and fully strips down fairly easily, and you can even remove some really long screws and the outer cube splits into 3 pieces. (but I haven't been brave enough to do this yet!)
I found this in the box....
Conveniently NeXT supply you with a specially branded torque wrench for removing the back panel of the cube!
Let's dive in.......
Here it is with the back cover removed, and the fan disconnected.
(I have omitted the boring cleaning photos highlighting the removal of a decade or so's worth of dust)
Time to pull out the innards and investigate further....
That's the main board gently sliding out, another hat tip to the designer, everything is literally on rails making it a pleasure to work with.
I later found out that all slot in boards connect to a common backplane that supplies the power and provides the data busses.
Aaaand it's out, is this what giving birth is like in cyberspace?
Look at all those lovely shiny Motorola chips, they really don't make them like they used too!
Here is a brief explanation of some of the components on the board: (Thanks to Rob Blessin for the image, more on him later).
Warning! Hardware porn.....
So, After a good cleanup and checking all the RAM, ROM and other socketed chips for for good contact, would it still power up after all this time and recent fiddling shenanigans?
Find out after the break.....
coming up
It's alive, Alliiivvveeee......
That classic sound of a winchester drive get's my spidey senses tingling and put's my nostalgia functions into overdvive! :D
More to follow, tune in next time for more adventures in NeXT land......
I'm back today with the next instalment of the NeXT Land Journey.
A month or so has passed since I began looking into the NeXT Cube, and although the first post was last night, I'm trying to keep this blog linear as things happened.
A lot can happen in a month, unless you are UK customs (more on that later).
So, upon searching the internet, forums and a few usenet groups I started to find out more about the cube and it's OS.
Information is a bit thin on the ground for these machines, as not many regular people as far as I can see actually had them, they were used a lot in research and education, and most notably by Tim Berners Lee, who created the first ever web browser and the world wide Web as we know it today, using a NeXT cube at CERN.
I found out that CERN has recently resurrected the first website made by Tim, and believe it or not the actual cube that served as the first webserver, doing what web servers do, serving web pages!
On my travels through cyberspace looking for information, I came across a few very good fountains of knowledge where all things NeXT are concerned.
The first was a forum, dedicated to NeXT hardware and software called nextcomputers.org
This is where I found out that there are different types of NeXT hardware and operating systems.
The Motorola hardware is affectionately know as "Black Hardware" with the Intel and other hardware being known as "White Hardware"
The NeXT Step Motorola based operating system went up to version 3.4, and was later superseded by Open Step which ran on more types of hardware and was literally opened up for all to use, this signalled the OS becoming more of a set of API's that could be used on other hardware.
Sadly NeXT was only around for 3 years or so before it was taken over by Apple as we know them today.
There is a whole back story about the takeover, but I will briefly summarize:
Jobs and Woz started Apple, Apple's board eventually kicked Jobs out, Jobs went and created NeXT, Apple started going down the pan, Apple re-hired Jobs and bought NeXT off him, and then used NeXT hardware and Software concepts to create OS X and the Macintosh computer as we know it today.
In particular, the Mach kernel, Unix and the BSD subsystem were all used, and still are to this day.
As a side note, I noticed many of the NeXT system notification "sounds" are present that are still in OS X even now.
There's a whole lot more to it, but you can research that yourself ;)
Right, back to the travels......
The second fountain of knowledge I came across was a man called Rob Blessin, who runs a site called Blackhole Inc
Rob was, and still is a NeXT systems integrator, and keeping the NeXT torch burning by still actively providing information, and actually still selling hardware components and parts, along with original and backup copies of the OS and ROM images.
Here is a video of the London 2012 olympics opening ceremony, opened by Tim Berners Lee, using a NeXT cube (that he tweeted from to open the ceremony) that was integrated by Rob Blessin.
How very cool is that!
I'd hit the motherload, So what was I to do with all this new found knowledge and supply of NeXT upgrade parts?
Coming up
How to blow a months wages and the snail like pace of UK customs.
Well, Get yourself a beverage of your choice, perhaps put some Kraftwerk on whichever music medium you use for aural excitement, and let's begin..........
