I'm after a NeXT machine, mainly because I lusted after one when they were new and I read about them... I also want to use it for writing and the odd bit of coding. So the question is whether any machine is too low spec to use for a bit of authoring and dtp work, or if networking a particular spec to my macs and sgi boxes?
I could see the early 030 cubes that had no hard drive and just read and wrote off the only MO drive in the system being pretty useless.
I would say it comes down to personal choice. I mean there's still people quite happy using their Commodore C-64's/Mac Plus, etc as their only computer. It comes down to what you really need/want the computer to do. Can you still do decent DTP/Graphics, etc on a NeXT? Sure you can! There's some great software out there for our systems. Virtuoso, Create, Framemaker, Adobe Illustrator, TeX, etc. Today, if I was going to start looking for a NeXT system, personally, I'd have to have atleast a Turbo System or an '040 Cube. Even running NEXTSTEP 3.3, I think you'd want atleast 64 megs of ram or your system will start doing a lot of swapping. When I was actually using a non-Turbo Slab, I can remember how I hated only having 32 megs of memory. :-) But I'm a heavy user & I usually have several things open at the same time. I have both the Color/Mono Turbo Slabs along w/ several non-turbo systems. Both my Turbo systems are running, along w/ my HP Gecko running NEXTSTEP 3.3, Sparc 5, & several x86 systems running OPENSTEP 4.2. My wife even enjoys typing stuff up on my Mono Turbo Slab because the screen is so crisp/clean. If you can get a system cheap, go for it. Use it for learning & then from there you can choose to upgrade later if you like. Both older Sparc/HP Gecko's also make great systems for running NEXTSTEP/OPENSTEP. x86 is the way to go for Speed! ;-) Take care.
Quote from: "chancehooper"is too low spec to use for a bit of authoring and dtp work
If you need color, that means NextDimension, Colorstation or Colorstation Turbo. And we simply have to admit in this millennium that these are now slow machines. Even after the Microsoft tax, current hardware is simply faster and more capable. I like retro computing as much as anyone (have pdp-1 <not merely pdp-11> logic modules around) but when it comes to getting paying business done it's probably just better to use more recent hardware. If you like the software offerings with NS/OS, then white hardware with or without VM.
Quote from: "cubist"Quote from: "chancehooper"is too low spec to use for a bit of authoring and dtp work
If you need color, that means NextDimension, Colorstation or Colorstation Turbo. And we simply have to admit in this millennium that these are now slow machines. Even after the Microsoft tax, current hardware is simply faster and more capable. I like retro computing as much as anyone (have pdp-1 <not merely pdp-11> logic modules around) but when it comes to getting paying business done it's probably just better to use more recent hardware. If you like the software offerings with NS/OS, then white hardware with or without VM.
While I agree about using a "faster"/"modern" system for getting paying business done & how handy it is to be able to run NEXTSTEP/OPENSTEP virtually, it's still hard to beat having a "real" system to use. I'll take real hardware over a virtual system anyday. ;-) Take care.
I personally think the most useful boxes are the Turbo Mono machines. With a good HDD and full of memory, they're really very usable.
Quote from: "gtnicol"I personally think the most useful boxes are the Turbo Mono machines. With a good HDD and full of memory, they're really very usable.
I personally think its the turbo color, since you can connect a modern TFT to that thing.