DaeumYeog Software / 2023-12-16 17:43:45

External View

The NeXT computers are probably the most stylish computers ever created. 

Back Connectors

At the back of the NeXTstation are a set of connectors.

• SCSI-II (4.8 MB/sec in burst), micro DB50 also called MD50 or HPDB50 (Half Pitch).
• Serial A (RS-423), Mini-DIN 8.
• Serial B (RS-423), Mini-DIN 8.
• DSP, DA15.
• Display, DB19.
• Printer, DB9.
• Ethernet (10BaseT compatible at 10 Mbit/sec), RJ45.
• Ethernet (IEEE 802.3a compatible at 10 Mbit/sec), RG58.

Internal View

TBC

Peripherals

Besides simple Dell speakers, I installed also an external BlueSCSI to access images of hard disks and CD-ROMs.

A BlueSCSI is a smart little device that is open source, hardware, and design that emulates SCSI devices using file images of hard disks or CD-ROMs. It uses a Raspberry Pi Pico (RP2040 microcontroller) driving some special hardware and a SD card. It comes in three flavours: desktop, laptop, and external. I use an external BlueSCSI, bought from Paul Bernard of the COVQ¹, which features a standard DB25 connector and that I connect to my NeXTstation using a DB25F to HPDB50M adapter from CablesOnline.

I run into some problems to get the image files to be recognised by my NeXTstation, with in some case my NeXTstation refusing to boot. After some trials-and-errors, it seems that:

• The image files must have a SCSI ID equal or greater to 2. For example, the image file HD10_512_2000_Archives.hda would prevent my NeXTstation to boot while my NeXTstation would properly boot and mount the same file as a hard disk when renamed as HD20_512_2000_Archives.hda.
• The last SCSI ID shouldn't be a CD-ROM image or there should be less image files than SCSI ID 7. For example, with three hard disk files (HD20_... to HD40_...) and three CD-ROM images (CD50_... to CD70_...), my NeXTstation wouldn't start, it would actually go directly into the NeXT ROM Monitor. When I removed the last CD-ROM image, it booted and mounted all hard disks and CD-ROMs properly.

¹ The COVQ or Collectionneurs d'ordinateurs vintages du Québec is unfortunately only on Facebook. I won't of course post any link to it here until Zuckerberg and its hench(wo)men are held accountable and go to jail (e.g., here and there).