Introducing the world's most advanced micro!?
ANTTI HANNULA
MIKA KOIVUSALO

NeXTSTation

Miracle-man Jobs' miracle microcomputer NeXTStation has finally arrived in Finland. We share our first impressions of this harbinger of a new era, which makes the user of the micro think: "If only I would change the machine".

The first session with NeXT gives a pleasant impression. NeXT starts up with the start key on the keyboard. The keyboard also has screen brightness and volume controls. The deviation from other computers appears already at the very beginning of the start-up. The machine cannot be used without a username and password. This prevents unauthorized access to the machine. A password option would also be good in other machines intended for real use.

After the animated icon on the screen disappears, there is a user interface running on top of the Mach operating system, NeXTStep. The operating environment, which has the best reputation in the world and is also licensed by IBM, turns out to be quite intuitive after just a little experiment.

Although the MegaPixel display only has four shades of gray, the icons and windows are made to look very good with shading and other three-dimensional effects. The display is very pleasant to use. Its image is far better than any existing color display.

Thanks to multitasking, you can play CD-level Vivaldi's "Four Seasons" as background music while you write text with word processing and the Kermit program downloads a file to the hard drive via the Ethernet network. It is also possible to print in tele-fax format, in which case a fax modem connected to NeXT can immediately send the printout to the outside world. This machine has more reach than any personal computer before.

Top technology
The NeXT contains a 68040 processor that runs at a frequency of 25 megahertz. Compared to Apple Macintosh FX, for example, the speed is twice as fast. RAM memory can be found in the basic version of 8 MB, which can be expanded to 32 megabytes on the motherboard. The machine has a standard memory management unit (MMU) for multitasking and a floating point unit for number crunching.

At the request of users, the 256 megabyte optical disk has been replaced by a normal 105 megabyte hard disk and a 2.88 megabyte hard drive according to the new Extended Standard. The floppy disk drive in question also reads and writes the PC world's 720 KB and 1.44 MB disks smoothly.
NeXT has a Motorola 65001 sound processor, which offers CD-level sound (sampling frequency 44.1 KHz). There is a small microphone in front of the monitor, thanks to which for example recording your own speech and attaching it to an e-mail as a message requires nothing more than a mouse click. A separate microphone can also be attached to the device, and the sound can be output in stereo through the RCA connectors.

The UI is Mach, which IBM has also licensed for its use. The basic elements are windows, iconized applications shown on the right, menus and the recycle symbol in the lower right corner, which can be used to destroy files.

The Macintosh background of Jobs and NeXT comes through in many details: there is no eject key on the floppy drive, the serial ports are compatible with the Mac, and the keyboard shortcuts for programs are the same as on the Mac.

Display PostScript is the future
Screen processing and drawing graphics on the screen is done with the Display PostScript screen control language. When using a PostScript printer with NeXT, the best possible WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get, i.e. you see a model similar to the final printout) is achieved, because the image control language used is the same for both. NeXT's own laser printer (400 DPI) does not have a processor, but the processing takes place in NeXT. This makes the price of a laser printer relatively affordable.

The best user interface in the world?
Despite all its progress, the PC world's Windows 3 and the Macintosh's Finder rank second compared to NeXTStep. The UI is clear. The menus do not fall from top to bottom, but work from left to right. You can see from everything that Steve Jobs was involved in the development of the Macintosh. The desktop is very visual and a lot of icons have been used. There is a recycle bin for destroying files. However, in NeXT, the trash can is a recycling symbol, which is more in line with the green ideas in vogue.
Pressing the right mouse button brings up the menu of the active program, which can also have submenus. The Settings utility can be used to set basic system settings, such as mouse speed, screen brightness and sound volume. The latter two can be adjusted from my keyboard.
Turning off the machine could be called shutting it down more like in the big machine world. If the NeXT has many programs open at the same time at the time of shutdown, the machine first exits each program before the power actually goes off. If there are many programs, it may take a long time to exit them. The machine that was being tested turned itself off after a hard fight for more than five minutes! After all, it is UNIX and not MS-DOS.

Standard software
NeXT offers plenty of programs in the standard configuration. Unfortunately, the 105 MB hard disk is so small that it can only fit a fraction of the programs. For example, only the non-illustrated version of Webster's encyclopedia can be included. The e-mail will be handled by the NeXTMail program, with which, in addition to traditional text mail, you can also send images, different text styles and voice mail. Naturally, the recipient must also have a NeXT in order to be able to take advantage of special features such as voice messages.
For word processing, the standard configuration includes the WriteNow writing program, which is a modified version of the Macintosh equivalent. With the Preview program, you can examine any PostScript output on the screen before printing it on paper.

NeXT is powered from the keyboard. The volume and the brightness of the monitor can also be adjusted from the keyboard.
In addition, simple programs for playing and editing music files are included, as well as a print program that also directly controls the fax format.

More programs
The Extended version includes, among other things, the GNU C and C++ compilers, manuals necessary for program development (e.g. Unix manuals), Oxford Quotations and a complete, illustrated version of the Webster dictionary.
With the help of the Oxford Quotations program, you can search, for example, for a famous quotation in which the word "information" appears. Among the answers, for example, Dickens' quote "I only asked for information" is found.
With the Digital Librarian program, you can search for information from different sources based on a search term, for example from your own text files.

The right micro for you?
NeXT is most advantageous as a multimedia and graphics machine. NeXT is a competitor to both Apple's Macintosh, Commodore's Amiga 3000 series machines and Unix workstations. The software offering is not yet very extensive, but for example Ashton-Tate and Lotus already offer software for NeXT.
NeXT's features represent a kind of dream machine. It has everything possible from sound processing and Ethernet connection to the SCSI2 bus. Several processors handle their own tasks, leaving more time for the machine's main processor, and the machine can perform even complex tasks without slowing down. This can also be seen in practice.
Technically, the top-class machine is only enough to get the hardware fans and bit nippers going. The number of these is not enough to keep NeXT profitable for a long time. It remains to be seen whether there will be enough programs and users for NeXT.

NeXT station

On the back of the central unit, you can find the following connections from the left: SCSI-2, 2xRS-423, DSP (digital signal processor), monitor, NeXT laser printer, thin ethernet network connection and normal ethernet

Processors: Motorola 68040 25 MHz (15 MIPS, 2 MFLOPS). Memory Management Unit (MMU). Floating point unit. Motorola 56001 25 MHz Digital Signal Processor.

Memory: RAM memory 8 MB, expandable to 32 MB with 4 MB DRAM SIMM blocks. Parity check for memory if desired.
Additionally, 24K for the digital signal processor (expandable to 576kg with SRAM SIMM blocks).

Connections: SCSI-2, 2 x RS.423 (Mac compatible), DSP (Digital Signal Processor), monitor, NeXT's own laser printer. Standard and thin Ethernet connection. The monitor has an RCA connection for connecting to an amplifier, as well as a headphone and digital microphone connection.

Mass storage: 2.88 MB floppy drive (Extended Density), also reads and writes DOS standard 1.44 MB and 720 KB floppies. 105 MB hard disk with 17 ms search time. Alternatively, a 340 MB hard disk with a 15 ms search time. Both hard drives are internal to the machine.

Screen: Grayscale screen (4 shades of gray) 17 inches. Resolution 1120 x 832 points, 92 DPI. Refresh rate 68 Hz. Built-in microphone and speaker. CD-level sound in stereo when using an external amplifier.