We Have The Computers - do we still have the software?

(Right-click and open in new tab to see higher res, if anyone wants even higher res copy, PM me).

I scanned and cleaned up this old NeXT ad (from NeXTWorld Fall 1991).

I was wondering, how many of these titles are currently archived (and usable, ie. have license keys etc), and which ones have been lost to time?

• Lotus Improv: Yes, we have this working fully. Only released once for NeXT, version 1.0, though pl212 recently imaged a beta version. Last versions (2.0, 2.1) were for Windows. Lighthouse Design later released a clone called Quantrix, which somehow escaped Sun's murder attempt and is now its own company.
• FrameMaker: Yes, we have this working fully. Went through several owners and is now owned by Adobe. Also appeared on Lighthouse discs in 1995-1997. Lighthouse released a key when they went under.
• WriteNow: Yes, we have this exact disk. It also appeared bundled with NeXTstep 0.8 through 1.0, and documentation from that era was stored as WriteNow files instead of RTF. It actually began as a Macintosh launch title in 1984, before getting bought and killed by WordStar. Jobs rescued it when he founded NeXT, though for the sake of competition it was subsequently spun off to Appsoft, and we only got demo versions bundled with 2.0 through 2.2.
• Sybase: Partial. The first floppy says there are 4 disks, but we only have 3 of them, and they're poorly organized in the fsck.technology collection, being spread across multiple directories. Anyone with a complete set would be my hero.
• SoundWorks: Yes, version 3.2.
• SoftPC: Yes, 2.0, 3.0 (maybe), 4.0, 4.10. A demo of 4.0 came with NeXTSTEP 3.2.
• SAS: No. Business modeling software sold by huge company; first released in '72 and still going strong, but we don't have anything for NeXT, and it's very unlikely to have ever been in a private collection.
• Adobe Illustrator: Yes, along with extras.
• Mathematica: Yes. We have quite a few versions from 1.0 through 3.0.3, as well as a working keygen for 4.0 (Windows) that someone (I think it was Rob) got official blessings for us to use. The first floppy version was probably 2.0. Received images of 2.0.2 from @pl212 on 2025-07-27. As most people know, Mathematica 1.0 was bundled with NeXTSTEP and was sometimes affectionately called M'ica, e.g. by the Gourmet demo.
• TOPDRAW: Not usable; Andreas has a sealed copy. kevra.org page: http://www.kevra.org/TheBestOfNext/ThirdPartyProducts/ThirdPartySoftware/Graphics/TopDraw/TopDraw.html — was used to author some of the postscript files on the 1992 Educational Sampler, as well as the "NXart" hardware pictures from PEAK. "AppSoft to publish version 2.0 for NeXT" is a headline in NuggetNews 4.01 (https://fsck.technology/software/NeXT/next.68k.org%20Archive/next-ftp.peak.org/next/documents/newsletters/NuggetNewsText/vol.04.01.txt)
• Oasys: Lost. Compiler vendor? Mentioned here: http://www.kevra.org/TheBestOfNext/page570/page571/page616/files/page616_1.pdf
• TextArt: Yes, thanks to protocol7 (see below), but not a disk image. Demo on this CD (https://archive.org/details/StoneDesign_1671541226405). Later became Create, which is under embargo. We have the last NeXT version of Create here (https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/u33m38mjcazpeldp5t864/ACs8EkKAIGzjRlSfT5OtSug?dl=0&e=1&file_subpath=%2FNeXT_Stone&preview=NeXT_Stone.zip&rlkey=js3nn229cxgu3es3747hxz134). Andrew Stone still sells Create for modern Macs and has asked that a license key not be made public.
• DIAGRAM!: Yes. Lighthouse Design product.
• FloppyWorks: No. Seems to have been everywhere—enabled reading high-density Mac floppies.
• ClickArt: Descendant only. EPS clip art compilation for Adobe Illustrator, not OS-specific, often labeled as Mac software instead. This later CD-ROM (https://archive.org/details/clickart-200000) is probably from the same company. No way did it ever fit on one floppy!
• Who's Calling?: Yes! Just got a copy from Andreas. Also demo on NOVA. Ad badly mangles what the diskette actually looked like: http://www.kevra.org/TheBestOfNext/ThirdPartyProducts/ThirdPartySoftware/InformationManagement/WhosCalling/WhosCalling.html
• Squash!: Yes, at fsck.technology. kevra.org link (http://www.kevra.org/TheBestOfNext/ThirdPartyProducts/ThirdPartySoftware/Utilities/Squash/Squash.html)
• 3270 Vision: Yes, but I'm not sure where I got it? The disk image at fsck.technology is corrupted. AS/400 terminal emulator.
• TRANSARC: No idea. Mentioned here: http://www.kevra.org/TheBestOfNext/BooksArticlesWhitePapers/WhitePapers/files/page646_2.pdf
