Another new member from the UK here, I have been experimenting with the Previous emulator recently for nostalgic reasons having had access to a NeXT lab at university in the early 90s.
Welcome to the forums! Good to have you here.
Thanks for having me!
Quote from: Venford on April 23, 2025, 07:38:43 AMAnother new member from the UK here, I have been experimenting with the Previous emulator recently for nostalgic reasons having had access to a NeXT lab at university in the early 90s.
Would be nice if you elaborate more on that? How many NeXT systems were there? Can you remember the configs i.e How much RAM? What were they used for i.e They were used in the Biology department.
Welcome to the forum.
I'm in the UK too, welcome to the forums
I recall reading that some UK universities such as Cambridge and Oxford having some NeXT equipment, but no idea what for
Quote from: pTeK on May 26, 2025, 01:57:15 PMWould be nice if you elaborate more on that? How many NeXT systems were there? Can you remember the configs i.e How much RAM? What were they used for i.e They were used in the Biology department.
Welcome to the forum.
Thanks for the interest.
My brain is offering the number eight as to the number of machine, but honestly I have no idea how close that is, and I'm afraid I do not know what the specs would have been. I assume they would have been NS2.0 Cubes timing wise, and I remember playing with the balancing seal :)
This would have been at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, probably early 1992. They seemed to have a fairly open policy on machine access at the time - I did not have any courses specifically related to using the NeXT machines, and do not know how I came across the lab in the first place. It was relatively quiet though, certainly compared to the PC and MacII labs that were used as workstations across all disciplines. I think I was using it for teaching myself C for a networking course that assumed I already knew it. A step up from the VTn terminals I had been using up until that point, and more familiar having been used to RiscOS before heading to SFU.
I do remember being shown the new SGI machine they were very proud of at some point, so it may be that there was a tour that included the NeXT lab and that was how I found it.
Proved to be a safe haven during a fairly stressful time, probably why I have fond memories of it!
@Venford Did they provide the NeXT documentation when you were in the lab? Can you remember any of the apps in there? Did they have any specialist NeXT software i.e CAD?
I don't remember much of either I'm afraid. Physical manuals seem unlikely for undergrads. I do remember reading lots of man-pages on screen 8)