Tech : NeXT Cube Demo
www.Alfred.TV READ ME FIRST In this video, with a run time of 53 minutes, I give a cursory overview of the hardware and operating system centric to the NeXT Computer. When Steve Jobs was stripped of all managerial rights at Apple in 1985, he resigned and started NeXT. In the mid 90′s, when Apple was in dire straights for a modern, multitasking operating system, they looked to purchase Be for their BeOS. When that deal fell through, they negotiated with NeXT. With the purchase, which was for about 0 million, not only did they get the NextStep/OpenStep OS, they also got back Steve Jobs. The acquisition of NeXT, which was orchestrated by the current Apple CEO, Gil Amelio, saved the company from pending disaster. So, join me for a some time-travel to 1990, where I will give you a peek at the roots of the modern Mac OS X operating system which many of us enjoy and use today. Make sure to stay through the credits for the post video bonus scene featuring a Power Mac 7500, an Apple ][, and my nephews, Mike and Chris. Note: The REASON why this was filmed early on Thanksgiving more was due to my personal and business schedule. It was the only time I could do it in order to fulfill my promise of ‘booting the NeXT Cube’ prior to 2009. If you’d like to see the raw, archival uStream broadcast, which is a bit light-hearted as I interact with the live audience, please visit the URL below and click on the link for ‘archived videos.’ The broadcast is broken up into multiple parts for …
Video Rating: 4 / 5
I give you another look at the vintage but very good looking G4 Cube
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Wow! It’s slower than my iPod touch!!!
@lichuan80 My aim isn’t to defend Apple in saying this, but saying that the technology is inferior because it’s based on technology from 20 years ago is like calling the human race inferior. I agree, there needs to be more work, especially more researc for exokernels, but google code has been helping a lt of ese projects along. sorry for teh typos but my vbrowser started tweaking out
Fantastic!
Unix !
It is a bit upsetting to see how innovation of 5 people around 20 years ago still steering the acclaimed most advanced OS nowadays, and upon realizing this, think about how IT industry could become if the companies like Microsoft and IBM or Sun could convince their investor to put slight more focus on invocation factors and work more closed with the brightest minds from academic.
@alizta wrong.
your videos is awesome, i love this channel
Everyone says how innovative apple is but they really haven’t moved OS X on that much from NextStep considering it’s been 18 years which in tech terms is a century. Apple stole the GUI from Xerox and OS X from next (even if it was Steve Jobs) NextStep was magnificent considering they had minuscule specs to run the os on. If modern software designers had the same innovation and attention to detail on modern specs the computers would be insane.
Nice video, Al!
I’ve never used an actual NeXT box, but it’s nice to see how smooth it looks in your video. Reminded me a bit of the Amigas back in the day, they also were very smooth given their relatively modest CPU.
Back in those days I’ve also used 486 computers with early versions of linux and FreeBSD, but it wasn’t anywhere near as smooth as this NeXT, despite the CPU probably being more powerful than this 040 at 25 MHz.
This hardware and kernel/OS just look nicely tuned to eachother.
So it can run on a SPARC?
Fantastic.
PLEASE DONT READ THIS. YOU WILL GET KISSED ON THE NEAREST POSSIBLE FRIDAY BY THE LOVE OF YOUR LIFE. TOMORROW WILL BE THE BEST DAY OF YOUR LIFE. HOWEVER IF YOU DONT POST THIS COMMENT TO AT LEAST 3 VIDEOS YOU WILL DIE WITHIN 2 DAYS. NOW UV STARTED READIN DIS DUNT STOP THIS IS SO SCARY. xSEND THIS OVER TO 5 VIDEOS IN 143 MINUTES WHEN UR DONE PRESS F6 AND UR CRUSHES NAME WILL APPEAR ON THE SCREEN IN BIG LETTERS
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wicked review-LOVE NeXT SO MUCH!!!!!!!- BTW you type really really fast!
Great great video! Thanks!
Your video’s are some of the best, man. Keep it up!
