[HN Gopher] Infinite Mac: Turning to the dark side
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Infinite Mac: Turning to the dark side
Author : CharlesW
Score : 115 points
Date : 2024-03-27 20:02 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.persistent.info)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.persistent.info)
| mihaip wrote:
| Author of the post/creator of the site here. To save everyone the
| click, NeXTStep 3.3 is probably the best release to try out:
| https://infinitemac.org/1994/NeXTSTEP%203.3 (it was the last
| release that ran well on the original NeXT hardware, OPENSTEP 4.0
| and later were mostly focused on Intel support).
|
| If you'd like to play the NeXT version of DOOM and explore a few
| other apps, they're in the "Infinite HD" drive (you can get to
| different drives by clicking on the computer icon in the
| Workspace file viewer).
| rcarmo wrote:
| Yep, that tracks. I used to have a NeXTCube on my desk and
| tried to hold on to it (and 3.3) for dear life, but sadly the
| research institute I was in at the time didn't allow it. Thank
| you so much for grafting previous into your wonderful site,
| I've been having a blast with it on idle moments.
| im_down_w_otp wrote:
| Yep. That's the version I run on my "Turbo Slab".
|
| It's always kind of amazing what a 33 MHz 68040 was capable of
| whenever I fire it up and fool around.
| SSLy wrote:
| I dont know if it's just me but the way mouse acceleration
| "works" is driving me bonkers.
| helf wrote:
| god I miss my NeXT hardware. I used one as a daily driver till
| ~2008ish. _sniff_ Shouldn 't have sold it.
| gattilorenz wrote:
| I'm curious how you used it as a daily driver back then. Did
| you use it for internet access? Granted, JS was less prevalent
| back then, but I'm not sure what browser you had available.
| What about listening to mp3s while doing something else, could
| the m68k manage or are you just not doing those things
| normally?
| VelesDude wrote:
| Not OP, but if it was anything like Macs running on similar
| hardware - MP3s was not viable, simply not enough grunt. Also
| most (all?) MP3 decoders relied on a FPU unit to function.
| But CD's where fine.
| ben_w wrote:
| I don't know which era of chip you're thinking of, but when
| I was a kid listening to MP3s, it was the late 90s, and I
| had a Performa 5200 with a 75 MHz PowerPC 603 (or possibly
| 603e); it had a FPU, like all PPC chips, and IIRC like the
| final series of 68k that Apple used, the 68040 which
| Wikipedia says was also used in _some_ models of NeXT
| machine -- my problem was MacOS and how it multitasked
| (cooperatively), making MP3 playback clip every few seconds
| if the player was in the background; and I 'm sure it was
| the OS not the chip, because I later upgraded to a newer
| computer with a 200 MHz chip, and it behaved exactly the
| same way.
| justanother wrote:
| mpg123 (command line) worked fine on my turbo dimension cube.
| Apparently others as well:
| https://www.nextcomputers.org/forums/index.php?topic=2691.0
| VelesDude wrote:
| Oh do I get the pain of hardware lost due to short sighted
| ambitions. Some many things I have let go over the years.
|
| But let me try to make you feel a bit better. A lot of this
| retro hardware nowadays is more about maintenance rather than
| just using it. If you are into that, it is great! But for many
| it just comes to a point of trying ever harder just to keep
| these things going. It is to be the technology Sisyphus.
|
| Last year I finally gave up on my Powermac G5 when the power
| supply went, a machine much younger than any Next hardware. I
| just gave it away to someone that had the patience to work with
| it. Unfortunately the FIF (F*K It Factor) is a thing that
| eventually creeps up and it becomes a case of passing these
| things onto others that have a higher tolerance for aging
| hardware issues.
| sen wrote:
| Credit to whoever named the NeXT emulator "Previous". That's
| brilliant.
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