NeXT

1985: NeXT is founded by Steve Jobs after his resignation from Apple Computer.
1988: Protoype machines are shown to professionals.
1989: the machines are in testing, and NeXT starts selling limited numbers to universities with a beta version of the OS installed.

"Ultimately, a prerelease version of the NeXTcube was made available to educators and students running beta NeXTstep in 1989 at US$6'500. This was well above the proposed $500 price point of 1985, making it too expensive for students to buy a NeXTcube to use as a personal computer. The base price included a NeXTcube, monitor, mouse, keyboard, and MO (magneto-optical) disk containing the operating system and a few add-on programs."
Source: http://lowendmac.com/orchard/06/1220.html

A few months laters, NeXT releases the final version of the NeXTcube, which retailes for US$10'000.

The major differences between the NeXTstation and the NeXTcube were color and distribution. Unlike the NeXTcube, the NeXTstation supported color, though a color display was an expensive option. This made the machine much more attractive as a multimedia workstation.

The color version of the NeXTstation cost $7'995 ($975 less than the top of the line Macintosh IIfx, released the same year), and the monochrome version cost $4'995.

1993: NeXT withdraws from the hardware business. In the end, only about 50,000 NextStep machines were ever built. Jobs announces that NextStep would stop producing hardware and focus all its enery on the NextStep operating system. The operating system is promised to run on a wide variety of platforms.

1996: Apple Computer buys NeXT in 1996 after its own efforts to upgrade the Macintosh operating system failed. NeXTStep lives on as the heart of Mac OS X.

---

It's 7:30 and the woman from GotaloNia arrives at the hotel lobby. She tells me to follow her to one car parked outside where she has a NeXT Cube waiting to be unloaded. She helps me setting up the cube in my hotel room. She leaves and tells me that if I like the Cube I can have it for 600 euros. I have one week to decide.

The Cube is loaded with NeXTStep 2.2 and is connected to one 17" grayscale NeXT monitor. The mouse and the keyboard are also original NeXT gear. There's only one MP3 file on the hard disk, it's "Hack Attack" by Sigue Sigue Sputnik. Since this music is from 1986, it's apropiate... Still, I wonder why this MP3 file was left on the hard disk, since there are no more personal documents there.
Source: http://reportdesert.blogspot.com/

Related:
Computer History
Operating Systems

---