• giant black bar (Morning Star Technologies Inc?): No idea which product this is. The company made at least two products, Morning Star PPP and Morning Star X.25. Several mentions on kevra.org. Don't have any of their software as far as I know.
• PaperSight: Demos only. PaperSight Light 1.2a from Andreas was corrupted. Demo of full PaperSight on Alembic CD. kevra link (http://www.kevra.org/TheBestOfNext/ThirdPartyProducts/ThirdPartySoftware/InformationManagement/PaperSight/PaperSight.html)
• Communicae: Yes, but only early version licensed. DEC & Techtronix terminal emulator. Communicae can convert Techtronix vector graphics to EPS files, which is just unbelievably cool. (ObjectWare includes a demo for a much later version that I would deeply like to get a key for.) Labeled "BeMA Communicate" in the fsck.technology collection.
• Teleconnect: No. TCP/IP over serial. kevra.org pages (including that one PDF about open standards that I keep linking) says the vendor was Marble Associates.
• MacLink Plus/PC: I don't think so. Made by DataViz; it might be the same as DataViz.app/DataVizBridge.app demo in NS 2.x but I've literally never run those programs yet.
• MapArt: Lost; Andreas has an empty box. PostScript collection of map files. Vendor has a preserved Mac title with similar content: https://www.macintoshrepository.org/82151-macatlas
• MediaStation: Yes, thanks to @KennyPowers! https://archive.org/details/media-station-od/ (kevra page (http://www.kevra.org/TheBestOfNext/ThirdPartyProducts/ThirdPartySoftware/Multimedia/MediaStation/MediaStation.html)) One of the many "also-rans" in the multimedia space—more document-oriented than HyperCard or HyperSense, but offline unlike WorldWideWeb or Hyper-G (https://oldvcr.blogspot.com/2025/05/prior-art-dept-hierarchical-hypermedia.html). MO release.
• co-Xist: Yes, one of the two big commercial X11 packages for NeXT. We have version 3.3s, although we don't have the developer files. Includes Motif. Unfortunately beaten by CUB'X-Windows, which showed up a bit later and had a robust developer suite on the same disc. CUB'X also did us the honor of officially releasing a license key and making a version specifically for OPENSTEP.
• Allegro CL: Yes. This is a Common Lisp development environment.
• UNIX MUMPS: No. MUMPS is a programming language and object database. It's great for rapid prototyping but notorious for encouraging spaghetti code. Originally designed for hospital records. Well-preserved outside the NeXT space.
• WingZ: Demo on edusampler1992. Multi-platform spreadsheet program. Not on kevra.org. Mentioned a few times in NuggetNews: "Wingz - Spreadsheet with 3D graphics and powerful hyperscript"; "WingZ is popular with traders because of its impressive graphics".
• Adobe TypeLibrary: Yes, in "Adobe Illustrator + Fonts" at fsck.technology. 28 x 1.44 MB diskettes. Not the only font pack Adobe put out for Illustrator on NeXT.
• OCR Servant: Yes, several versions. Haven't tried it.
• Adobe TouchType: Yes, assuming it's only one floppy. Same place as TypeLibrary. Not sure what it is; never tried it.
• The Font Company: Descendant only? NeXT on Campus Spring 1991 (http://www.kevra.org/TheBestOfNext/page590/files/page590_3.pdf) says this is "The Font Company Type Library - More than 1,500 different typefaces, all in PostScript Type 1 format." Linus Boman has a video essay about the history of the font industry at this time (https://youtu.be/altfwRMXG4A?t=312) and this page (https://fontsinuse.com/foundry/1673/the-font-company) talks about the company's history. These aren't lost designs, but no TFC discs have ever been uploaded anywhere, ever, for any platform, as far as I can tell.
• Objective Technologies, Inc.: Definitely no commercial releases. kevra.org says they sold Interface Builder palettes (http://www.kevra.org/TheBestOfNext/page570/page365/page698/page698.html), so this is not something you'd find in a private collection.
• FORTRAN 77: Yes. Vendor is Absoft. The disk has the cursed 46-byte header despite a .img extension. Contributed by Andreas (https://www.nextcomputers.org/forums/index.php?topic=5946.msg33758#msg33758). Mikei also uploaded a copy in that thread.
• Menacing ORACLE disk: No. Commercial SQL database. As with SAS, this is unlikely to end up in a private collection. It wouldn't surprise me if it also phoned home constantly.
• WordPerfect: Yes. kevra has pictures of the 1.0.1 box (http://www.kevra.org/TheBestOfNext/ThirdPartyProducts/ThirdPartySoftware/PersonalProductivity/DocumentCreation/WordPerfect/WordPerfect.html) and I saw an auction listing with a "Back to School Bundle" sticker—probably the same item. The 4-floppy version is probably 1.0.

