This is NeXT-stat-sheet in view mode; [Up]
Date: Sun 27-Oct-1988 02:27:07 From: Unknown Subject: NeXT stat sheet Here is a quick review stat sheet on the company NeXT. This should answer most of the basic questions people have had. I'm pretty sure of everything except where noted by a question mark. If you find anything in error or have anything to add, please email me. ------------------------------ NeXT ------------------------------ Main Office: NeXT, Inc. 3475 Deer Creek Road Palo Alto, CA 94304 (415) 424-0200 (415) 424-0476 FAX Announcement Locations: - October 12, 1988 - 9:30 a.m. to 12 noon Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall (invitation only) 201 Van Ness Avenue San Francisco, California - October 13, 1988 The NeXT Day (an event for developers) San Francisco Hilton - October 25, 1988 Scheduled Press Conference (content unknown) New York, NY - October 25 - 27 NeXT at EDUCOM Regional Sales Office: Next Sales Office Two NorthCenter Pittsburgh, Pa 15212 (412) 231-4466 State of the Corporation: - Founded: October 1985 - Members of the Board: Steve Jobs: Chairman H. Ross Perot: representing personal interests John P. Crecine: representing Georgia Inst. of Tech. (was from CMU) - Monetary Status: $20M invested by H. Ross Perot $660,000 invested by Stanford $660,000 invested by CMU $12M invested by Steve Jobs - Ownership: 63% - Steve Jobs 16% - Ross Perot 2% - each of the (5?) people that originally broke away from Apple to join him 1% - Stanford 1% - CMU - Assets: - Pixar: - from dow-jones.indust.edp bboard: "A small computer-graphics company in San Rafael, Calif. called Pixar Inc. -- also owned by Jobs -- already uses the [DSP] technology to generate in just second moving images that other computers need hours to draw." - Automated assembly plant - Fremont, CA Board of Advisors: (24 college representatives) - Barbara Morgan, director of advanced technology planning, UCB - Williams Y. Arms? - CMU Marketable Products: NeXT T-Shirt: (shipped to many early developers) - colored - displays NeXT logo - paid $100,000 to Paul Rand to design logo NeXT coffee mug: (may be for company gifting only) - clear glass with etched (monochrome) logo NeXT pencils, bags, and folders: given away at NeXT Day NeXT machine: see below for details Capabilities of NeXT machine: - Hardware Specs: (basic machine) - 25 MHz 68030 main processor - 25 MHz 68882 math coprocessor - 25 MHz DSP56001 (2 cycles/instr giving 12.5MIPS) (confirmed) - Integrated Channel Processor (ICP) - 12 DMA channel controller - Optical Storage Processor (OSP) - provides ECC and double buffering - 16 SIMM slots on main board - accepts 1MB modules or higher (when avail.) - 8 slots come filled with 1MB SIMMs for 8MB standard - no parity or ECC - 8 1Mx1bit chips per SIMM - 256 KB for display RAM - 256 MB erasable optical disk (drive by Canon/controller by NeXT) - 2 5.25" full height device bays - 1 taken by optical disk - 2 16-bit D/A's (44.1 MHz) for stereo output (in monitor unit) - 8-bit codec for voice input (in monitor unit) - 4 32-bit, 25MHz, CMOS level NuBus like slots - Form Factor: Eurocard Type C connector - 1 slot taken by main board - 3 left open - Universal power supply - Ports: - DB-19 monitor port - video, keyboard, mouse, stereo sound, microphone input, and 12V DC power - "thin" Ethernet port - 10Mbit/sec - AM7996 Ethernet transceiver chip - DB-9 serial printer port - 1.8 mbps and 3.2 mbps - DB-25 SCSI port - rated at up to 4.8 MB/sec (NCR 53C90 chip) - 2 serial ports (Mac mini DIN-8, 230.4Kbps sync and 38.4Kbps asynch) - DB-15 DSP port (to synch and asynch channels on port C of DSP) - Externals: (included in basic system) - 17-inch 2 bits/pixel gray-scale monitor - 1120 x 832 pels, 94-dpi - keyboard - 84 key - attaches to monitor - mouse - 2 button optomechanical - attaches to keyboard Software Included: (all on the boot disk) - System Software - MACH operating system (from CMU) - system-call compatible w/ BSD4.3 - includes Sun NFS RPC service (version 2) built upon UDP - includes current Van Jacobsen TCP code - supports shared libraries - NeXT mods are being reported back to CMU MACH - Display