NeXT sold maybe 50,000 systems in 5 years, less than the number of PCs that a typical large company has stuffed in cubicles.

And from that small install base, emerged the first Web browser, Doom, and Mathematica.

They were amazing, if flawed products. Every system came with Mathematica, a full dictionary and the complete works of Shakespeare.

I remember having to go use Windows NT after NeXT failed in the market. And I remember, ten years later, holding the first iPhone in my hand and knowing where it came from.