(Making a new post because I hit the 10k limit)

In summary:

• 38 floppies depicted
• 21 fully preserved
• 7 demos only/descendants only/partially preserved/in progress/unopened in private collections
• 10 missing/lost

Having said all that, I can't help but plug my crusade over here (https://www.nextcomputers.org/forums/index.php?topic=6029) to get more software imaged and preserved, especially the stuff @zombie posted about a couple years ago. The remaining CDs, MOs, and floppies are only going to get rarer as they gradually succumb to the ravages of time, to say nothing about the age and health of the kind folks who have held onto them. Here's hoping we can get some of these items de-extincted. :)

(PS, I would totally like a higher-res version of that image, MindWalker—sent a PM!)

We do have Squash! (https://fsck.technology/software/NeXT/NeXTSTEP%20Applications/Squash%201.0G%20NeXTSTEP/).

I have TextArt too but just the app, no disk image.

The Products & Services CD from Alembic has a demo of PaperSight that can be activated with a valid key.

Quote from: protocol7 on July 26, 2025, 04:01:53 AMWe do have Squash! (https://fsck.technology/software/NeXT/NeXTSTEP%20Applications/Squash%201.0G%20NeXTSTEP/).

I have TextArt too but just the app, no disk image.

The Products & Services CD from Alembic has a demo of PaperSight that can be activated with a valid key.

Good catches! I'll update the numbers accordingly. Any copy of TextArt you have (other than the demo I mentioned) would be a worthy addition to the historical catalogue; it's definitely not preserved anywhere public.

I've upped TextArt to your site.

Here (https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/next-computer-software-papersight-2a-1875692291)'s an archived auction for PaperSight 1.2a showing the two floppies and maybe a serial number. The demo on the P&S disc is 1.5 and looks to have more robust licensing.

Thanks, Rhetorica, that was fast with the list!  8)

Laughed at "giant black bar" and "menacing ORACLE disk"  ;D
From higher res I can see the first one is indeed Morning Star Technologies. I'll upload the higher-res of this and others to you now.

Following on what @protocol7 said, it's possible there are a few demos on discs I haven't checked yet. I've got a good feeling about about Who's Calling? and Teleconnect in particular as they tick all the boxes for the sort of program included on later NeXT samplers, but they might have gone extinct by the time of the ones I've been indexing. Will post updates here if I find anything relevant to the programs in the ad.

I'm having a look through the NOVA compilation and there's a Who's Calling demo on there.

A certain very generous donor has sent me a picture of their collection which definitely includes MapArt, PaperSight Light (not the full PaperSight release), along with several items that I've never seen anywhere. So we might be able to check off MapArt soon, which was definitely not one I was betting on.

Quote from: Rhetorica on July 25, 2025, 07:43:03 PM

• TOPDRAW: Lost. kevra.org page: http://www.kevra.org/TheBestOfNext/ThirdPartyProducts/ThirdPartySoftware/Graphics/TopDraw/TopDraw.html — was used to author some of the postscript files on the 1992 Educational Sampler, as well as the "NXart" hardware pictures from PEAK. "AppSoft to publish version 2.0 for NeXT" is a headline in NuggetNews 4.01 (https://fsck.technology/software/NeXT/next.68k.org%20Archive/next-ftp.peak.org/next/documents/newsletters/NuggetNewsText/vol.04.01.txt)

For Topdraw i have a sealed copy that i won't open:

(https://postimg.cc/1fBQGDw0)

Quote

• Who's Calling?: Demo only on NOVA; see @protocol7 post below. kevra.org has a physical copy. Ad badly mangles what the diskette actually looked like: http://www.kevra.org/TheBestOfNext/ThirdPartyProducts/ThirdPartySoftware/InformationManagement/WhosCalling/WhosCalling.html

Avail.

(https://postimg.cc/zHb18QVq)

Quote from: Rhetorica on July 25, 2025, 07:43:03 PM

• MediaStation: Demo only on some NeXT third-party sampler discs. (kevra page (http://www.kevra.org/TheBestOfNext/ThirdPartyProducts/ThirdPartySoftware/Multimedia/MediaStation/MediaStation.html)) One of the many "also-rans" in the multimedia space with features comparable to the Microsoft Encarta runtime—more document-oriented than HyperCard or HyperSense, but offline unlike WorldWideWeb or Hyper-G (https://oldvcr.blogspot.com/2025/05/prior-art-dept-hierarchical-hypermedia.html). @KennyPowers unearthed an MO disc of this earlier this month (https://www.nextcomputers.org/forums/index.php?topic=6019) and was looking for someone with a working drive to image it. This is another one where I seriously doubt it actually ever had a floppy release.

I purchased a working MO drive from @Rob Blessin Black Hole , so when that arrives I should be able to archive this.

Hello NeXT Community: Hold my beer ,  I think I have a lot of NeXT software original in boxes to compilation CD's . The Peanuts 5 disk set was a project to gather every NeXT application under the sun and archive it back in the day. I just about have te optical drives checked and labeled and one working one. Here she is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmqploQK9xs

Quote from: Rob Blessin Black Hole on July 26, 2025, 11:57:04 PMHello NeXT Community: Hold my beer ,  I think I have a lot of NeXT software original in boxes to compilation CD's . The Peanuts 5 disk set was a project to gather every NeXT application under the sun and archive it back in the day. I just about have te optical drives checked and labeled and one working one.

