About to receive an old 'new' 68040 turbo machine

Hi Folks,

I'm new on this forum, just joined yesterday as Rob suggested this might be a good forum to join.

I've recently (yesterday also) purchased the above machine with the following specs.... From Rob and am very excited about it.

60840 33Mhz turbo station with 128M RAM.
4000a monitor
SCSI2SD with NeXT Step 3.3 and hundreds of NeXT apps!
All necessary cables for the system.
New floppy
Keyboard - Non-ADB
Mouse - Non-ADB
New battery
New PSU
New ceramic caps
SCSI cable
NeXT Original 1X CDrom drive with new caps
Original NeXTSTEP 3.0 CD that shipped with the system
Set of 4 Manuals Setup and Tutorials , Users Reference, Applications, Network and System Administration

So, why have I take this NeXT step (pun intended).

A bit about myself.  I lived in Iceland from the winter of 1980-1986 June.  We came back to Canada just in time to visit Expo 86...what a blast.

While in Iceland I got introduced to the BBC Micro which is easily my favourite 8 bit computer of all time.  It's a marvelous machine and put (in my opinion) all other 8 bits to shame.  This is of course just this writer's experience and opinions and others will almost certainly have different perspectives....but this isn't about the BBC.  It's about the NeXT computer.

While in Iceland I came across an ad in a magazine that talked about the Cube then I found an article doing a review on it.  I was very interested but as with most at that time, the cost was way beyond what I could manage.....never-the-less, I WANTED one......so here we are today.

I've been following Rob's site for a long time and wishing he had stock but every time I went to his site I saw 0s beside all the hardware that I would have loved to purchase.

To my surprise when I went to his site a few days ago I realized I needed to learn to read what was on the site and that he did have hardware but you had to ask for what you wanted.

The above list is what I've asked for and what Rob has helped me fill out what I needed for a fully working machine and Rob, in a great professional move is putting it all together for me.  Many kudos to you Rob for this.  I'm really looking forward to this machine which I wanted to try to keep as close to original as possible, hence the monitor rather than flat screen which would be much less expensive.

Anyway, I've worked in IT for about 35 years, doing computer operating (learned from the ground up in Iceland where I became the shift leader), server and PC builds, also a few years in infrastructure work and have even pulled data cables, mostly for RS232 systems.

I am now retired and love the old computers.  I would not give today's computers many kudos for innovation at all but the old ones, yes, love them.  Many collect old IBMs and their clones, that's not for me.  Something like this is significant history and really important.  I've never owned an Apple, have only dabbled in Red Hat linux and am not very conversant yet in unix but will become so with this pre-X10 machine.

I'm sure I'll need the help of the forum members while I learn what's happening with this machine but you all seem, from what I've seen of the posts, to be very helpful and friendly so am very much looking forward to being here and learning and then maybe being able to help others as I learn enough.

But the history, I love the history of this machine, including how Mr. Jobs left Apple to say basically....'You think you know what a computer is?'  I think he showed the world with this machine what was possible and had it been 5-10 years later it may have been THE machine in the world....(personal opinion which really doesn't count for much).

Anyway, I should have the machine that gives me insite into Mr. Job's mind in a few weeks and.....did I say I was very much looking forward to it?  Thank you again Rob, it's much appreciated.  I hope you can tell that.

Thanks for listening, sorry it's so long but it just seems to be who I am at times, especially when I'm excited about something and this is CERTAINLY something to be excited about.

Ed...... :-)

Congrats on your purchase and welcome!

Thank you very much, look forward to learning and being here for a long while.

Ed...... :-)

Hello Ed: Welcome aboard these NeXT's are great little computers and I'm happily integrating yours as we speak.

While you are waiting , you can have fun setting up  a virtual NeXT Computer on your Mac or PC  with our home brew emulator  app Previous
http://www.nextcomputers.org/NeXTfiles/Software/Previous68Kemulator/

You will also need a rom file http://www.nextcomputers.org/NeXTfiles/Software/ROM_Files/

How to with additional files https://winworldpc.com/product/nextstep/3x has a windows version.

Best Regards Rob Blessin

Quote from: Rob Blessin Black Hole on September 24, 2020, 11:58:16 PMHello Ed: Welcome aboard these NeXT's are great little computers and I'm happily integrating yours as we speak.

While you are waiting , you can have fun setting up  a virtual NeXT Computer on your Mac or PC  with our home brew emulator  app Previous
http://www.nextcomputers.org/NeXTfiles/Software/Previous68Kemulator/

You will also need a rom file http://www.nextcomputers.org/NeXTfiles/Software/ROM_Files/

How to with additional files https://winworldpc.com/product/nextstep/3x has a windows version.

Best Regards Rob Blessin

Thanks Rob,

The next couple of days are quite busy but after that..... you bet, up with the emulator.

Ed...... :-)

Congrats on the purchase and welcome!

Hope you enjoy your "new" machine and welcome to the forums!

Thanks all, I'm sure this is going to be a lot of fun and best of all, I'll learn a lot.  One never can have enough knowledge on any system of any age.

Ed...... :-)

Quote from: KarateEd on September 25, 2020, 08:38:01 PMOne never can have enough knowledge on any system of any age.

Agreed. I think of it as a brain puzzle, far better than Soduku or crossword puzzles. If you solve the puzzle, you are rewarded with ancient magic.

Well, looks like it's on it's way now.  I got a notice that it's shipped..... waiting in eager anticipation.  It's like Christmas in October..... :-)

I now have my machine and have started learning a little about it.....password recovery procedure when my password inexplicably stopped working.  It was a fun process..... also remembering my old days of password recovery so removed the battery for a time and was informed that may not be the best thing to do.

All worked out well, it's back to the password I selected and everything is working as it should be.  Learning was had.  As they say, if you don't make mistakes, you'll learn nothing.

and here she is......