Last time I covered a bit of history of the NeXT Cube, and its influence on the web, and Apple.
I've been soaking up more information as I've come across it, and as mentioned in the last post, I'm broke this month and desperately awaiting payday!
I got in contact with Rob Blessin of Blackhole Inc directly, and we had a discussion on upgrade parts for the cube (hence why I'm now broke!), but there is now a lot more story to tell with trials and tribulations expected of retro obsolete hardware.
It's a good thing I have a lot of patience, and have done a lot of work previously one my number one favourite hobby the Commodore Amiga, which also uses Motorola chips, so the NeXT is kind of a similar hardware platform in a way.
The original spec of the cube I have is as follows:
68040 CPU @ 25Mhz
8MB RAM
600MB SCSI Winchester HDD
2.5MB Floppy drive.
OS 2.2
Since speaking to Rob, I managed to acquire the following upgrade parts:
32MB in 4MB SIMMs
Slot loading SCSI CD-ROM drive
New factory sealed floppy drive
NeXT Step OS 3.3 upgrade kit
SCSI2SD adapter with 4GB SD *
* A fantastic new product on the market from Michael McMaster, that has an old school 50pin SCSI connector on the board one side, and a micro SD on the other (dark magic happens in the middle to allow you to use the micro SD as your HDD).
Onwards to upgrade-vile.......
Right, I said more pictures less talky and I've not done very well so far! So, I'll start that now.
Just one last thing, I mentioned customs being snail paced, well glacial paced really, I ordered the parts and they were sent the next day from Colorado, it took them 4 days to pass through the US postal services and outgoing customs, and then arrive in the UK, pretty damn quick!
However, they managed to wait an infuriating 8 days in the UK customs before I got them! Grr.
Here's the upgrade parts:
Minty fresh floppy drive.
8 x 4MB (32MB) 30 pin SIMMs.
NeXT OS 3.3 Upgrade kit.
Slot loading SCSI CD-ROM.
Super duper SCSI2SD adapter.
Right, best get to work...
The power supply was a bit noisy, I expected that this was caused by dust buildup on the fan, I was right.
This took a whole 2 screws to get out! Yet another hat tip to the designer.
The other side of the PSU
Lots of dusting later, and some coughing, I managed to get the Winchester out, this thing is huge! At least twice the size of a modern 3.5 HDD
Winchester
While we're at it, let's see what an empty cube looks like inside:
How a Borg see's the world
After a little research, I found that I needed to make sure I had at least a 2.4 v65 ROM, and as luck would have it, I did. (I will probably update this to 2.4 v66 at some point)
A la ROM
Time for the RAM upgrade methinks, lets crack on.
Before the RAM
Aaaaand after.
Alrighty then, that should provide me with a nice boost to 40MB in total W00T!!!
Ok, so I've increased the RAM, let's power it up and feel that warm fuzzy feeling that more RAM can provide.
Power, ON
Ohes Noes :(
It didn't boot, there must be a RAM issue.
Damnit, these things are never simple are they? well at least they weren't before we had plug and pray.
So what to do?
Why Google of course......
Hmm, not a lot of useful information there, let's try taking out the BIOS battery (well it's not really a BIOS, but it's easier to get the concept over this way)
Reset BIOS, Reboot.......
More oh noes.
Hmm I've had a problem similar to this on one of my Amiga memory upgrades, Now what did I do to fix it, and will the same thing work in this scenario???
Coming up
Join me next time when I attempt fire magic and incantations to resurrect the non working cube.
Glad you could join me for another foray into NeXT Land.
What have I been up to for the last few hours?
Well, as previously mentioned, I was having a spot of bother with the RAM and and getting and Exception #2 in the ROM monitor, even though the system was picking up 40MB after tests, but failing with the exception, I thought removing the PRAM (BIOS) battery and leaving it out for a bit may cure the issue once it had reset, usually an hour is enough, but in this case it didn't work.
Well, what to do?
