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NeXT Computer
NeXT Computer (also called the NeXT Computer System) is a workstation computer that was developed, marketed, and sold by NeXT Inc. It was introduced in October 1988 as the company's first and flagship product, at a price of , aimed at the higher-education market. It was designed around the Motorola 68030 CPU and 68882 floating-point coprocessor, with a clock speed of . Its NeXTSTEP operating system is based on the Mach microkernel and BSD-derived Unix, with a proprietary GUI using a Display PostScript-based back end. According to the Science Museum Group, "The enclosure consists of a 1-foot () die-cast magnesium cube-shaped black case, which led to the machine being informally referred to as 'The Cube'." The NeXT Computer was renamed NeXTcube in a later upgrade. The NeXTstation, a more affordable version of the NeXTcube, was released in 1990. Launch The NeXT Computer was launched in October 1988 at a lavish invitation-only event, " NeXT Introduction – the Introdu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
NeXT
NeXT, Inc. (later NeXT Computer, Inc. and NeXT Software, Inc.) was an American technology company headquartered in Redwood City, California that specialized in computer workstations for higher education and business markets, and later developed web software. It was founded in 1985 by CEO Steve Jobs, the Apple Computer co-founder who had been forcibly removed from Apple that year. NeXT debuted with the NeXT Computer in 1988, and released the NeXTcube and smaller NeXTstation in 1990. The series had relatively limited sales, with only about 50,000 total units shipped. Nevertheless, the object-oriented programming and graphical user interface were highly influential trendsetters of computer innovation. NeXT partnered with Sun Microsystems to create a API, programming environment called OpenStep, which decoupled the NeXTSTEP operating system's application layer to host it on third-party operating systems. In 1993, NeXT withdrew from the hardware industry to concentrate on marketing ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Computer Speakers
Computer speakers, or multimedia speakers, are speakers marketed for use with computers, although usually capable of other audio uses, e.g. for a shelf stereo or television. Most such speakers have an internal amplifier and consequently require a power source, which may be by a mains power supply often via an AC adapter, batteries, or a USB port. The signal input connector is often an analog 3.5 mm jack plug (usually color-coded lime green per the PC 99 standard); RCA connectors are sometimes used, and a USB port or Bluetooth antenna may supply a digital signal to an onboard DAC (some of which work only on computers with an appropriate device driver). Battery-powered wireless speakers require no cables at all. Most computers have speakers of low power and quality built in; when external speakers are connected they disable the built-in speakers by default. Altec Lansing claims to have created the computer speaker market in 1990. Computer speakers range widely in qualit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Display PostScript
Display PostScript (or DPS) is a 2D graphics engine system for computers that uses the PostScript (PS) imaging model and language to generate on-screen graphics. PS was originally developed for computer printing, to which DPS adds a number of features intended to ease working with bitmapped displays and improve performance of some common tasks. Early versions of PostScript display systems were developed at Adobe Systems. During development of the NeXT computers, NeXT and Adobe collaborated to produce the official DPS system, which was released in 1987. NeXT used DPS throughout its history, while versions from Adobe were popular on Unix workstations for a time during the 1980s and 1990s. The SunOS NeWS window system used DPS from the end of the 1980s into the 1990s. Design The original PostScript was written for printing, with the model being that only one document could be printed at one time, and that the document was broken into logical sections approximating a page. For thi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Unix
Unix (, ; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multi-user computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and others. Initially intended for use inside the Bell System, AT&T licensed Unix to outside parties in the late 1970s, leading to a variety of both academic and commercial Unix variants from vendors including University of California, Berkeley ( BSD), Microsoft (Xenix), Sun Microsystems ( SunOS/ Solaris), HP/ HPE ( HP-UX), and IBM ( AIX). The early versions of Unix—which are retrospectively referred to as " Research Unix"—ran on computers such as the PDP-11 and VAX; Unix was commonly used on minicomputers and mainframes from the 1970s onwards. It distinguished itself from its predecessors as the first portable operating system: almost the entire operating system is written in the C programming language (in 1973), which allows U ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Berkeley Software Distribution
The Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD), also known as Berkeley Unix or BSD Unix, is a discontinued Unix operating system developed and distributed by the Computer Systems Research Group (CSRG) at the University of California, Berkeley, beginning in 1978. It began as an improved derivative of AT&T's original Unix that was developed at Bell Labs, based on the source code but over time diverging into its own code. BSD would become a pioneer in the advancement of Unix and computing. BSD's development was begun initially by Bill Joy, who added virtual memory capability to Unix running on a VAX-11 computer. In the 1980s, BSD was widely adopted by workstation vendors in the form of proprietary Unix distributions such as DEC Ultrix and Sun Microsystems SunOS due to its permissive licensing and familiarity to many technology company founders and engineers. It also became the most popular Unix at universities, where it was used for the study of operating systems. BSD was sponsored ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mach (kernel)
