OSX

I know mac osx came from nextstep. I was just pointing out apple tried the macos on top of unix thing before. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Brian Chase" <vaxzilla(a)jarai.org> To: "Classic Computers" <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> Sent: Thursday, May 29, 2003 11:01 AM Subject: Re: The final 'Garage' sale... > On Thu, 29 May 2003, TeoZ wrote: > > > [...] I find very few people collect mac/pc software of the time > > period even though I think it shows a big evolution in software > > development just like computers of the 80' - 90's went from expensive > > business only equipment to mass produced basic tools they are today. I > > don't think I have seen a real copy of A/UX 2 or 3 around in years > > which is basically what OSX is for the mac today but a decade older > > (macos on top of Unix). > > Nah. OS X's lineage comes /directly/ from NeXT's NEXTSTEP, which is > about 14 years old at this point. After NeXT got out of the hardware > business, NEXTSTEP begat OPENSTEP. Then Apple bought NeXT and used > their OS to create OS X. The underpinnings of OS X are blantantly > taken from NeXT's work (and I'm the happiest guy in the computing > world for it.) > > One trivial example... > > nextstep% file /bin/ls > /bin/ls: Mach-O executable (for architecture m68k) > > os-x% file /bin/ls > /bin/ls: Mach-O executable ppc > > They even share some of the same gags, like this one hidden in the magic > number they chose for Mach-O binaries: > > nextstep% od -h /bin/ls | head -1 > 0000000 feed face 0000 0006 0000 0001 0000 0002 > > os-x% od -h /bin/ls | head -1 > 0000000 feed face 0000 0012 0000 0000 0000

> > Even silly things under OS X like the spinning cursor wheel (which they > revamped in 10.2) and the system beep sounds are leftover from NEXTSTEP. > Then there's Cocoa, all the interface and project development tools, > netinfo, and Mach, and... > > The MacOS environment provided by OS X is, for all practical purposes, a > throw-away solution meant to wean people off MacOS. Obviously Apple had > to provide this; had they not, they'd have panicked a lot of their > customers. But it's something that looks and feels like it's awkwardly > bolted onto the otherwise smooth and well integrated OS X. > > NeXT really were more than a decade ahead of everyone else with their > systems. It's a shame it took so long for their vision to become both > accessible and acceptable to the masses. > > -brian.