Rob, it's always great to hear from you! I can't wait to see what you find with those drives :)

The Warp9J you mentioned in the video is a confusing one. The very last patched release, NeXTSTEP 2.2a, is called Warp8.5: no final letter, and not even 9.

Although the final version of NEXTSTEP 3.0 was called Hyper3B, my best theory is that Warp9J must be 3.0 PR1 or PR2. The NextDeveloper/2.0CompatibleHeaders directory appears on all 3.x developer discs and is a smoking gun that this is not some mythical dead 2.3 branch.

EDIT: Japanese support is possible. The 3.3J GaijiManager.app is copyrighted 1992 by Canon, which is old enough. However, I didn't see it in the Demos directory. Maybe it was under Tools?

TopologyLab.app isn't actually a new find, although it's easy to overlook. It was present in 1.0 through 2.2, along with a slew of education-oriented demos that got dropped after the 1992 Educational Software Sampler was released and Steve narrowed in on chasing financial customers.

As for Peanuts, I think at this point there are very few shareware titles that aren't represented in multiple places, although there may still be some lost versions, and there are definitely a lot of post-merger Rhapsody programs that are not in any public collections. The tricky titles are the expensive commercial boxes that were only sold to big businesses, particularly in the early days—Sybase, Oracle, and TOPDRAW being prime examples of things that remain out of our grasp.

Seeing Media Logic on the TopDraw box immediately made me think of Artisan. It's mentioned in the Third Party Products document from March 89 (see below) but so are other apps that didn't make it to market like MOTU Performer. I don't think it ever made it out. Was it dropped in favour of TopDraw?

Quote from: protocol7 on July 27, 2025, 07:18:30 AMSeeing Media Logic on the TopDraw box immediately made me think of Artisan. It's mentioned in the Third Party Products document from March 89 (see below) but so are other apps that didn't make it to market like MOTU Performer. I don't think it ever made it out. Was it dropped in favour of TopDraw?

I did some light trawling in the Peanuts Usenet collection, and it seems Media Logic indeed never released Artisan—as of Sept 1991, people were still asking where it was, and being told it was "six months away". A month later TopDraw was transferred to Appsoft, leaving them with zero products. Appsoft, of course, already had Keith Ohlfs's inimitable Image, and would not have wanted Artisan. After that, Media Logic faded into total obscurity.

The TopDraw saga is a bit longer. Appsoft expected 2.0 to come out February 1, 1992... after they were done rewriting all the documentation. (This was supremely annoying as there was a discount until the end of 1991, so the long delay in its release meant you'd be paying $399 instead of $149 if you waited to read the reviews.)

But... I have no idea if TopDraw 2 ever actually came out! Most of the 1992 Usenet post history is missing. There's a guy on Feb 10 wondering where the heck his copy is, but that's it, and the program is literally never mentioned again after that. Based on the review posts of TopDraw matching it up against other software, my understanding is that (whether or not 2.0 came out) it lost the market to Create and Illustrator, both of which went on to have much lengthier release histories and were/are still around decade(s) later. Some mentions of TopDraw in 1993 suggest it was difficult to run on NS 3.1 (the font layout had changed), and that Appsoft had released another program simply called "Draw" that could import TopDraw files. (No relation to Demos/Draw.app!)

On a loosely related note: I was reading the NeXT Hardware service manual (NeXTServiceManualPages1-96.pdf) and it notes that its art was made using TopDraw (in 1992).

Quote from: Rhetorica on July 25, 2025, 07:43:03 PMThe first floppy version was probably 2.0, which @pl212 has and plans on imaging.

Here's a question: are you (and your server) ready for 700 megabytes of Mathematica 2.0.2?  Before we get too excited, it's just two unique disks -- I happen to have three copies of Disk 1, and two copies of Disk 2.

The triplicate Disk 1's mean we have three recorded serial numbers, for what it's worth.






Why so big? Well, these are raw flux captures, plus derived binary images, plus a rough-and-ready file dump. A much more reasonable upload would be the disk images (~3megs each) and the scans of the front and back of each disk (~10meg tiffs).

All five disks imaged correctly, although some took more than the default 3 revs.

Happy to upload as much or as little as folks would like...

@pl212 Yowza! I definitely wasn't planning on disk flux images being that big. You can go ahead and upload them but I don't think I can keep them up on my site—I'll have to forward them on to the Internet Archive instead. Certainly the rest will be easier to keep as a permanent collection.

@MindWalker Almost certainly they were still on the 1.0 version; as I noted, there's a fair bit of documentation on the 1992 EduSampler CD that has it as the generator in the metadata (I did a grep -R of my collection) but it disappears from the fossil record almost completely by 1993.

Quote from: pl212 on July 27, 2025, 05:49:20 PMHere's a question: are you (and your server) ready for 700 megabytes of Mathematica 2.0.2?  Before we get too excited, it's just two unique disks -- I happen to have three copies of Disk 1, and two copies of Disk 2.

The triplicate Disk 1's mean we have three recorded serial numbers, for what it's worth.

