15 Jan
2004
15 Jan
'04
4:37 p.m.
Googling around for more info on NeXT Computer to flesh
out my new NeXT page
on Binary Dinosaurs turned up something I'd really like to get my paws on
but I'll bet was consigned to the bin straight away - the 'star trek'
project started by Apple to port MacOS across to Intel hardware in the early
90s. So far I've found that a team of engineers succeeded in the port, but
it was canned in 1993 when Apple was moving from 68K to PowerPC processors
and it was found to be faster on a 486.
I've never found anything that confirms the actual existance of said OS
version. Although personally I don't doubt for a moment that it did
(does) exist (I've just yet to see the smoking gun). I came back to the
Apple Developer world in 95 (left the Apple Developer world in the late
80's), so I wasn't in a position to know anything that the developers
might have known at that time. Although I suspect that none did know
anything or there would be more "real" info out there.
However, I do know that the later Rhapsody project did in fact take a
turn to the Intel world. They got far enough on the first version of OS X
for Intel that it was released to developers in beta (alpha?) form. I
have a copy of it, at one point I had it installed on a P-166. It ran,
but that was about all it did. I'd have to pull out my CDs of it to be
sure, but I think the date for it was around 1997 or 1998. There should
be info on this project available out there as it was no secret, it was
originally a fully planned version of OS X, although it doesn't look
anything like what OS X is now (from what I understand, its really an
Apple-ized version of NeXTStep, but haven't never personally used/seen
NeXTStep, I can't verify that).
-chris
<http://www.mythtech.net>