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Previous: A NeXT Computer Emulator

244 points| ecliptik | 3 years ago |previous.unixdude.net

120 comments

order
[+] rcarmo|3 years ago|reply
In case you want to have a NeXT-like experience on Linux, I’ve had good fun with NEXTSPACE:

- https://github.com/trunkmaster/nextspace

Alas, the developer is Ukrainian, and hasn’t committed anything in a long while. But maybe someone could help out?

[+] prmoustache|3 years ago|reply
Like NsCDE [1], these kinds of old school environments are nice an all until you fire up a modern browser or an app made for Gnome and you end up in a kind of aesthetic mess.

[1] https://github.com/NsCDE/NsCDE

[+] hestefisk|3 years ago|reply
AfterStep was also a nice NeXT like experience. I don’t think it’s maintained anymore. I used to run it on RH 5.0 back in the day (ca. 1999).
[+] jim180|3 years ago|reply
yeah, last commit was a day before Russia invaded Ukraine again.
[+] nickhodge|3 years ago|reply
I think the western world is sending all its spare munitions as we speak.
[+] zanethomas|3 years ago|reply
This might be a previously unknown bit of NeXT and Windows history.

While Windows 3 was in development I was in the next building working on os/2. (not bragging <g>)

I spent a lot of time in a lab that had a lot of hardware. One day a NeXT machine showed up in the lab.

The next day there was a line of Windows developers waiting for their chance too look at it. (we'll forget the fun I had grabbing a screen shot of the desktop which i then left displayed full screen)

It was a mere matter of days before a build of Windows with 3d buttons came out, and the rest is more history.

[+] cbmuser|3 years ago|reply
That's not the proper homepage, this is:

> http://previous.alternative-system.com/

Also, the homepage at unixdude.net is not distributing the sources which is a GPL license violation.

[+] suprjami|3 years ago|reply
Have you asked for the sources? GPL does not require proactive distribution, that's just the common way people avoid handling many individual requests.
[+] spitfire|3 years ago|reply
For anyone wondering nextcomputers.org has the necessary rom files available in their file section.-

Along with just about all the public ally available software ever made. It’s really a treasure trove.

[+] lockhouse|3 years ago|reply
Thank you! Any recommendation on the best one to use with Previous? It looks like it supports a lot of models.
[+] azinman2|3 years ago|reply
On mobile I just get a splash and that’s it. Is there something more to this?
[+] itomato|3 years ago|reply
It can also boot Plan9 over the network from another Previous instance, if you’re into that.
[+] johndoe0815|3 years ago|reply
Plan 9 for NeXT works well in Previous with a 9p server running on the emulation host or a different machine on the net. Previous support for NeXTstep includes an NFS and NetInfo server in Previous itself. The equivalent emulation of the 9p protocol is not yet available, however.

Also note that the most recent version of Plan 9 for NeXT is the second edition (http://ftp.osuosl.org/pub/plan9/history/plan9-2e.tar.bz2). Updating the code to use the new graphics system introduced in the 3rd edition is on my to-do list...

Shameless plug - the 9th International Workshop on Plan 9 takes place in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, this April: http://iwp9.org

Btw., NetBSD is also supported in Previous now, but there has been a regression after NetBSD 5.2.3 that we have only been able to identify and fix recently (it seems that there are not a lot of NeXT NetBSD users left...) thanks to the great support by Izumi Tsutsui. So NetBSD 9.3 currently needs a number of patches as discussed on the NetBSD/next68k mailing list (http://mail-index.netbsd.org/port-next68k/), but 5.2.3 should work out of the box.

[+] lol_catz|3 years ago|reply
I'm still running windowmaker
[+] nunodonato|3 years ago|reply
every couple of years I go back to check how's windowmaker/gnustep. Too bad the progress seems to have stalled and the support for some modern features is lacking, I would definitely be open to give it a go again
[+] pmarreck|3 years ago|reply
I just noticed I can install this on NixOS. NixStep, here we come!!
[+] TazeTSchnitzel|3 years ago|reply
I dream of getting a PlayStation 2 Linux kit and setting up the GUI. I believe that was the default desktop environment!
[+] pmarreck|3 years ago|reply
OK so I have windowmaker running on nixos but some windows such as Firefox can't be dragged by the titlebar, only resized. What do??

other questions: sometimes right-click for context menu requires a click and hold, other times it doesn't. configurable?

[+] b112|3 years ago|reply
Heh! I ran the same for the first decade of Linux use.

Now I am sad.

[+] pjerem|3 years ago|reply
Good luck for seo but I like the name :)
[+] sgt|3 years ago|reply
For a second I was looking at the Previous Screenshots and thought: Well, I want to see the current ones. Where.. oh..
[+] hoc|3 years ago|reply
Ah, back then when we were scientists and not app developers and were happy about building tools for our own contexts.

This has such a calming feeling to it.

[+] eatmyshorts|3 years ago|reply
Does it also emulate the wickedly slow I/O times of the CD/RW drive (er, Canon Magento Optical drive, apparently)? I seem to recall waiting really long for anything to read or write to that thing, despite the wonder of having a CD that I could erase, with 660MB of storage.
[+] TomMasz|3 years ago|reply
Is there any real documentation? I have NeXT ROMs but no matter which one I use it crashes immediately.
[+] johndoe0815|3 years ago|reply
It usually works pretty well - do you get any output at all?

Some more details would help. Which OS are you trying to run Previous on? Did you compile the code yourself or did you use a prebuilt binary?

[+] garganzol|3 years ago|reply
Just take a look at the buttons in window title bars - they have box shape with a very distinguishable 3D effect. NeXT design language was evidently borrowed by Windows 95. Which is a good thing, I still miss that level of clarity.
[+] vandahm|3 years ago|reply
> For running Previous you need a copy of the NeXT ROM.

I have an old NeXT machine that works and has NeXTstep running on it. How can I extract the ROM from it and use it to run this emulator?

[+] Quequau|3 years ago|reply
If you don't already have a device for reading and writing EPROMs it's probably easier to just download ROM images from the internet.
[+] stevedekorte|3 years ago|reply
Can someone get this running on the Web with WASM?
[+] xattt|3 years ago|reply
If the photo shows the intended layout of the workstation, NeXT seems terrible for ergonomics.

Too much looking around the corner to see what you’re typing.

[+] Aldipower|3 years ago|reply
I laughed out hard. :-D Thanks for that.
[+] gjvc|3 years ago|reply
don't worry, it doesn't. They did advertising better back then.
[+] ixtli|3 years ago|reply
Not gonna lie: i upvoted this for the name :)
[+] Smrchy|3 years ago|reply
I am looking for a way to run Lotus Improv - which was a cool piece of software back then. Did anybody get this to run?
[+] spitfire|3 years ago|reply
Yes, improv and lighthouse design quantrix (a pixel perfect clone after lotus killed improv) work fine in previous.

Quantrix is also a fat binary so you can run it on x86 nextstep or openstep under in a vm.