Why so big? Well, these are raw flux captures, plus derived binary images, plus a rough-and-ready file dump. A much more reasonable upload would be the disk images (~3megs each) and the scans of the front and back of each disk (~10meg tiffs).

  :o Wow are they still that big even after crunching them with 7z? I thought with a lot of duplicate data they would be a lot smaller.

Hah good point, 7z takes each flux dump down to 11megs...

7z is tone of the top tools in the emulation scene. Especially with Amiga and consoles where most of the data would be the same with only different crackers or language files for international releases.

7z comes in handy on Windows XP as that's what I use for checksums and to repackage for tar format to copy to OpenSTEP partition.

Quote from: Rhetorica on July 27, 2025, 09:02:38 PMEDIT 2: The above can be disregarded:

Wow, that was a roller-coaster of DRM emotions :) Glad you were able to get it to fire up!

PaperSight Light installed fine here on NS3.0. But won't launch without the required license code. If I click Continue without inputting a code, I just get a dialog box where the only option is to exit.

Quote from: user217 on July 27, 2025, 10:35:13 PMI was able to get Mathematica 3.0 running and licensed with the aforementioned keygen, at least. Its GUI has somehow become even more incomprehensibly non-standard, adding 1px black separators in menus, still using bold for fonts, having this crazy tree view for preferences, and... so. many. rich. content. view. controls.

That's 100% more fancy document views than I've found in WebObjects 3.5 for Mach, which is a year newer, includes Apache 2.0 as well as HTML help for ProjectBuilder, and is backported from a version with multiple HTML viewers as its main focus... yet somehow has exhibited precisely zero of such views!

These content views are actually written in Mathematica itself. If you look at the examples in say Plot, they should be runnable right there. It's pretty cool, if a bit laggy sometimes.

As for licensing use the text mode license tool. It's not a password but a license to use the very expensive software. I got 2.2 and 3.x to license correctly, so 2.0.2 should work too if you play around with the keygen for a bit.

I have the following floppies...as you can see, mostly several copies of the same software in a few different versions.  Don't know if these have been archived anywhere.  I flux-dumped them all and created mountable sector images from those dumps.  Many disks had a few bad sectors, but I guess I do have duplicates of many of them ;D



I also have this 800k disk:





I'm not sure how this one is formatted because I got zero good sectors from its flux dump using the same formatting settings as the other floppies.  When my PLI SuperFloppy arrives, I'll see what my cube makes of it.

Since that copy of On Vacation says it runs on 68k AND Intel, I'd say it's 720k, not 800k.

Quote from: protocol7 on July 29, 2025, 03:16:56 PMSince that copy of On Vacation says it runs on 68k AND Intel, I'd say it's 720k, not 800k.

That's what I meant...same physical media, but I was trying to read it as if it was formatted as 720k.

@protocol7 The serial for PaperSight Light seems to just be 901 according to the floppy labeling. Try that?

@spitfire Indeed! I figured that out when I saw the ".nb" extension on the About window. Originally I'd written that Mathematica had more "HTML views" than WebObjects, but edited the post to "rich content view controls" instead. Any sufficiently advanced media display invariably becomes a web browser...

@KennyPowers Holy Sarrus Software! Here's what we already have:

• PencilMeIn: We have 1.1, 1.2.1, 2.0.1 — no serial. Looks like you have 1.0 and 1.2, and two serials. The 2.0.1 version was labeled as 2.0, so it's possible that your 1.2 disk actually has 1.2.1 on it. PMI 1.x serials do not work on PMI 2.x. I see you have a 1997 Holidays disk that mentions PMI 2.0; maybe you have or had a key for PMI 2.x somewhere, too. AFAIK we only have 1996 Holidays, so imaging both of your Holidays disks would be cool.
• SBook: We have 3.0, 3.1, 3.1.1, 3.1.2, a license key, and a later non-Sarrus version released by the creator (Simson Garfinkel) for OS X including source code.
• Front Desk: I haven't catalogued any copies of this yet, but there are still a lot of CDs to go through.
• On Vacation: There is a copy of this in the fsck.technology applications collection but I haven't checked it yet.

So, don't feel too bad if you can't get a complete rip of PMI or SBook, as we definitely have other sources for them, but the file dates might be interesting to be able to note down. Sarrus seems to have been everywhere for a couple of years, which is surprising to me as NEXTSTEP 3 had built-in address book functionality and NeXTSTEP 2 had Date.app... but somehow never both at the same time. (I wonder where Date.app went? Another victim of self-censorship in favor of commercial competition, like WriteNow?)

Quote from: Rhetorica on July 29, 2025, 05:18:00 PM@protocol7 The serial for PaperSight Light seems to just be 901 according to the floppy labeling. Try that?

I wasn't 100% sure the software serial would be a simple three digit number and it seems the "serial" in this case is used to uniquely identify this set of disks for licensing. You can see it in the licensing panel along with the cpu id. This pair of codes had to be given in order to get the required license code. So codes for this were machine-locked. DRM for the fail yet again.

