

Someone lucky got id Software's original NeXT hardware - jaxb
http://serverfault.com/questions/470126/how-can-i-successfully-mount-an-8-bit-scsi-drive-on-a-modern-computer

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onethumb
Hi guys, I'm the "someone lucky". :)

Great definition, because it was mostly luck that I fell in with id, 3DRealms,
and the rest of the FPS crowd. John knew I was into NeXT stuff (my father
worked for Steve Jobs as head of Developer Relations at NeXT, so I hung out
there pretty much every waking moment when I was a kid) and so when id no
longer needed the gear, he offered them to me.

We'd known each other a few years (and I'd been trusted with other id secrets
including early software), so I don't think there was a trust issue and he
felt fine with my promise that I wouldn't pass along anything I found on the
disks. I still haven't, and I wouldn't without his permission. It has been a
long time, so if there is anything of archival value that he'd be fine
releasing, I'll leave that up to him.

I've kept them safe & sound all these years, but haven't done anything really
useful with them. They really belong in a museum, or in a collector's hands,
who will cherish them more than I would. I'd like to auction some/all of them
off with the proceeds going to Child's Play, but if the Computer History
Museum wants one or something, that'd be awesome too. Mostly, I don't want
them to still gather dust at my house - they should be helping someone if they
can.

I'm positive Romero (we still stay fairly close) would like this stuff, but it
was Carmack I made the promise too, so I wouldn't give the data to Romero
without Carmack's ok.

Happy to answer any other questions if people have them. They're pretty unique
pieces of hardware, especially considering what NeXTStep has turned into (Mac
OS X and iOS - you can still find NeXT strings in them) and what they built
(DOOM and Quake) and what other famous NeXTs have done (created the web).

Also happy to take suggestions on good homes for them, if you have any.

~~~
VonGuard
Hey! www.themade.org !

I posted on yer link as well.

We're a non-profit videogame museum in downtown Oakland.

Additionally, on the data: If Carmack is amenable, the data could be entrusted
to Stanford. Stanford's curator is on our board, and they are able to do
something similar to Mark Twain's agreement with UC Berkeley: hold his papers
in a locked room for 100 years. Something similar could be worked out between
the three of us. Please email me at alex at themade dot org.

------
AndrewNCarr
It is "id" software, no caps, no periods. It is named for this concept:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Id,_ego_and_super-ego>

I used to make similar mistakes years ago, for a long time thinking it was
"Eye Dee Software", so I'm posting this to enlighten others, rather than being
a grammar commie.

Interestingly, there was a game called iD published in 1986:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ID_%28video_game%29>

~~~
1123581321
No, it is a lowercase shortening of the acronym for Ideas From the Deep, which
is what they called themselves before id. Ideas From the Deep becomes IFD
becomes ID.

~~~
AndrewNCarr
<http://www.idsoftware.com/business/history>

"Taking its name from Freud's primal, instinct-driven face of the human
psyche, id Software is, by general acknowledgement, the coolest game shop in
the world."

~~~
1123581321
That is still not the origin.

------
garyrichardson
Yeah, it's Don MacAskill, CEO of SmugMug.. I'd say it's in pretty good hands.

------
asveikau
For some odd reason (I think it was cited in a Wikipedia article or something)
I happened to be reading Carmack's .plan file from 1998 this week:
<http://fd.fabiensanglard.net/doom3/pdfs/johnc-plan_1998.pdf>

In it, he mentioned that he was getting rid of the last of id's NeXT hardware
that year. Seemed to me like pretty late to be doing that, but hey, I can also
see not wanting to let go of them.

His old writings were definitely an interesting time capsule. He writes about
Windows NT being, ironically, the best platform to write OpenGL at the time.
He writes about Apple's Rhapsody (first impressions: he liked the NeXTiness
but was skeptical of Carbon/Classic; then later, he writes that he's more
satisfied with it after a deeper look). He writes in passing about trips to
Apple and talking up OpenGL to Steve Jobs.

~~~
onethumb
Wow, talk about a blast from the past. Had forgotten he'd .plan'd about that.
"Onethumb gets all of our old black NeXT hardware" (note my nick still, to
this day, here on HN).

------
newman314
I loved the NeXT. It was one of the first Unix based machines that I ever used
and have fond memories about hearing "this web thing" and Viola
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ViolaWWW>)

I'm bummed that Apple didn't bring the shelf over with the Finder.

I wonder if ddt would want one of them.

------
speeder
I pinged Romero, I hope he see my message...

He is a game history activist and probably would love to archive that stuff.

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ja27
Ugh. I still have a couple NeXT magneto-optical disks that haven't been used
in 20+ years. Maybe I should donate them to a time capsule.

------
Zarathust
Somehow I was half expecting some kind of "Hey, John Carmack here, you
can...". This is the internet after all

------
jfb
I used to rock a cube with a NeXTDimension board. That was glorious.

------
codeonfire
If someone asks you to wipe data that is not yours, you need to do it
otherwise no one will trust you. This guy is oblivious:

"Carmack had me promise more than a decade ago that I'd wipe the drives if I
ever passed them along, and I'd hate to lose any priceless data that's on
them."

Second,

Junk is junk, throw it away or recycle.

~~~
untog
...no. What Carmack said is "I don't want this data going any further than
you". So he's archiving the data himself before passing the machines on. No
trust violated.

 _Junk is junk, throw it away or recycle._

Surely he IS recycling it?

~~~
btilly
Furthermore while he's asking about sharing it with the world, he's making it
clear that whether or not he does so is up to Carmack.

~~~
orionblastar
But he wants to keep his own private copy of the data. Then recycle the Next
Cubes. For archival purposes.