As I said in the last post, It reminded me of an error I had seen before when upgrading the RAM on an accelerator card in one of my Amiga computers. So I decided to open up said Amiga and have a look around. Then like being smacked around the head with a gold bar wrapped in lemon, It hit me, the person whom I bought the accelerator off had sold it me (very cheaply) as not working, and I had spent a number of weeks trying to make it work again, The person I got it from had taken the original SIMMs off it to use in another card, but had found some matching SIMMs to go in it prior to selling it to me.
After a week of frustration and blue air, I finally found what the issue was with it!
The replacement SIMMs had come from an ancient compaq machine, and as you may or may not know, 486 era compaq's used a very specific type of memory which had parity, used a lot in servers and the like for error checking, but not so common in retail end user machines, go compaq!
Anyhow, I replaced the SIMMs in the Amiga card with non parity one's and hey presto, it sprang back into life, and was used up until fairly recently when I donated the machine to a friend.
Could it be as simple as this on the cube?
Well, after poking around in the ROM monitor, I found a command to show the installed memory in blocks of 4, and the type of the memory installed.
Low and behold:
All the new SIMMs are parity page mode, whereas the original 8 are not.
So, I set about the grueling task of now removing ALL the SIMMs, (this is not easy on this board) and separating them into original and new.
I then put back in only the new ones from position 0 - 7
Ok, let's put it all back together and see what happens......
Joygasm! It boots again with 32MB RAM
However, and there's always a but, if I were to present you with the following, what would you do?
And before you say, "Log in" who as? what password?
These are questions that I asked myself, and I tried many combinations to begin with before I kicked myself for not trying the most obvious!
This is a Unix based system right? So the obvious choice to start with should be Root root, everyone used to use that :)
No joy, lol, So I contacted the fellow I got it off and asked him, (my hat goes off to anyone that can remember a password from 10 or so years back!) Sadly it didn't work.
So, what was I to do, I had this sweet machine up and running again with some new tasty RAM but couldn't get into it.
Time for some internets.......
Fortunately the NeXT OS has the same security flaw that OS X does (well up to 10.11 anyway), albeit in a slightly different way, in that you can boot into a special kind of "mode" for want of a better word, that lets you change the password for any user on the system without knowing it first.
On the Mac one could simply boot from a CD or more recently into recovery and simply change said password, And if you remember the older powerPC Macs you could get into open firmware to reset various things there too.
However, NeXT has no open firmware or recovery partition, and booting from a CD when you have no CD drive is a bit difficult.
So I tried a few key commands, wondering if they had too carried over into Mac land, and a bit of Googling, and low and behold, the system can be booted into a Unix shell via ROM monitor :)
So, I set about using a common Unix command to reset the password for the Root account, it goes a little something like this:
Reboot the system.
Immediately after the "Testing System" message is replaced with "Loading from disk", hold down the right command key and press the tilde (~) on the numeric keypad. You are now at the ROM monitor.
Boot the machine into single user mode. Most people boot off the hard disk, and should type the following at the ROM monitor prompt:
Code:
NeXT> bsd -s
Once the system has started and dumps you at a root prompt, you need to make sure NetInfo and other services get started. Do this by typing:
Code:
sh /etc/rc &
Set the root password using:
Code:
passwd root
Now, reboot the system and you can use the new password.
Much grinning ensued, As I was now in the system and free to play.
First run of NeXT Step
Oh my, what and adventure so far :)
But whats that I hear you say, what about the SCSI2SD thingy you mentioned? and the CD-ROM drive? And upgrading from OS 2.4 to 3.3?
Well, first things first, we are almost up to real time now in this adventure, and the CD-ROM drive has presented a bit of a mechanical problem (I dare say electrical/configuration as well later).
The drive fits perfectly in the chassis in the cube, however it does not line up with the slot on the front of the machine :( My intention is to take a lot of measurements and either fabricate or 3D print a cradle for it to sit on that makes it line up properly, I will in due course plug it in without the cradle and test it with a disc in to make sure it works and is configured properly, but that's a thing for another post.
As for the SCSI2SD, well, having used a couple of these already on my Amiga machines, I can honestly say that after a bit of configuration they work superbly.