Quote from: protocol7 on July 29, 2025, 05:34:41 PMDRM for the fail yet again.

Well, since I wasn't actually able to run the install packages for PSightLight it might still be worth it for you tar and upload your installed copy to me—it's better than nothing at all.

Some day we're gonna need a full-time 68k + i486 disassembly junkie to crack all this stuff properly.

I've uploaded it. I think it probably threw that install error because of the OS version you tried to run it on. Based on the lack of a colour app icon I'd say this is expecting NS 2.x and just managed to install ok on my copy of NS 3.0.

Quote from: protocol7 on July 29, 2025, 06:10:53 PMI've uploaded it. I think it probably threw that install error because of the OS version you tried to run it on. Based on the lack of a colour app icon I'd say this is expecting NS 2.x and just managed to install ok on my copy of NS 3.0.

Very strange! I did actually try it on both 2.2 and 4.2, but I guess I leapfrogged the sweet spot. Thanks.

EDIT: Amusingly this image (https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/next-computer-software-papersight-2a-1875692291) shows 904 as the serial number, and we know Andreas had 901. Maybe they only ever sold four copies, and the numbers just started at 900?

I am also starting to doubt that there is a real distinction between PaperSight and PaperSight Light.

Oops, I just looked at your install pic again and it's clearly NS 2.x. I guess it wants 3.something then.

Quote from: KennyPowers on July 29, 2025, 12:56:54 PMI flux-dumped them all and created mountable sector images from those dumps.  Many disks had a few bad sectors, but I guess I do have duplicates of many of them ;D

BTW, i don't know how good the "flux" thing is - but i'm using an old DOS program called VGAcopy. The advantage is, you can setup the retries for the brocken sectors to 99 times. Sometimes a broken disk would read succesful.

Quote from: Rhetorica on July 25, 2025, 07:43:03 PM

• MediaStation: @KennyPowers is working on getting a copy. Demo only on some NeXT third-party sampler discs. (kevra page (http://www.kevra.org/TheBestOfNext/ThirdPartyProducts/ThirdPartySoftware/Multimedia/MediaStation/MediaStation.html)) One of the many "also-rans" in the multimedia space with features comparable to the Microsoft Encarta runtime—more document-oriented than HyperCard or HyperSense, but offline unlike WorldWideWeb or Hyper-G (https://oldvcr.blogspot.com/2025/05/prior-art-dept-hierarchical-hypermedia.html). I seriously doubt it actually ever had a floppy release.

I got the contents of this MO disk archived today, along with another MO disk that looks like it was someone's personal school work disk (Ben, if you're out there, I have your early 90's CS notes/homework ;D ).

I uploaded the zipped contents of the MediaStation disk to archive.org, and the software seems to run fine from anywhere you simply copy the files to: https://archive.org/details/media-station-od

I also tried imaging the disk with dd, but the resulting image wouldn't mount in Previous as either an MO image or SCSI drive.  If anyone knows how to dd an optical disk that results in an image Previous will mount, let me know.

Finally, I spent some time playing with MediaStation, and the examples are pretty fun...lots of audio, video, images, etc.  Funnily enough, some of the example files were still locked for editing back in 1990...sorry "wagner", but you've had 35 years to release that lock...I'm grabbing it ;D

Quote from: KennyPowers on August 06, 2025, 10:17:29 AMI also tried imaging the disk with dd, but the resulting image wouldn't mount in Previous as either an MO image or SCSI drive.  If anyone knows how to dd an optical disk that results in an image Previous will mount, let me know.

That dd image is still the best MO backup option we have so far. To get it working in Previous it just has to be written back to a formatted MO disk inside Previous.

This is how pl212's recent Improv/NS2 beta disc was handled. If you can add the dd image to the archive it'll cover that base too.

Quote from: protocol7 on August 06, 2025, 11:04:39 AMThat dd image is still the best MO backup option we have so far. To get it working in Previous it just has to be written back to a formatted MO disk inside Previous.

This is how pl212's recent Improv/NS2 beta disc was handled. If you can add the dd image to the archive it'll cover that base too.

I assume you mean mounting the dd image as a SCSI disk in Previous and then copying the contents back to a formatted MO disk in Previous.  Problem is, the dd image wouldn't mount as a SCSI disk.  I did copy the MO contents to the hard drive in my Cube which is really a disk image on a BlueSCSI.  I suppose I could mount *that* disk image in Previous and copy the files to a blank MO disk inside Previous.  I'll give that a try...

No, the dd image lacks a disk label which is why it won't mount. The formatted MO disk in Previous provides the label. Then you just overwrite the MO disk's partition with the dd image (iirc it's dd if=yourimage.dd of=/dev/od0a). I think I unmounted the MO disk first before dd-ing the image to it.

Basically we have to recreate the MO using a formatted image and the original dd dump.

Quote from: protocol7 on August 06, 2025, 11:24:00 AMNo, the dd image lacks a disk label which is why it won't mount. The formatted MO disk in Previous provides the label. Then you just overwrite the MO disk's partition with the dd image (iirc it's dd if=yourimage.dd of=/dev/od0a). I think I unmounted the MO disk first before dd-ing the image to it.