Use vitualbox and run openstep on it
next kind of is around today it is at the heart of MAC OS X
I remember having a NeXT cube, and i LOVED IT!!! and yes, i do believe they had CD drives, and definately had floppy drives. lol the screen saver amazed me
does it have any type of optical drive or floppy?
that thing on the desk made the internet dudes i think, i still can’t believe neXt isn’t around today even designed the net from Tim Berners-Lee….. jesus doesn’t Times changed alot
FCK! The only thing missing is U!
I’d say the NeXT Cube is more like the PowerMac G4 Cube released in 2000
Quote from Space Quest IV that’s relevant to my point (if you think about it):
“The change machine looks more like a time machine then the time machine looks like a time machine!”
It’s kind of funny how this is closer to the iMac then the Macintosh SE. OS X’s common ancestor didn’t even run on macs!
openstep/nextstep have intel versions so u could use sun’s virtual box i think
naah it isnt that cheap, a graphics card would cost around another 100 bucks for a good one
lol @ 7:25 you can see the subwoofer of the harman kardon soundsticks
I love the intro with the ending part of “A day in the life” by The Beatles. Cool cube. I have one too.
Not sure. I have an ADC 17 inch Apple Studio display with my Power Mac G4 and I love it. My best guess is that it’s because the Apple Studio Displays and Cinema displays that used the ADC connector only would work with select models of macs. Plus, the ADC port only supports USB 1.1, so the USB ports that were on the back of those displays were kinda slow. The purely DVI apple displays made now have a drastically larger range of compatibility.
Brilliant Idea. i have a hard time thinking about why they dropped it…
It’s an ADC port. (Apple modified version of DVI) Unlike DVI it can power the display and provide USB support.
OK I’ll go and try to get one cheap if I can ($150 ish) then later upgrade the ram and hard drive.
I think yeah, for the bare basics it is a good mac. Not to mention i got was doing graphic design work on that thing for a full month. I mostly use it as a music machine. Pretty good for that. So yeah, of you can fine one for a good price (mine cost a lot, because the shipping taxed in my coutry are just rediculous) that’s a good start.
I am thinking about getting a cube myself and was wondering if it is a good mac to start out with for the basics? Full time win user and bored shitless of XP and win98 but game on vista.
5/5
this is older than my grandma’s computer get with the program.
The only failure that succeeded. That’s the perfect way to describe the G4 Cube.
Weird, Youtube didn’t show your comment earlier. Actually Mine runs pretty fine. Lucky you got your in mint condition
mine was fairly used and scratched. If you add to at least 1 Gb of RAM it will run Tiger just fine. Mine runs Tiger with no problems at all. A little slow, but VERY usable. Anyway, enjoy your cube. And Yeah I know it was the ACD Connector. I bought the original Display that originally came with the Cube and the ACD Connector is actually fantastic. C my vid about the Display.
So people know where you said it was a DVI port its actually a ADC port its for the video card when you plug it up to a original apple monitor that it would have been bought with in 2000 or 2001 , i don’t see the point in it really. Anyway i bought one of these yesterday in mint condition 450MHz, 384 MB RAM 120 GB hard drive, it comes with the Tiger disk but with the single processor it would be laggy so i’m installing panther on it. Did you say what operating system yours is running ?
very nice computer
Thanks
dude I really like ur videos
I’ve heard (and I think saw some pictures) about adapting the Cube with a Mini inside. I think that is so cool.
I knew what you meant, and people do that all the time. Even me.
)
Why in the world did I say “two”, I meant – too.
Hey! Yeah, the Cube is one of the best Apple Computers till this day. they are hard to find, but you can actually find yourself a G4 Cube Enclosure (In good shape) and Mount a Mac Mini inside there.
Yeah, mine is in good condition, not too good, but alright.
Happy new year to you two
Excellent video, Max. I have always liked the Cube. I just wish an updated and powerful one were still made!
)
You were lucky to get one in such good cosmetic shape. From all I’ve heard, most for sale have many cracks.
And Happy New Year!