barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) (09/26/90)
To all you old Cube owners (just about everyone :-), here's an interesting option to upgrading---is it viable? Motivation: the old Cube sits in limbo between the Slab and the NeXTDimension Cube---its got the display of the former, the chassis of the latter. Rather than upgrade it to _either_ one of these, why not _bifurcate_ it into two machines. What I mean is: buy a Slab chassis, a NeXTDimesion board and a color Monitor; pair the slab with the MegaPixel from the old Cube. Pair the old cube itself with the color board and monitor. Then, switch the CPU's so the 030 is in the slab, 040 in the Cube. Viola---you end up with two NeXTs: a 040 full color one with optical drive for the office, and a low end Slab with an 030 and floppy drive for home use. All for the cost of 1 Slab chassis + 1 Color board + 1 Color Monitor (roughly equal to the ingredients of a single color system, so the total number of NeXT computers is conserved in this process:-) Even better, if its true the NeXTDimension board can drive other monitors, I could you the 19'' color monitor on my Sparcstation, and save the price of a monitor. (Hmm...that leaves us with a Sparc chassis...?) Can it be done? (I've gotta find some way to transmute my Cube + SparcStation into a NexTDimension + some other NeXT!!:-) -- Barry Merriman UCLA Dept. of Math UCLA Inst. for Fusion and Plasma Research barry@math.ucla.edu (Internet)
daugher@cs.tamu.edu (Dr. Walter C. Daugherity) (09/26/90)
In article <412@kaos.MATH.UCLA.EDU> barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes: >To all you old Cube owners (just about everyone :-), >here's an interesting option to upgrading---is it viable? ... >What I mean is: buy a Slab chassis, a NeXTDimesion board and a color >Monitor; pair the slab with the MegaPixel from the old Cube. Pair the old cube >itself with the color board and monitor. Then, switch the CPU's >so the 030 is in the slab, 040 in the Cube. >Viola---you end up with two NeXTs... Sorry, you are missing some vital information: the 68040 cube upgrade board only plugs into a NeXTbus, i.e., a cube; the NeXTstation has no bus to insert a 68030 board into; and the NeXTdimension color board (which only plugs into a cube) does not include a 68040 (which is on the aforementioned 68040 cube upgrade board). In short, the NeXTstation and the NeXTstation Color (16-bit) are low-end non-expandable non-interchangeable non-bus systems, with correspondingly astoundingly low prices, of course. Still, if you're knowledgable about busses and power supplies and cooling you could probably assemble your own NeXT from pieces, or get one of your grad students to do it :-). Keep up the creative thinking! P.S. It's "voila," unless you were addressing a lady reader of this newsgroup :-). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Walter C. Daugherity Internet, NeXTmail: daugher@cs.tamu.edu Knowledge Systems Research Center uucp: uunet!cs.tamu.edu!daugher Texas A & M University BITNET: DAUGHER@TAMVENUS College Station, TX 77843-3112 CSNET: daugher%cs.tamu.edu@RELAY.CS.NET ---Not an official document of Texas A&M---
barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) (09/29/90)
Regarding my plan to bifurcate an old Cube into two new machines: I've been informed by a NeXT Systems Engineer (thanks J.M.!) that this is not possible, due to: Me: >What I mean is: buy a Slab chassis, a NeXTDimesion board and a color >Monitor; pair the slab with the MegaPixel from the old Cube. Pair the old cube >itself with the color board and monitor. Then, switch the CPU's >so the 030 is in the slab, 040 in the Cube. J.M.: ---------------------------- This is not really feasible. The '040 board for NeXTstation and for NeXTcube are different. The NeXTcube board (both the '030 and '040 versions) have a backplane connector (which is where the power for the board comes from). The NeXTstation board has a connector plug on it where the power supply plugs in. Also, the NeXTstation board has two large areas on it that are fairly empty where the disk and floppy drive sit. Finally, the Optical Disk VLSI chip is not on the NeXTstation CPU card. Therefore, there is no way that the NeXTstation CPU can ever drive the OD unless we rework the board. ----------------------------- Tag a :-( onto that last paragraph. Anyway, it looks like exotic ideas for mutating NeXTs aren't practical. Still, note you can buy the Monitor, chassis, keyboard+mouse, etc, separately, according to the NeXT List Prices. However, on a happy note: My personal problems are solved. I've traded away my 19'' Color GX SPARCstation 1 w/ Mathematica for a B&W NeXTStation and the promise to upgrade my old Cube to a NeXTDimension as soon as possible. (Plus a bonus Absoft Fortran Compiler!). Is that a deal, or what! But, uh, Steve, lets have a word. I'm putting _all_ my computing in the NeXT basket, now, home and office---in a hostile SPARC/MAC II environment. I'm counting on you...lets kick some ass!! -- Barry Merriman UCLA Dept. of Math UCLA Inst. for Fusion and Plasma Research barry@math.ucla.edu (Internet)