OSX

From: vance_at_neurotica.com <(vance_at_neurotica.com)>
Date: Sat May 31 18:45:20 2003

Nope. Not really. It's the same architecture as NeXTstep. BSD on top of
Mach. FreeBSD and NetBSD supply some of the userland.

Peace... Sridhar

On Thu, 29 May 2003, Jay West wrote:

> 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 Sat May 31 2003 - 18:45:20 BST