Mach () is an operating system kernel developed at Carnegie Mellon University by Richard Rashid and Avie Tevanian to support operating system research, primarily distributed and parallel computing. Mach is often considered one of the earliest examples of a microkernel. However, not all versions of Mach are microkernels. Mach's derivatives are the basis of the operating system kernel in GNU Hurd and of Apple's XNU kernel used in macOS, iOS, iPadOS, tvOS, and watchOS. The project at Carnegie Mellon ran from 1985 to 1994, ending with Mach 3.0, which is a true microkernel. Mach was developed as a replacement for the kernel in the BSD version of Unix, not requiring a new operating system to be designed around it. Mach and its derivatives exist within several commercial operating systems. These include all using the XNU operating system kernel which incorporates an earlier non-microkernel Mach as a major component. The Mach virtual memory management system was also adopted in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coprocessor
A coprocessor is a computer processor used to supplement the functions of the primary processor (the CPU). Operations performed by the coprocessor may be floating-point arithmetic, graphics, signal processing, string processing, cryptography or I/O interfacing with peripheral devices. By offloading processor-intensive tasks from the main processor, coprocessors can accelerate system performance. Coprocessors allow a line of computers to be customized, so that customers who do not need the extra performance do not need to pay for it. Functionality Coprocessors vary in their degree of autonomy. Some (such as FPUs) rely on direct control via coprocessor instructions, embedded in the CPU's instruction stream. Others are independent processors in their own right, capable of working asynchronously; they are still not optimized for general-purpose code, or they are incapable of it due to a limited instruction set focused on accelerating specific tasks. It is common for these to b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Floating-point Arithmetic
In computing, floating-point arithmetic (FP) is arithmetic on subsets of real numbers formed by a ''significand'' (a Sign (mathematics), signed sequence of a fixed number of digits in some Radix, base) multiplied by an integer power of that base. Numbers of this form are called floating-point numbers. For example, the number 2469/200 is a floating-point number in base ten with five digits: 2469/200 = 12.345 = \! \underbrace_\text \! \times \! \underbrace_\text\!\!\!\!\!\!\!\overbrace^ However, 7716/625 = 12.3456 is not a floating-point number in base ten with five digits—it needs six digits. The nearest floating-point number with only five digits is 12.346. And 1/3 = 0.3333… is not a floating-point number in base ten with any finite number of digits. In practice, most floating-point systems use Binary number, base two, though base ten (decimal floating point) is also common. Floating-point arithmetic operations, such as addition and division, approximate the correspond ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Central Processing Unit
A central processing unit (CPU), also called a central processor, main processor, or just processor, is the primary Processor (computing), processor in a given computer. Its electronic circuitry executes Instruction (computing), instructions of a computer program, such as arithmetic, logic, controlling, and input/output (I/O) operations. This role contrasts with that of external components, such as main memory and I/O circuitry, and specialized coprocessors such as graphics processing units (GPUs). The form, CPU design, design, and implementation of CPUs have changed over time, but their fundamental operation remains almost unchanged. Principal components of a CPU include the arithmetic–logic unit (ALU) that performs arithmetic operation, arithmetic and Bitwise operation, logic operations, processor registers that supply operands to the ALU and store the results of ALU operations, and a control unit that orchestrates the #Fetch, fetching (from memory), #Decode, decoding and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Motorola
Motorola, Inc. () was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois. It was founded by brothers Paul and Joseph Galvin in 1928 and had been named Motorola since 1947. Many of Motorola's products had been radio-related communication equipment such as two-way radios, consumer walkie-talkies, cellular infrastructure, mobile phones, satellite communicators, pagers, as well as cable modems and semiconductors. After having lost $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009, Motorola was split into two independent public companies: Motorola Solutions (its legal successor) and Motorola Mobility (spun off), on January 4, 2011. Motorola designed and sold wireless network equipment such as cellular transmission base stations and signal amplifiers. Its business and government customers consisted mainly of wireless voice and broadband systems (used to build private networks), and public safety communications systems like Astro and Dimetra. Motorola's h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Workstation
A workstation is a special computer designed for technical or computational science, scientific applications. Intended primarily to be used by a single user, they are commonly connected to a local area network and run multi-user operating systems. The term ''workstation'' has been used loosely to refer to everything from a mainframe computer terminal to a Personal computer, PC connected to a Computer network, network, but the most common form refers to the class of hardware offered by several current and defunct companies such as Sun Microsystems, Silicon Graphics, Apollo Computer, Digital Equipment Corporation, DEC, HP Inc., HP, NeXT, and IBM which powered the 3D computer graphics revolution of the late 1990s. Workstations formerly offered higher performance than mainstream personal computers, especially in Central processing unit, CPU, Graphics processing unit, graphics, memory, and multitasking. Workstations are optimized for the Visualization (graphics), visualization and ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
NeXTcube
The NeXTcube is a high-end workstation computer developed, manufactured, and sold by NeXT from 1990 to 1993. It superseded the original NeXT Computer workstation and is housed in a similar cube-shaped magnesium enclosure, designed by frog design. The workstation runs the NeXTSTEP operating system and was launched with a list price. Hardware The NeXTcube is the successor to the original NeXT Computer, with a 68040 processor, a hard disk in place of the magneto-optical drive, and a floppy disk drive. NeXT offered a 68040 system board upgrade (and NeXTSTEP 2.0) for . A 33 MHz NeXTcube Turbo was later produced. NeXT released the NeXTdimension for the NeXTcube, a circuit board based on an Intel i860 processor, which offers 32-bit PostScript color display and video-sampling features. The Pyro accelerator board replaces the standard 25 MHz processor with a 50 MHz one. Specifications * Display: 1120×832 17 in (432 mm) 82 ppi grayscale MegaPixel Display * O ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
