OSX

From: Jay West <jwest_at_classiccmp.org>
Date: Thu May 29 11:10:00 2003

Hummmm last I heard... Apple's OSX was built on top of FreeBSD, not
NEXTSTEP.

Jay West

----- Original Message -----
From: "TeoZ" <teoz_at_neo.rr.com>
To: <cctalk_at_classiccmp.org>
Sent: Thursday, May 29, 2003 10:18 AM
Subject: Re: The final 'Garage' sale...


> 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_at_jarai.org>
> To: "Classic Computers" <cctalk_at_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
0002
> >
> > 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.
Received on Thu May 29 2003 - 11:10:00 BST