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#11
Hardware / NeXT eBay Finds!
Last post by ZombiePhysicist - Nov 23, 2025, 03:50 AMThought I'd start a thread of cool NeXT hardware and/or related finds! Post anything cool you find and might want to share here!
To start things off, this was shared (thanks @trixster) in discord recently:
https://ebay.us/m/gxJcPW
To start things off, this was shared (thanks @trixster) in discord recently:
https://ebay.us/m/gxJcPW
#12
General Discussion / Re: NeXT sightings!
Last post by Rhetorica - Nov 21, 2025, 05:42 PMI spotted at least three slabs in Userlandia's VCF Midwest 2025 video:
One mono, one color, and one for sale.
#13
Software / Re: List of current open-sourc...
Last post by jeffburg - Nov 21, 2025, 04:44 AMI had never heard of darling. that's really cool!
#14
Software / List of current open-source pr...
Last post by Rhetorica - Nov 20, 2025, 10:41 PMravynOS hit the front page of Hacker News today, so I thought I'd do a round-up listing the (current) major efforts to build some sort of implementation of OpenStep.
(Did I miss any?)
- Obviously the oldest is GNUstep, which is so old that the first versions actually ran under OPENSTEP 4.2! Although Étoilé used to be the star of the GNUstep scene, it's been dead for over a decade, and the current major distros of WindowMaker all return to the classic NeXT look. From strictest to most inclusive, they are NEXTSPACE, GSDE, and Window Maker Live.
- Although somewhat infrequently-updating, the legacy of the community Darwin project still exists in the form of PureDarwin. However the last version is Darwin 17, which is from the macOS 10.13 days, and does not include a GUI. Slightly more activity occurs on their Discord server.
- Darling is a project to make a WINE equivalent for macOS—it parses Mach-O binaries and intercepts calls to let basic ObjC programs run under Linux. It aims to be a clean implementation of
Cocoamodern OpenStep, though only very primitive graphical applications work currently. Quartz is hard, man! - The newest kid on the block is the aforementioned ravynOS project, which combines bits of the forgotten NextBSD project (which added Mach messaging to the FreeBSD kernel) with the Cocoa implementation of Darling. Its goal is to be the ReactOS equivalent to Darling's WINE equivalent, and the two indeed share code much like WINE and ReactOS did. ravynOS does have a rudimentary X11-based desktop environment with Mac-like affectations, but it's no more (or less) mature than Darling.
- Finally, helloSystem is none of the above—it's a distro of FreeBSD with a bunch of Qt apps running on top, reproducing the look and feel of late-era Mac OS X. But just like WMlive is more complete than NEXTSPACE, helloSystem offers a comparatively robust and complete user experience versus any of the other "open Mac" projects. ravynOS seems to have begun by tearing up the floorboards of helloSystem.
(Did I miss any?)
#15
General Discussion / Re: Articles and media on the ...
Last post by ZombiePhysicist - Nov 20, 2025, 04:19 PMI remember we had some cool gui gooher clients. I know we had ftp clients that mounted in the workspace but there may have been one gopher client that did too.
#16
General Discussion / Re: Articles and media on the ...
Last post by Rhetorica - Nov 20, 2025, 01:23 PMA fairly robust history of Gopher:
The perspective isn't quite complete—it doesn't do a good job of painting a picture of what the 'net was like before Gopher. There's no discussion of BBSes, FTP, or Usenet, which may leave the audience overestimating Gopher's importance in 1992. (It also doesn't acknowledge that WWW.app was released a few months before Gopher 1.0, choosing instead to only focus on Mosaic's success in late '93, but, eh.)
The perspective isn't quite complete—it doesn't do a good job of painting a picture of what the 'net was like before Gopher. There's no discussion of BBSes, FTP, or Usenet, which may leave the audience overestimating Gopher's importance in 1992. (It also doesn't acknowledge that WWW.app was released a few months before Gopher 1.0, choosing instead to only focus on Mosaic's success in late '93, but, eh.)
#17
Hardware / Re: NeXTDimension VRAM error
Last post by KennyPowers - Nov 19, 2025, 10:57 PMI've noticed that reordering and/or swapping out some of the SIMMs actually changes what I see in the VRAM's memory range after the second VRAM test fails. There are still always errors, and the first 8 bytes always read the same, but this is with the same 8 SIMMs installed as in my previous post, just in a different order:
Yes, I've tried numerous combinations of only 4 SIMMs, thinking that one or two of them may be bad, without success. These 8 SIMMs that came installed on the board are the only compatible SIMMs I currently have, but I'm going to order some to eliminate that variable. Question...do I want EDO or FPM SIMMs for an ND board?
https://www.ebay.com/itm/155458853451?_skw=72+8mb+edo&itmmeta=01KAEH1ZW8SZ81HXPZ58K4KN70&hash=item243211da4b:g:nCMAAOSwDoFkFLpO
or
https://www.ebay.com/itm/155306516452?_skw=72+pin+8mb+fpm&itmmeta=01KAER5E2NMSH809FCD0PG9BFD&hash=item2428fd5fe4:g:1s8AAOSw98hhCvWu
Yes, I've tried numerous combinations of only 4 SIMMs, thinking that one or two of them may be bad, without success. These 8 SIMMs that came installed on the board are the only compatible SIMMs I currently have, but I'm going to order some to eliminate that variable. Question...do I want EDO or FPM SIMMs for an ND board?
https://www.ebay.com/itm/155458853451?_skw=72+8mb+edo&itmmeta=01KAEH1ZW8SZ81HXPZ58K4KN70&hash=item243211da4b:g:nCMAAOSwDoFkFLpO
or
https://www.ebay.com/itm/155306516452?_skw=72+pin+8mb+fpm&itmmeta=01KAER5E2NMSH809FCD0PG9BFD&hash=item2428fd5fe4:g:1s8AAOSw98hhCvWu
#18
Marketplace / FS: NeXTstation Mono 25 - read...