PostScript Window Server and fonts (Adobe) - System administration tools - Application Development Tools - Objective C 4.0 (Stepstone Inc., Sandy Hook, Connecticut) - GNU ANSI C compiler (Free Software Foundation) - libraries rewritten by NeXT - compiled programs are not restricted by GNU license - GNU C debugger (Free Software Foundation) with Objective C extensions - GNU emacs (Free Software Foundation) - Allegro Common Lisp (Franz, Inc.) - Berkeley Unix utilities - Terminal Emulator - NeXT Step interface (sold rights to IBM for $10M) - Interface Builder - DSP Tools - assembler, debugger, and array processing routines - Speech features - record and play only (recognition stuff *not* bundled!) - Object-oriented software kits: - Application Kit - Sound Kit - Music Kit - High-speed text-retrieval application (called "Find") - Array Processing Kit (using DSP) - Applications - Mathematica (Wolfram Research) - Write Now (word processor, owned by NeXT) - Workspace Manager - window-based file manager - Mailapp - electronic mail (including VOICE mail) - Jot (Notepad, text database manager) - NeXT SQL Database Server (Sybase) - Digital Librarian - includes but is not limited to: - Merriam-Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary - Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Thesaurus - Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (Oxford Univ. Press) - Oxford Complete Works of Shakespeare (Oxford Univ. Press) - NeXT technical references - user and programmer manuals Software in the Works: - page layout program (Frame Technology Corp.) - $6,500 to educational institutions only - Does not include distribution and service charges? Institution will have to handle that. Delivery Dates: (none solid) - 4thQtr 88 - version 0.8 - to developers only - 1stQtr 89 - version 0.9 - developers & agressive users - 2ndQtr 89 - version 1.0 - educational institutions & developers - laser printer - $2,000 - customized, Canon based? print engine - 8 page/sec - uses standard toner cartridges and paper trays - 300 DPI @ 1.8 Mbit/sec and 400 DPI @ 3.2 Mbit/sec - no controls on printer (not even a power switch) - no memory or CPU onboard, streams data from interface to image - 330 MB winchester internal hard disk (Maxtor) - $2,000 - 660 MB winchester internal hard disk (Maxtor) - $4,000 - extra 256M optical disk drive - $1,500? - optical diskettes - $50 - 25MHz CMOS NuBus interface chip - $25 to developers - RJ-11 Phone Plug adapter - still under develpment - (rumoured) color graphics (Pixar) - still under development Steve Jobs: - estimated worth on leaving Apple: $90M in stocks - attended Reed - dropped out? - Past hits: Apple II, Macintosh - Past misses: Apple III, Lisa Misc Goodies: - It's black and made of magnesium - NeXT.com is on the arpanet - sunset.NeXT.COM (4.0/NeXT0.0-Aleph) - next.NeXT.COM (4.0/SMI-4.0Beta) - herman.NeXT.COM (4.0/SMI-4.0Beta) - reminder: arpa rules - no business or commercial related use - the desktop has a black hole for file deletion - In print: - Infoworld issue of Sept. 26 - San Jose Mercury News of October 7 - Wall Street Journal, October 12 - ** best general info - Unix Review, October? - EE Times, October 17, 1988 - PC Week - October 17, 1988; vol. 5, no. 42 - CMU Public Relations Office - Byte article (also avail. on BIX) - ** best technical info. - Newsweek - cover story - Oct. 24, 1988 - BusinessWeek - cover story - Oct. 24, 1988 - On-Line: - Unix NetNews: comp.sys.misc - Internet domain BBoard: info-mach - Unix NetNews: comp.os.mach - Gnu information: gnu@prep.ai.mit.edu Interim contact for people interested in becoming a developer: - John Ison, (415) 424-0200 NeXT employees: (total of 160 as of 10/20/88) - Peter Schofield - Pacific NW regional manager for NeXT - Ali T. Ozer, aozer@NeXT.com - NeXT Developer Support - John Ison - Julius Smith ------------------------------------------------------------------ Hope this helps. -- Chad Bisk -- cb29@andrew.cmu.edu >From: tedj@hpcilzb.HP.COM (Ted Johnson)
These are the contents of the former NiCE NeXT User Group NeXTSTEP/OpenStep software archive, currently hosted by Marcel Waldvogel and Netfuture.ch.