While not an official Apple item, the company NeXT was an important part of Apple’s history. NeXT was founded in 1985 by Steve Jobs after he was forced out of Apple. NeXT created computer workstations that were intended for use in higher education and business and ran an innovative operating system called NeXTSTEP.
The first Internet web server was a NeXTcube used by Tim Berners-Lee.
NeXT stopped making hardware in 1993 and focused on software such as the programming environments of NeXTSTEP and WebObjects.
Apple purchased NeXT in 1997 and Steve Jobs returned to Apple as an advisor. Apple ported the NeXT operating system to the Macintosh platform and the implementation became the Mac OS X operating system.
This NeXT mousepad is primarily black and features the NeXT logo on a six-sided design. It measures 8.125 x 8.125 inches with a shape that is stylized to appear as a black cube (matching the NeXT logo designed by Paul Rand). The mousepad has a rubber base with a textured bottom surface that is 0.125 inches thick. The back of the mousepad has two stickers, the manufacturer (Data Pad from Orem, Utah) and the product name (“SPEED PAD”).
Sources: Wikipedia, Logo Design Love