Greetings,
I picked up a mono slab at a school surplus sale, and would like to get it going. Unfortunately all I got was the slab and a keyboard, no mouse or monitor or cables. From looking around it appears that it is a non ADB keyboard, since it does not have the green power button. The slab contains a 280m seagate hd, which they wiped before i got it, and all the memory banks are full.
-What version of NextStep will fit on this HD, or should I look at some sort of upgrade.
-Is there a viable way to run it without having one of the greyscale monitors. I saw the thread about the custom built adapter, but it did not seem to be "ready" for daily use. What are some good sources for the mono monitors besides ebay, if I need to go that route. Will any other monitors work, such as from an old sun or sgi system.
-Can I get a color slab motherboard and swap it into the case, so I can use a vga monitor as was shown in one of the threads here by getting an adapter. How difficult is it to find the color motherboard, and does it use the same ram as the mono.
-Is a soundbox used with a mono slab? I am a bit confused as to how everything fits together. Am I correct to think that the mouse plugs into the keyboard, and the keyboard plugs into the monitor which plugs into the mono slab
So what is the best way to get this system going?
Thanks for the help
Quote from: "nextchef"Greetings,
I picked up a mono slab at a school surplus sale, and would like to get it going. Unfortunately all I got was the slab and a keyboard, no mouse or monitor or cables. From looking around it appears that it is a non ADB keyboard, since it does not have the green power button. The slab contains a 280m seagate hd, which they wiped before i got it, and all the memory banks are full.
-What version of NextStep will fit on this HD, or should I look at some sort of upgrade.
Correct that's a non ADB keyboard. 280mb HD is a bit small if you're going to install everything in the OS, you'd be better off with a 50pin single ended SCSI drive, some are better than other in respect of "just working", others will require writing a Disktab, Seagates are very compatible and IBM can be a headache, I've used a Segate Hawk ST32430N with great success and minimum hassle. 2gb is the max partition size for NEXTSTEP 3.3 and 4gb is the max parition size for OPENSTEP 4.2 both of which will work on the machine. Is the ram in your machine 30 pin or 72pin?.
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-Is there a viable way to run it without having one of the greyscale monitors. I saw the thread about the custom built adapter, but it did not seem to be "ready" for daily use. What are some good sources for the mono monitors besides ebay, if I need to go that route. Will any other monitors work, such as from an old sun or sgi system.
-Can I get a color slab motherboard and swap it into the case, so I can use a vga monitor as was shown in one of the threads here by getting an adapter. How difficult is it to find the color motherboard, and does it use the same ram as the mono.
eBay is probably the best bet for a greyscale monitor, but a lot of them may be dim. You might be able to pick one up from Black Hole but you might have problems getting a reply from him.
Swapping in a color logic board should be OK, most of the stuff is the same.
Sun or SGI monitor with 13w3 should work right out of the box, some VGA monitors support Sync on Green, failing that you can make an adaptor to use with a SVGA monitor that does not support SOG you can make a sync seperator using a Nat Semi LM1881 IC and 2 resistors & 2 capacitors. For any of these you'd be talking about using a color logic board.
Memory, early systems use 30 pin simms (non Turbo chipset mono). Later systems (Turbo chipset color & mono) use 72pin FPM simms of 70ns or 60ns parity or non parity. Early color systems use 72pin simms to a max of 32mb
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-Is a soundbox used with a mono slab? I am a bit confused as to how everything fits together. Am I correct to think that the mouse plugs into the keyboard, and the keyboard plugs into the monitor which plugs into the mono slab
So what is the best way to get this system going?
Thanks for the help
Correct yes thats how to keyboard and mouse are cabled up on a mono NeXTstation. Color systems are different using a sound box & a special 13w3 Y cable.
No, the sound box is built into the mono monitors, you need a sound box if you're using a NeXT color system as they don't have sound boxes in the monitors.
IMHO best way to get that system going would be getting a color logic board, Y cable, non ADB sound box & non ADB mouse and getting some kind of monitor to work. You'll probably need an external CD ROM drive as well, Apple ones generally work quite well as does a Yamaha CD/RW 4416SX I have. I have a 32 speed Toshiba that does not work at all. I say go for color as in my view I think it's a shame not to see the NeXT gui in all it's color glory, I think it's the nicest gui on any operating system ever.
QuoteIs the ram in your machine 30 pin or 72pin?.
I think it It is 30 pin, and all the banks are full. I will look closer tonight to try and determine how much it actually has.
QuoteYou might be able to pick one up from Black Hole but you might have problems getting a reply from him.
Tell me about it ... tried to get some info but never got back to me. One of the most "interesting" website designs I have seen in a while.
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IMHO best way to get that system going would be getting a color logic board, Y cable, non ADB sound box & non ADB mouse and getting some kind of monitor to work. You'll probably need an external CD ROM drive as well, Apple ones generally work quite well as does a Yamaha CD/RW 4416SX I have. I have a 32 speed Toshiba that does not work at all. I say go for color as in my view I think it's a shame not to see the NeXT gui in all it's color glory, I think it's the nicest gui on any operating system ever.
I have an external scsi cdrom that came with a Sparc5 system that I guess might work.
So then i guess ebay or Black Hole would be my best bet for finding a color logic board. The university that I got this one from has no more NeXT hardware left, as they sold the last 6 cubes they had the day before I got this one. Any other good sources people in here have found for NeXT hardware that I could try?
Assuming I can assemble a complete system, where can one get NEXTSTEP 3.3 or OPENSTEP software to install on it. I have wanted a NeXT system for a long time, and would sure like to get this working.
Thanks for the help
You could try and get stuff from Randy Rencsock at:
www.channelu.com/next
Though the site seems to be down at the moment, I have his email addy if you need it.
I've bought from him the past and he's a nice chap and been around a long time.
Check your private messages.
Quote from: "nextchef"
Tell me about it ... tried to get some info but never got back to me. One of the most "interesting" website designs I have seen in a while.
Haha, yeah it's a bit trippy, reminds me of the effects of Mescaline :-)
The CD ROM I have that don't work with my NeXT's is a Sun 611 with a 32x Toshiba drive, works fine with my SGI but the NeXT does not even try with it, just spins up and down saying "waiting for drive to come ready".