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NeXTstation

The NeXTstation was introduced in 1990 by NeXT Computer Inc., the company founded by Steve Jobs after his departure from Apple. It was designed as a powerful workstation for universities, research institutions, and software developers, and represented a more affordable alternative to the previously released NeXTcube.

The NeXTstation was based on a Motorola 68030 processor running at 25 MHz (later models also ran at 33 MHz). Unlike the NeXTcube, it did not have a separate DSP, which made it less expensive but limited its capabilities for multimedia and signal processing tasks. The system architecture was fully 32-bit and heavily optimized for the NeXTSTEP operating system.

The NeXTstation came standard with a monochrome megapixel monitor with a fixed resolution of 1120 × 832 pixels at 68 Hz. This black-and-white monitor was one of the system's most distinctive features: extremely sharp, flicker-free, and ideal for text, programming, and desktop publishing. Color support was optional and only available with additional graphics cards. The NeXTstation featured an integrated 16-bit DSP-based sound system that enabled high-quality audio input and output. Audio was deeply integrated into NeXTSTEP and a central element of the platform, especially for scientific applications. 10BASE-T Ethernet was integrated as standard—at a time when network connections were far from commonplace on personal computers. The NeXTstation was clearly designed for networked work environments.

The NeXTstation ran on NeXTSTEP (versions 2.x to 3.3), an object-oriented operating system based on UNIX (Mach kernel). NeXTSTEP is considered the direct technical predecessor of Mac OS X, iOS, and today's macOS.

The NeXTstation was not a commercial success, but it had an enormous influence on software and operating system history. It was used at CERN, among other places—Tim Berners-Leeden developed the first web browser and the foundations of the World Wide Web on a NeXTstation. With Apple's acquisition of NeXT in 1997, the technical basis of the NeXTstation became the foundation of Mac OS X and thus of all modern Apple operating systems.