Here is the SCSI2SD in the cube ready to be fired up.
Conveniently the upgrade is taken care of by the microSD card, which has a full OS 3.3 system pre-loaded with all the extra goodies. (I know, a bit of a cheat, but hey it's been fun so far right) And I will do a manual upgrade soon, and blog it!
Wow, I'm quite tired now, I feel like I have been NeXT Cubing and blogging all day!
Probably because I have.
Ok, back to business, I put the cube back together and fired it up, Needless to say it all worked first time, which really surprised me! So i'll leave you with this little gem, that pretty much sums the whole experience up so far.........
Notice how quiet it is now without the Winchester drive!
That's it for now folks, we are at real time.
Coming up
I intend to try and get the cube on the network, and hopefully browse a website, maybe the first ever one? And perhaps try and send an email.
And hopefully by then I will have sorted the CD-ROM out
Thanks for reading, and hope to blog you again soon.
Another post today, this time a very very short one.
Firstly congratulations to my friend Darryl and his partner Lana on having their baby at 3am ish this morning :-)
Ok, So I got restless today after walking the dogs with my partner, so when I got home after a quick cuppa I set about trying to get the SCSI CD-ROM drive installed.
As I mentioned previously I couldn't get it to line up with the front of the case and thought I'd need to make a cradle for it.
How wrong I was! Upon further inspection there were screw holes further down that I hadn't contemplated before, as they looked far too low down to be of any use.
Looking again today I gave them a go, and low and behold the drive lines up with the slot now. So it just goes to show that old addige is true about removing yourself from the problem long enough that the solution becomes apparent. lol, that and sleep!
I thought I was going to have a game getting the drive working from a configuration point of view, but to my surprise, after I had fitted it and then powered up, I noticed it did some checking and initialisation in the ROM manager verbose output, listed a HP CD-ROM, span the drive up a couple of times and proceeded to boot.
I then tested the drive with an Amiga cd I had laying around and it appeared almost instantly in the file viewer window. Colour me impressed.
There's not much to show, but here is a picture of that cd in the drive after I had ejected it with the file viewer eject disc button.
Cube sticks tongue out
That's about it for now.
I am still struggling with the networking on the cube, I have found a few seemingly useful apps on the machine, simple network starter and hostmanager, but I can't seem to figure out how to use them yet.
I'm going to do a bit more Googling soon, but for today, I have had enough for now.
Hopefully next time I'll be able to demonstrate the cube connected to my network, and potentially being used for mail or browsing.
I was chatting to my friend Mandy today and she remarked about the comment I made on the sounds from NeXT being used in all the later Mac OS's.
So I decided to do a quick recording for all to hear!
How many sound can you spot that carried over.
4k video is a bit overkill for staring at the back of the monitor but hey, it's all I had at the time, and I've been having trouble embedding audio on the blog.
I'm back after a very brief break, and have to say thanks to my friend for giving me the impetus to get up into the retro loft to record the sounds for the last post.
This led me to begin noodling around with the NeXT Cube this evening.
Now, as you may remember a few posts back I was going to attempt for my next endeavour to get the cube connected to my network and possibly more.
Well......
I had a bit of a hallelujah moment! (yes, I tried to embed that sound file here but kept failing and gave up).
I could just post the last picture here, but I won't, Join me on my excursion into the dark side of Terminal land, and the trials and tribulations of blind, manual IP config.
On to business.......
First off, everything that was intuitive to me personally (and potentially others as well) when configuring the IP settings was wrong!
Simple Network Starter sounds like it does exactly what it says on the tin, and goes through what appears to be all the motions, and then.... Fail.
This box truly makes you realise how easy we have it now, you plug in a network cable, and it just "works"
First off, I had to Manually add the DNS servers, also referred to nameservers, to the /etc/resolv.conf file (note the spelling, this sent me round in circles for a while I can tell you!)
I added my own router, Virgin and Googles DNS servers.
This file doesn't exist by the way, so you have to create it.
And another feature that carried over into Mac land, is that everything is .rtf by default, and you have to edit the file to not be when using it for conf files.
