NeXT NeXTstation Turbo (1992-1993)

NeXT Computer, Inc. History 

After being forced out of Apple by former Pepsi CEO, John Scully, Steve Jobs took some Apple employees and started a new company, NeXT, Inc. in 1985. Their computer products were high-end workstations that were aimed at the business and higher education markets. NeXT’s first computer product was the NeXT Computer, released in 1988. The computer was extremely expensive, priced at $6,500, so did not sell well. A NeXT Computer was used by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN as the first server when he created the World Wide Web. NeXT didn’t sell many computers in its lifetime, and was ultimately bought by Apple Computer in 1997 to bring Jobs back as CEO.

✅ NeXTstation Turbo

The NeXTstation Turbo, released in April 1992 for approximately $6,500, was the high-performance "slab" evolution of Steve Jobs’ ambitious workstation vision, designed to offer a more affordable and compact alternative to the famous NeXTcube. While the original 1990 NeXTstation ran at 25 MHz, the "Turbo" variant featured a significantly faster 33 MHz Motorola 68040 processor and increased the maximum RAM capacity to an impressive 128 MB, making it a formidable tool for the era's scientists and software developers. It ran the groundbreaking NeXTSTEP operating system—a Unix-based environment that introduced the world to the modern "dock," high-resolution 2-bit grayscale (or 12-bit color in the "Turbo Color" model), and the object-oriented development tools that Tim Berners-Lee famously used to create the first web browser. With its integrated Motorola 56001 DSP for CD-quality audio and its sleek, magnesium-alloy "pizza box" chassis, the Turbo remained the pinnacle of NeXT hardware until the company transitioned exclusively to software in 1993. Because NeXTSTEP eventually became the foundation for Apple's macOS, the NeXTstation Turbo is widely revered by collectors as the direct "grandfather" of the modern Mac experience.

Source: Mark Morton, Connecticut