New #blog post: Desperately Seeking Preview.app

https://rldane.space/desperately-seeking-previewapp.html

361 words

Kind of a follow-up to yesterday's blost, but also informative for those who work with PDFs in Linux.

Thanks to https://infinitemac.org for enabling me to get the screenshot of Preview.app on NeXTStep 1.0. So awesome!!!!

cc: my wonderful #chorus: @joel @dm @sotolf @thedoctor @pixx @orbitalmartian @adamsdesk @krafter @roguefoam @clayton @giantspacesquid @Twizzay @stfn

(I will happily add/remove you from the chorus upon request! :)

P.S., I really hope someone gets the 1980s movie reference. Even though I've never seen said movie.

P.P.S., @scruss informs me that Firefox's built-in PDF viewer can do (almost) all of the annotation things I've been trying to do with multiple apps. I'm kinda shook!

#100DaysToOffload #50 #FIFTY! #HalfwayThere

#rlDaneWriting #blost #Macintosh #NeXT #NeXTStep #Retrocomputing (a little) #InfiniteMac #PreviewApp #PDF #PDFs #Linux

And one of the most interesting things about the PA-RISC based HP-9000 712 series is its Color Recovery system (allowing approximated 24-bit color from an 8-bit framebuffer -- which is effective and fascinating) and also, for me, the fact that it runs NEXTSTEP.

It's my fastest NEXTSTEP machine.

#HP #HPUX #UNIX #NEXTSTEP #NeXT #workstaiton #vintagecomputing #retrocomputing #retrocomputers #CPU #computing #blog

https://mastodon.social/@OpenPA/114991772837281984

Classic MacOS und NeXTSTEP spielend leicht im Browser erleben
Heute werfen wir einen genaueren Blick auf eine faszinierende Entwicklung in der Welt der Web-Anwendungen. Die Infinite Mac-Plattform hat sich das Ziel gesetzt, Geschichte erlebbar zu mac
https://www.apfeltalk.de/magazin/news/classic-macos-und-nextstep-spielend-leicht-im-browser-erleben/
#Mac #News #Betriebssysteme #Computerhistorie #Emulation #Emulatoren #InfiniteMac #macOS #NeXTStep #RetroComputing #RetroSoftware #Webbrowser

Does this work? I’d make it look better too.

Thinking of NEXTSTEP this morning...I'd guess many aren't aware of the unusual color display arrangement.

The NeXTstation, which was the first "affordable" color solution for NEXTSTEP, has a 16-bit framebuffer, but instead of rendering the desktop in 65,536 colors (as per Windows or Mac hardware, say), it rendered in 12-bit color with 4-bits of alpha channel (transparency).

That means it had a palette of 4096 colors, with all colors available at once on the display (not like, say, the Amiga or Apple IIgs with a 4096 color palette, but video modes with a small subset of those colors available (yes, yes, HAM mode excluded). Additionally, anything on the screen had 16 levels of opacity available.

It's interesting to see in person, on the actual hardware (especially on a good LCD display). With dithering, it looks very close to 24-bit truecolor.

(The NeXT Dimension color board for the Cube allowed 24-bit color with 8-bits alpha, but that was not so frequently used -- less so than most NeXT hardware even...)

But that's not nearly the weirdest that NEXTSTEP-capable hardware got, when it came to color video display...

@lcamtuf NS stands for #NextStep, m8!

This ain't like #NSAKEY ...

#TIL: The game #Doom was originally developed on #NeXT computers running the #NeXTSTEP operating system.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_of_Doom

The 3D-printed case just arrived from PCBWay. So happy about what this NeXTStep on a Raspberry Pi5 projet is turning into ! #retrocomputing #nextstep #raspberrypi5 #3DPrinting #previous

An in depth history of NeXT:

The Rise and Fall of NeXT Computer
https://anotherboringtopic.substack.com/p/the-rise-and-fall-of-next-computer

Steve Jobs and the Rise and Fall of NeXT: Part 2
https://anotherboringtopic.substack.com/p/steve-jobs-and-the-rise-and-fall

I love that Steve Jobs chose to include a video of a colonoscopy being performed as part of the NEXTTIME (NeXT's answer to QuickTime video) install CD's demo videos.

And there was silly Microsoft over there, putting lame old Weezer and Edie Brickell music videos on their Windows 95 CD lol!

I want a proper ANSI color terminal for NeXT computers. The only apps from back in the day are lost to the sands of time. I contacted the author of one and he is no longer able to generate license codes, rendering it useless.

I think the best option would be to backport the Terminal app from GNUstep but my rudimentary programming skills wouldn't even get me started. I know there are others who would like such a thing. Maybe we could pitch in and pay a professional to do it. But how would we find such a person?

Melting feeeet!

Hab gerade #NextSTEP 0.8 erkundet, super spannend!

https://www.osnews.com/story/139000/infinite-mac-turning-to-the-dark-side/

https://infinitemac.org

http://toastytech.com/guis/ns08.html

@naln1 @Elizafox it's still
#LaunchD + #NeXTstep / #Darwin!

Edit: #sarcasm as it wasn't clear...

... somehow, I managed to install the wrong version of NeXTStep, *and* it also somehow works? How NeXTStep runs on a Pentium 2 Dixon and 440BX chipset is beyond me!

An interesting interview with Chris MacAskill that touches on the Steve Jobs, NextStep, iPhone and General Magic.

The tech stuff starts around the 1:30:00 mark if you're bothered by or just not interested in #vegan or #climatechange talk.

https://youtu.be/NIbBr3BBUCg?si=I6fpKnDdLHmHjTIL