To have any chance to use this NeXTstation on a regular basis, I'm gonna need to put the CRT on top of it. Anyone have suggestions for something I could put on top of the slab to prevent the CRT from marking it? Maybe some kind of heavy black foam so it doesn't take away from the aesthetic?
NeXT monitor arrived, works, and the picture is really nice. The borrowed monitor I have has a known issue where the picture is super wobbly for the first 20-30 min it's running (!). By comparison the picture seems somewhat dim too. I didn't realize how much more enthused a good image would make me to play around with NeXT!
Slab is arriving tomorrow from the same seller (testing on a borrowed one today). Hopefully it's in as good a shape!
Putting together a timeline of the history of the web, and I'm not seeing much (in the categories I'm looking in) since 2017. What since then have been the main advancements in the web platform, in your opinion?
Older technologies that I'm starting to see starting to make a big impact on recent years are web components and WebAssembly. These are pre-2017 but I'm starting to see them gain some significant steam in just the past couple of years.
Won an auction on a NeXTstation and display (shipping now). It was a good price, but still more than I've spent on my other vintage machines. Watching Jobs' introduction of the NeXT computer to distort my reality so I'm convinced it was a good purchase 😄 https://youtu.be/92NNyd3m79I
@CodingItWrong I love mine but rarely turn it on because I want to get the caps checked. So I just fire up the emulators when I need my fix. It sounds like I have a very similar model. I love being able to play with all versions of NeXT/OPENSTEP thanks to the Infinite Mac upgrades adding support for all the releases going back to 0.8 : infinitemac.org/
@hankg very cool! i had the thought the other day "did i hear about NeXT emulators on the web recently" but I forgot to check it out. that will be very fun to try!
@CodingItWrong absolutely fantastic series, and totally underrated in the adventure game universe. the setting is eery, unique and beautifully painted. the artist (dee dee murry) went on to be a professional painter!
Since it sounds like I'm probably one of the only people who has fond memories of a #PCjr, I should probably get one someday so I can play Lode Runner, Below the Root, and King's Quest 1 on it 🙌
@CodingItWrong i recently loaded up KQ1 on mine and i was really, really impressed by the entire production. it's pretty much the most perfect PCjr showcase.
plus, that monitor renders colours a lot nicer than most of my other monitors of that period!
Was bidding on a #NeXT CRT monitor, but I was starting to regret it. I just got outbid on it and I think I'm going to let it go. I have a borrowed one now, and it'd really work out better for my storage space if I can do the work to find a compatible flat-panel display (which I do know is a challenge).
Mica powder does seem to have fixed my #Newton MessagePad 2000's problem with sticky rubber coating. I went with black powder so it may be darker than the original.
WARNING: I'm brand new to Newtons so I can't guarantee mica powder will work on yours. If you try, please get advice from others too and test it first.
@CodingItWrong fwiw, they will boot off usb - but the problems are due to the mix of 32-bit EFI and 64-bit processor which causes some nightmares for most installers :)
Further evidence that I'm putting the history into my computer history hobby: to write a few sentences about the NeXTstation and NEXTSTEP for #VCFSoutheast, I don't trust online summaries, so I'm like "I might as well reread the NeXT book from the start again."
(It helps that I need something to read to calm down before bed.)
Its finish is sticky, though, as seller reported. I tried what worked on my other stylus: IPA. Tested it on a corner and it got the goop off and doesn't seem to be damaging the underlying plastic.
Newton folks, think this is safe to do across the whole case?
@vga256 ok, I was wondering why it seemed like the plastic wasn't affected at all. So totally separate plastic and rubber layers, and the rubber has goopified
Were #Newton MessagePad 120s always a bit green, or did they turn that way? Because here one is next to my gray hoodie and blue pants, and it's definitely not blue or gray.
@CodingItWrong I worked on the Newton team. It was a green tinted black, but clearly a strong black color. Here is a production photo showing that dark black color. I can't tell you why it fades over time though
@CodingItWrong i mean, it existed for very large corporations (and education institutions i suspect?) in the 90s... I believe the WAN IP extension was ~$1000, so no regular human would have done it
but in terms of an informal non-institutional network - i believe so!
@NanoRaptor repost request: At one point you had a photo of a pile of beige dust with an Apple logo in the middle. Now that I have an 8500 this photo really hits home for me and I would love to see it again 😃
I literally have a note on the back of the 8500 that says "don't mess with me" because every time I open it up to upgrade RAM or use a component in another computer, something goes wrong, and I have to re-disassemble-and-assemble it multiple times
I used to want an 840av but at this point I think one 800 form factor is enough