Basically we have to recreate the MO using a formatted image and the original dd dump.

Gotcha...thanks for that!  I was successful, and the archive.org entry has been updated with a MO disk image usable in Previous:

@KennyPowers Previous version 2.6?! What an antique! We really need a better official site for the emulator. All of @andreas_g's work is going under the radar, in favor of the antique builds from (I'm guessing) previous.unixdude.net.

Nevertheless, I'm glad we can tick this one off the list—MediaStation is periodically cited as prior art to WWW, so the history books care about it a bit more than, say, PaperOut.

(If anyone has any trouble loading the .ms files, make sure MediaStation.app is registered to handle file types by copying it into your Apps folder, or LocalApps. Then the directories will be usable rather than the files inside them.)

Quote from: KennyPowers on August 06, 2025, 10:17:29 AMI got the contents of this MO disk archived today, along with another MO disk that looks like it was someone's personal school work disk (Ben, if you're out there, I have your early 90's CS notes/homework ;D ).

Interested what programming languages Ben's CS notes/homework are in. :) ANSI C, Pascal? Objective C I'm guessing as it was on a NeXT machine.

Quote from: pTeK on August 07, 2025, 03:12:59 AMInterested what programming languages Ben's CS notes/homework are in. :) ANSI C, Pascal? Objective C I'm guessing as it was on a NeXT machine.

Obj-C

For hardware owners I've tarred up the contents of the Previous OD image for MediaStation so it can be extracted to a folder and used.

I didn't want to upload it to Rhetorica's site without asking, so for now it's on a MEGA account here (https://mega.nz/file/5AQTBQxK#7oI4cl4h6f666_5rw4s5Tjurpb5RD0l8EuXDpiwB0Ug).

Quote from: protocol7 on August 08, 2025, 05:36:56 AMFor hardware owners I've tarred up the contents of the Previous OD image for MediaStation so it can be extracted to a folder and used.

I didn't want to upload it to user217's site without asking, so for now it's on a MEGA account here (https://mega.nz/file/5AQTBQxK#7oI4cl4h6f666_5rw4s5Tjurpb5RD0l8EuXDpiwB0Ug).

Funnily enough, @KennyPowers actually thought along the same lines and posted a ZIP of the contents to archive.org initially, albeit with a slightly obtuse name (MediaStation_OD.zip makes it sound like an OD image, but it's just the contents.) I think the .tar.gz is superior, though, since it preserves the file permissions properly. Perhaps the file on the archive.org listing should be swapped out.

Quote from: Rhetorica on August 08, 2025, 06:28:58 AMI think the .tar.gz is superior, though, since it preserves the file permissions properly. Perhaps the file on the archive.org listing should be swapped out.

Agreed...I've updated the IA entry accordingly and added your readme :)

Yes. I have some on this computer I can upload any time. Just tell me where.

I also have a relatively big stash of original software in boxes and stuff that I should go through and digitize. Some of it might be tough as I think I have a lot of original floppies, sadly a bunch of 2.88MB ones, and maybe even a few magnetopticals.

You know what would be cool. In each version folder if we also has sub folders for scans of original documentation. And scans of the boxes etc.

Company > Product > Version > Media | Documentation | PackagingBoxArtMediaImageScans

This article about HP-UX office software (https://www.openpa.net/hp-ux_office.html) made the front page of news.ycombinator.com today. It includes sections about WordPerfect and Wingz, noting that Wingz was eventually released as freeware, here (https://archiv.linuxsoft.cz/sw_detail.php?id_item=1323). It also served as the basis of Claris Resolve on the Mac (where it originated).

Looking through the Fall 1989 NeXT Software and Peripherals catalog (https://archive.org/details/nextsoftwareandperipheralsfall1989/) I found a screenshot of Artisan (with a handwritten note saying it's due in 2-3 months!).

Quote from: protocol7 on August 17, 2025, 08:22:06 AMLooking through the Fall 1989 NeXT Software and Peripherals catalog (https://archive.org/details/nextsoftwareandperipheralsfall1989/) I found a screenshot of Artisan (with a handwritten note saying it's due in 2-3 months!).

That's really cool, and a total shame it never came out. I haven't delved at all into pre-color raster editors. Was it standard practice for them to support 8-bit gray (despite limited 2-bit displays) or was this peculiar to Artisan, I wonder?

I also have the monoLib CDs.

One other thing is maybe @Nitro can open the archives here at nextcomputers.org to a couple of us to curate an "everything" section taking feed back from this thread. That way it can be accessed by already well known source, but get a bit more active love from a few OCD members here?

FWIW I always dreamt of a NeXT Wiki.  I actually created an incubator for one on my Synology NAS once, but it never went past the first page...  no time.

For my own personal stuff, after exhaustive research I now run BookStack on my NAS and I absolutely love it.  It is simply spectacular.

For "live" or nearly live comms I really like Discord.