Resolv.conf
Next you have to edit the host in NetInfoManager (Mac OS 9 anyone) to add your IP, & Domain is added here also, I kept it simple with my main RAVE domain.
Memories of OS 9
Edit your Hostname and check domain, making sure the aliases are correct.
More inputting
Put your usual network settings in, double triple check them!
Mmm, IP's
Ok, So I best look for a browser, I hear Onmiweb is pretty good on the NeXT OS?
Omniwebs R us
Ooh look, It has it own little local html welcome page :)
Much merriment ensued I can asure you, I was jiggling like a looney around the room.
Sadly when I tried to view Tim Berners Lee's first website at CERN, it didnt seem to want to work :( and browsing google.co.uk literally opens the page in pure HTML, I think this is due to how sites are rendered and new browsers work.
But I'm very happy I got this far :)
For now, this concludes the adventures NeXT Land.
It's been a fun journey of discovery for me, and hopefully for you reading this as well.
I'll wrap up by saying this is proof if ever it was needed that you can take a system you've never used before, a minute amount of information about it, and still achieve something wonderful and completely captivating for yourself with a bit of effort and time.
So, what's
Outtakes:
Huge clouds of dust everywhere, in most posts!
2 cut fingers.
1 cut thumb.
Lot's of body part scratches/nicks.
2 cases of red eye from dust, and many more from lack of sleep.
Hours of head scratching.
1 ruined duster.
1 clogged vacuum.
A Lot of swearing.
At least 4 DOH moments.
Over 50 reboots.
Lots of incorrectly spelt Terminal commands.
3 counts of logging in as Me instead of Root and wondering why commands didn't work.
Hours and hours of search engine use.
Computer widow partner for quite a while (Sorry Sarah)
It's been quite a while since my last post, however much has happened, Not all NeXT related, But a fair amount.
In brief, I decided to rebuild the system from scratch myself, using the original NS 3.0 upgrade kit I purchased previously, (you may or may not recall I bought a preconfigured OS3.3 SD card)
So I got a new blank SD card, and after a lot of faffing with the configuration of the controller it goes in, I was fairly amazed at how easy it actually was to install the operating system, with a few simple commands and a lot of patience (time) it was done.
Usually, most people would be happy with that achievement, me, not so much! lol
So I set about installing the later version of the OS.
NeXT Step became Open Step when it became available for more types of hardware, the last ever version being 4.2.
So, it's all happily running smoothly now, however I am now in need of a touch more memory, So I decided to crack open the wallet (again) and get the next 32MB of RAM, taking the cube to it's absolute maximum.
I have also learned a new trick, I had to build a windows XP machine, so I could use a floppy drive (yes you read it right!) to create a backup of my boot disk I have for the NeXT, I tried so so many times to do it on the cube itself using dd, but just couldn't get it to work :( but at least I have a workable solution now :)
I asked myself, what's the one thing the Cube, and indeed pretty much all Macintosh computers are missing, that pretty much all PC's and other machines have?
So, without further ado, I give you this answer video.
Well, today was my last day of holiday (I've been off this week) So I decided to try and do some more with the cube, I'm happy all the hardware is working great, and the software seemingly so also.
It's been a fun ride, And I now know a lot more about the NeXT and Open Step systems, also a tiny bit more about UNIX, which is always handy, I don't profess to be an expert or anything, but the UNIX shell is a bit less intimidating now as a result.
Today has been a rollercoaster adventure, and I had to reinstall the cube with Openstep 4.2 again, As I'd screwed something up so bad, I couldn't even boot into single user mode to try and fix anything!
Lesson learnt though :)
So, after a lot of waiting and configuring I managed to get it back online, and put the latest version of the Omniweb browser on, this led me to go back to a test I wanted to try before but couldn't get to work, So without further ado, I present to you my NeXT Cube, browsing the first "EVER" website, invented by Tim Berners Lee, Along with the World Wide Web itself on his Next Cube!!!!!!
Wow, Just WOW.
I'm very happy, albeit very tired now, and I feel this will be the last blog post for a while, unless anything else crops up that I deem to be blog-worthy.
