The crucial component is local-bus video, technology needed to drive PC displays faster than the 8MHz limit of the PC bus.
Probably the most significant development is underway at VESA, the Video Engineers Standards Association, which is working to produce an industrywide standard for local bus video, referred to as JAWS. Major PC manufacturers, including Everex and Dell Computer, are looking to include JAWS video in their PC systems. Dell Computer has developed a local-bus PC that can be upgraded with software to NeXTSTEP '486. Likewise, CSS Laboratories, an Irvine, CaliforniaÐbased PC manufacturer, is shipping a system with 32-bit local-bus video.
At least one manufacturer has released a single-board CPU add-in card. Dolch Computer Systems, of Milpitas, California, has released the Apache passive backplane add-in card to provide local-bus video. Dolch is also developing a '486-based grayscale portable computer with plasma display that uses local-bus video. The company has plans for a color system in the near future.
"The '486 is more than ready for NeXTSTEP," said Mark Olson, manager of strategic marketing in the software technology group at Intel. "While Intel '486 PCs are already widely successful as workstations in commercial areas, NeXTSTEP will add glamour to the '486 market, and make it appealing to other markets."
While several PC manufacturers Ð including Dell and Compaq Ð have publicly demonstrated systems running NeXTSTEP '486, none have announced any plans to license the software, and a NeXT spokeswoman said any licensing agreements won't be made public until later in the year. NeXT is currently demonstrating NeXTSTEP 2.x running on '486 systems but said the final release will be based on NeXTSTEP 3.0.
"I think NeXTSTEP is going to be very successful," said NeXT CEO Steve Jobs. "And we're getting help from a lot of companies, much more help than I ever thought would be offered. . . . The reason is these other companies want to ensure that there's a choice."