For a forum-like setup, on the other hand, I really like Discourse. Ever since I discovered it during my adventures with 3D printing & klipper firmware.

Quote from: Rhetorica on August 18, 2025, 04:49:43 PMBut maybe the solution for that is to work on a proper site just for Previous. (Do you have any interest in that happening, @andreas_g?)

I would very much appreciate that! Unfortunately almost all my computer time goes into Previous these days. So I can't work on a web site myself.

Quote from: Rhetorica on August 18, 2025, 01:55:14 PMI haven't delved at all into pre-color raster editors. Was it standard practice for them to support 8-bit gray (despite limited 2-bit displays) or was this peculiar to Artisan, I wonder?

It's something I haven't looked into much either. I have a demo of Artisan for SunOS and it has three modes: monochrome, greyscale and colour but I haven't looked at the greyscale one. Will have to fix that soon.

Quote from: Rhetorica on August 18, 2025, 04:45:40 PMCount me in! I think also MindWalker (https://www.nextcomputers.org/forums/index.php?action=profile;u=3636) (who has been making and restoring scans like the one that started this thread) would be very happy to have a place to curate NeXT print advertisements.

I'd love to help!

One thing worth having would be to have high-quality scans of all the NeXTWorld magazines. I bought one issue (as an extra with parts from Rob) and it had several things (like the opening post) that I immediately wanted to scan.

I am not sure if this has been discuessed before, but one logical place to collect NeXT files would be here on nextcomputers.org. Also it'd make sense if Previous was hosted here.

Smoothest way for a files would be if there was some sort of plugin to SMF (the forum software) that would allow forum members to upload files, which then would be moderated and put into a clear directory structure. I am not sure if the abandonware-kind of material would be an issue for Rob/BlackHole as a company to run/host, though, and the obvious need for more space and bandwith.

Quote from: Rhetorica on August 19, 2025, 01:08:48 PMFor a Previous site, I think the 'correct' hosting solution is actually SourceForge's project web services (https://sourceforge.net/p/forge/documentation/Project%20Web%20Services/), which have historically been a good way to establish primacy since they are unambiguously associated with the official repo. I will be happy to put in the legwork designing and building the site if andreas_g (https://www.nextcomputers.org/forums/index.php?action=profile;u=803) is interested. Probably this warrants a new thread in the emulation/virtualization forum.

I like that idea! I agree that this could be discussed in a separate thread. There is only one problem at the moment: I do not have full access to the sourceforge repo. The admin has left a while ago. I can try to reach him somehow. Maybe he can hand over admin privileges to me.

Quote from: Rhetorica on August 19, 2025, 01:08:48 PM@MindWalker — the forum plugin is a good idea, but @Nitro has indicated a few times that he's adverse to directly hosting commercial software here when it might infringe copyright. Forum rules (https://www.nextcomputers.org/forums/index.php?topic=4294) 15, 16, and 20 make this position explicit, even if there's been a bit more leeway around links lately. (I think this (https://www.nextcomputers.org/NeXTfiles/Software/OPENSTEP/OPENSTEP_On_Solaris/) might technically be against the rules, but it was also present in the ftp.cs.tu-berlin.de collection. Simson Garfinkel says it cost $295 (https://simson.net/clips/1997/97.SunExpert.OpenStep.pdf) originally.) So while nextcomputers.org is an ideal vehicle for a refurbished and centralized FTP archive, as well as documentation and scans, I don't think there's a way to put all our eggs in that one particular basket—which is not entirely a downside.

For a Previous site, I think the 'correct' hosting solution is actually SourceForge's project web services (https://sourceforge.net/p/forge/documentation/Project%20Web%20Services/), which have historically been a good way to establish primacy since they are unambiguously associated with the official repo. I will be happy to put in the legwork designing and building the site if @andreas_g is interested. Probably this warrants a new thread in the emulation/virtualization forum.

Would be good to know what the last version of those Previous support Windows XP.
EDIT: (21-August-2025) Found out that Previous 0.5 works on Windows XP.

Quote from: Rhetorica on August 19, 2025, 01:08:48 PM@MindWalker — the forum plugin is a good idea, but @Nitro has indicated a few times that he's adverse to directly hosting commercial software here when it might infringe copyright. Forum rules (https://www.nextcomputers.org/forums/index.php?topic=4294) 15, 16, and 20 make this position explicit, even if there's been a bit more leeway around links lately. (I think this (https://www.nextcomputers.org/NeXTfiles/Software/OPENSTEP/OPENSTEP_On_Solaris/) might technically be against the rules, but it was also present in the ftp.cs.tu-berlin.de collection. Simson Garfinkel says it cost $295 (https://simson.net/clips/1997/97.SunExpert.OpenStep.pdf) originally.)

This is a weird one. As he says in the second-last paragraph OpenStep 1.0 was freely downloadable from Sun. I can't say with certainty that 1.1 ever shipped as a standalone product. What we have as 1.1 is the runtime from JavaPlan for Solaris. The price tag listed might be for JavaPlan, though I feel it would have cost more than that. That was distributed as a commercial demo.