PA-RISC information - since 1999

NeXTSTEP on PA-RISC

Overview

NexTSTEP 3.3
© NeXT 1994

NeXTSTEP is a Unix operating system developed in the 1980s and 90s by NeXT, based on a Mach microkernel with an advanced graphical user interface. NeXTSTEP supports several 32-bit HP 9000 PA-RISC workstations in release 3.3 from 1994, for which HP and NeXT had high hopes. This was an effort to open up the NeXT operating system to other hardware platforms after NeXT stopped designing its own custom NeXT computers.

NeXTSTEP on PA-RISC
NeXTSTEP, Thomas Schanz CC BY-SA 4.0

Introduced in 1989 by NeXT, NeXTSTEP featured development and user environments, an unique GUI and the Display Post Script (DPS) display system. The operating system core is a Mach microkernel, 4.3BSD compatible and runtime-extensible.

In its early years, NeXTSTEP only ran on NeXT black hardware, sophisticated and expensive NeXT cubes, based on Motorola 68000. Intel x86 PCs, white hardware, were first supported in NeXTSTEP 3.1 in 1991 to open up the platform to off-the-shelf hardware.

NeXTSTEP version 3.3 included support for a handful of contemporary HP 9000 700 workstations (712, 715, 725, 735, 755) with good onboard hardware support but admittedly limited software choices. Third party applications and porting enthusiasm for PA-RISC fell short and the PA-RISC port was limited to NeXTSTEP 3.3 and to thos select set of 32-bit HP 9000 workstations

HP running NeXTSTEP
HP and NeXT advertisement, HP 1994

The PA-RISC version of NeXTSTEP 3.3 was developed on and specifically for the HP 9000 712 pizzabox workstation, a very advanced combination for the 1990s with a nice, integrated user experience.

NeXT tried to get its own NeXT RISC workstation to market (chased a chimera) and looked at Motorola 88000 and PowerPC, but decided to partner with workstation vendors to bring NeXT to RISC. Development continued and in 1994 NeXTSTEP 3.3 was released with support for different RISC platforms including Sun SPARC and HP PA-RISC.

NeXTSTEP itself, while revolutionary in aspects, did not have long commercial success. However some of its ideas and technologies live on in Mac OS, after corporate M&A and consolidation in the tech sector.

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Systems support

NeXTSTEP 3.3 runs on some HP 9000 700 PA-RISC workstations of the 1990s with 32-bit processors:

Class Supported omputers
HP 9000 700 712, 715, 725, 735, 755
Portables probably SAIC Galaxy 1100
HP 715/64 running NeXTSTEP
715 NeXTSTEP, Thomas Schanz CC BY-SA 4.0

Most onboard components and integrated devices in compatible HP workstations were supported, with a few exceptions.

NeXTSTEP ran rather well on HP 9000 712 workstations, on which it was developed. It provided an unique operating system experience at the time of the 1990s with an integrated Unix system and advanced GUI, NeXTSTEP on the 712 was where NEXTSTEP belonged all along and HP was "trying for years to put a human face on UNIX" on its HP 9000 PA-RISC computers.

The seriously fast HP 9000 735/125 workstation was the fastest RISC workstation that ran NeXTSTEP in the 1990s, an interesting experience with the contrast of the industrial HP 735 workstation and refined NeXTSTEP OS (minus FWD SCSI and FDDI).

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Hardware support

NeXTSTEP 3.3 supports most standard hardware of supported PA-RISC workstations:

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Documentation

Manuals

Articles

Software

There used to be a large software archive available at the Peanuts.org FTP server. It went offline about 2004-2005, without a known mirror. Other than that there is not much software available, other than contemporary open source or shareware.

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