Last post by krazycat - Nov 18, 2025, 06:00 PMHello everyone,
I am selling my NeXTstation mono, 68040/25.
The workstation is equipped with:
original video cable, NeXT part n° 1532,
Quokka NeXT-USB adapter,
USB keyboard,
USB mouse (wireless),
-68040 NeXTStation, Model No: N1100
-8 MB memory
-Original HDD (untested)
-Working Floppy Drive
-NeXT CR 2032 Battery Adaptor
-BlueSCSI v 1.1
-NEW power supply!
Some wear and tear on top of the NeXTstation (barely visible with monitor on it), please check the photos in the album below to see the condition:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/lucilab/albums/72177720330397095/
Shipping only to EU (ask for a quote for your address).
Optional:
SondBox NU_IO with 3D printed shell (add 240€) + LCD monitor (for free).
Keep in mind that if you also want the monitor, I will have to split the shipping into two packages, at a higher cost (1 box for the slab + 1 box for monitor).
Please DM any questions or offers.
Cheers,
Luciano
I am selling my NeXTstation mono, 68040/25.
The workstation is equipped with:
original video cable, NeXT part n° 1532,
Quokka NeXT-USB adapter,
USB keyboard,
USB mouse (wireless),
-68040 NeXTStation, Model No: N1100
-8 MB memory
-Original HDD (untested)
-Working Floppy Drive
-NeXT CR 2032 Battery Adaptor
-BlueSCSI v 1.1
-NEW power supply!
Some wear and tear on top of the NeXTstation (barely visible with monitor on it), please check the photos in the album below to see the condition:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/lucilab/albums/72177720330397095/
Shipping only to EU (ask for a quote for your address).
Optional:
SondBox NU_IO with 3D printed shell (add 240€) + LCD monitor (for free).
Keep in mind that if you also want the monitor, I will have to split the shipping into two packages, at a higher cost (1 box for the slab + 1 box for monitor).
Please DM any questions or offers.
Cheers,
Luciano
#19
Hardware / FPGA NeXT processor possibilit...
Last post by ZombiePhysicist - Nov 17, 2025, 01:38 AMI keep imagining at some point we can make an FPGA drop in replacement for our 68040 next machines, and maybe even crank them up to ghz levels!
Ultimately emulation may be the easier path as I hear there are some real difficulties in getting an FPGA tha could socket int.
But good things happen when you try. Previous' start humbly originated in a thread like this and brought to life by @andreas_g 's amazing can-do spirit and abilities.
I was reading this about an fpga pc xt project and it got me hopeful that someday we could do something similar with next hardware:
https://bit-hack.net/2025/11/10/fpga-based-ibm-pc-xt/
Ultimately emulation may be the easier path as I hear there are some real difficulties in getting an FPGA tha could socket int.
But good things happen when you try. Previous' start humbly originated in a thread like this and brought to life by @andreas_g 's amazing can-do spirit and abilities.
I was reading this about an fpga pc xt project and it got me hopeful that someday we could do something similar with next hardware:
https://bit-hack.net/2025/11/10/fpga-based-ibm-pc-xt/
#20
Software / Re: MathEdit for OpenStep now ...
Last post by jeffburg - Nov 14, 2025, 01:14 AMThanks for the feedback. This is very fair. I kept all the binaries in the repo to make it easy for people to download and to make it so I don't need host anything. But you are right. In the future, I think I will make the releases repo a git submodule, that way I get the best of both worlds.
I wonder if there is a way I can make a MathEdit releases repo and put all of the releases in there and then purge them from the history. I am not familiar with current git cleanup tools.
As far as app crashing when the window closes... I am not entirely surprised.. these are issues I worked around in the real OpenStep environment. I ended up making some of the objects -dealloc methods work in not totally standard ways... such as using autorelease instead of release. Which is not needed. To make things worse, the workarounds needed to change when I removed the NIBs.
So I am not shocked at all that whatever window release issues OpenStep (that still live in OS X today for legacy reasons) are not perfectly reproduced in GNUStep.
I wonder if there is a way I can make a MathEdit releases repo and put all of the releases in there and then purge them from the history. I am not familiar with current git cleanup tools.
As far as app crashing when the window closes... I am not entirely surprised.. these are issues I worked around in the real OpenStep environment. I ended up making some of the objects -dealloc methods work in not totally standard ways... such as using autorelease instead of release. Which is not needed. To make things worse, the workarounds needed to change when I removed the NIBs.
So I am not shocked at all that whatever window release issues OpenStep (that still live in OS X today for legacy reasons) are not perfectly reproduced in GNUStep.