NeXTdimension
| Company type | Expansion card |
|---|---|
| Industry | Computer hardware |
| Founded | 1991 |
| Founder | NeXT |
| Products | Graphics expansion card |
The NeXTdimension (abbreviated as ND) is a high-performance 32-bit color graphics expansion card marketed by NeXT starting in 1991, designed to upgrade the NeXTcube with enhanced color display capabilities. This full-length NeXTBus expansion card occupies one of the four available slots within the NeXTcube chassis and was offered as an optional accessory, with the MegaPixel Color Display available at an additional cost.
Equipped with a 33 MHz Intel i860 64-bit RISC processor, the NeXTdimension operates a minimalistic Mach kernel on the i860 chip. It comes with 8 MB of onboard memory, which users can expand up to 64 MB through eight 72-pin SIMM slots, alongside 4 MB of dedicated VRAM. The card supports a display resolution of 1120x832 pixels featuring 24-bit color depth plus an 8-bit alpha channel, providing significantly faster and richer color output compared to the original system’s 2-bit greyscale. Video output is facilitated via a DB13W3 RGB connector, complemented by two S-Video input and output ports. Since the NeXTcube motherboard maintains its greyscale video circuitry, each NeXTdimension card can drive a secondary monitor, and up to three such cards may be installed simultaneously, each connected to its own display.
Initially, the NeXTdimension aimed to delegate complete Display PostScript (DPS) rendering tasks to the i860 processor, which would have substantially enhanced performance by minimizing data traffic over the NeXTBus. Unfortunately, this capability remained incomplete at release and was never finalized, restricting the board’s full potential.
The original design also intended to incorporate a C-Cube CL550 chip for MJPEG video compression, which would have allowed superior video playback at 640x480 resolution and 30 frames per second—outperforming Apple’s contemporary QuickTime technology. Due to delays in CL550 development, NeXT shipped the board without this component but included a connector for a future daughterboard to provide image compression functionality; however, only a limited number of prototypes were ever produced.
The hardware includes two S-video connectors and two composite video connectors capable of handling NTSC video signals at resolutions up to 640 x 480 for both input and output.
| Outputs | Inputs |
|---|---|
| 13W3 | Composite (2x) |
| S-Video | S-Video |
| RGB via EGA 9-pin D-shell |
See also
External links
- www.vamp.org/next/ Resource hub for ND users including mailing list and FAQs
- NeXTComputers.org
- NeXTdimensionBoard