6 ms·

None of the tech really mattered, not much anyway. What Apple really got with NeXT was Steve Jobs' vision, along with a more seasoned CEO better capable of rea

None of the tech really mattered, not much anyway. What Apple really got with NeXT was Steve Jobs' vision, along with a more seasoned CEO better capable of realizing that vision. Whether Apple had gotten BeOS or NeXT didn't really matter all that much in comparison.

Apocryphon 10y ago
Maybe not from a business/product standpoint, but the merger meant that OS X had NeXT roots that exist to this day, even with the ascension of Swift over Objective-C. I'd say the history of technology there is interesting, especially when you consider the troubled history getting to OS X: http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/RDM.Tech.Q1.07/4B800F78-0F75-455A-9681-F186A4365805.html http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/RDM.Tech.Q1.07/4B800F78-0F7... http://5by5.tv/hypercritical/14 http://5by5.tv/hypercritical/14
rwc 10y ago
This is demonstrably false. MacOS Copland was scrapped in favor of a descendant of NeXTSTEP that became MacOS X. Hundreds (thousands?) of API calls in both Desktop iOS development are prefaced NS_ ... that is NeXTSTEP
- sengork 10y ago
  This internal demonstration of NeXTSTEP shows just how much this similarity applies to what the end-user sees in macOS/OS X as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gveTy4EmNyk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gveTy4EmNyk
- pavlov 10y ago
  This is ridiculous pedantry, but the "NS" prefix actually means "Next / Sun". It was introduced in OpenStep [1], which was supposed to become Sun's GUI layer on Solaris until Java happened. Before the OpenStep revamp, the class prefix used in NeXTSTEP was "NX". I think there are still some lingering NX* classes/functions you might see in AppKit stack traces. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenStep https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenStep
  - Apocryphon 10y ago
    That's an amazing factoid. "NS" standing for NeXTSTEP would then be a popular misconception, then. It also introduces an interesting hypothetical of what if Sun ended up adopting OpenStep, if Java was not developed in time or fell through or whatever.
    - jahewson 10y ago
      Actually it's just a fact! A factoid is something which sounds like a fact but is actually false.
      - mypalmike 10y ago
        I always thought a factoid was a tiny fact. Merriam Webster actually lists both meanings (small fact and non-fact). https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/factoid https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/factoid
    - ksherlock 10y ago
      The OpenStep spec was a collaboration between NeXT and Sun. OpenStep was available as a full OS (for 68k NeXT hardware and 486 beige PCs) as well as running on top of Solaris (SPARC), HPUX, and Windows NT. Sun went with Java instead but Microsoft has a WinObjC project. Go Figure. Until 10.7 or so, OS X still included Windows NT theme graphics [1]. NeXTStep 3.0 used the NS namespace; 2.0 and earlier was NX. [1] http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/02/mac_images/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/02/mac_images/
      - mycall 10y ago
        TIL WinObjC is alive and well. https://github.com/Microsoft/WinObjC https://github.com/Microsoft/WinObjC
    - pjmlp 10y ago
      You can get some information how Objective-C related to Java at Sun, by the original Java team. https://cs.gmu.edu/~sean/stuff/java-objc.html https://cs.gmu.edu/~sean/stuff/java-objc.html
- mikey_p 10y ago
  Yes at the time all the major mac magazines were acknowledging that it looked like Copland would never ship, but the question was whether to replace it with NeXTSTEP or BeOS. Both had strong ties to former Apple execs with obviously Jobs being the bigger draw at NeXT, but Jean-Louis Gassée at Be was not to be discounted either. Both Jobs and Gassée were both forced out by Sculley who alot of people credit with driving Apple toward the mediocrity that defined it in the mid 90s. The other big factor at the time was the fact that BeOS ran on PowerPC, and NeXTSTEP did not. NeXT had done some work to produce their own hardware with dual 601s, but never shipped it and abandoned that work to focus on the IBM PC hardware. This meant that the first few years of the Apple/NeXT merger were spent just getting NeXTSTEP running on PowerPC. The biggest buzz of the time was that even though Steve's return to Apple had killed the growing Mac clone industry, maybe Rhapsody would run on x86 hardware. There were rumors all over that they would make this happen, although they were many years too early, as Apple wouldn't make that switch until 2005.
threeseed 10y ago
Don't agree with this at all. NeXT was an actual operating system that people used. You could run word processing apps from which you could print and email. There was a fully fledged development platform with real developers building real third party apps. BeOS was more like a giant tech demo. If we focus on just the technologies choosing BeOS would have meant at least a few years more engineering effort. And you still wouldn't have been able to replicate the ground breaking nature of OSX in the short time frame required. I suspect both financially and in consumer mind share they would have never recovered from selecting BeOS.
- TheCondor 10y ago
  If it was even possible. I liked beos, but it was an rtos with a GUI on it. No real network stack, no real print stack, I don't even remember the state of internationalization. No multiuser story or security story. It's not clear the you could add that stuff to be.
- rthille 10y ago
  BeOS/BeBox was demoed at a MacWorld. There was a cool display of the utilization of each CPU and you could disable each CPU by unchecking a checkbox. The demo app didn't prevent you from disabling the last CPU. The booth-guy wasn't very happy with me.
  - kkylin 10y ago
    Hey, I remember that! The NeOS demo at Macworld expo was indeed cool. Down to the ability to shut off the last CPU.

Apocryphon 10y ago

Maybe not from a business/product standpoint, but the merger meant that OS X had NeXT roots that exist to this day, even with the ascension of Swift over Objective-C. I'd say the history of technology there is interesting, especially when you consider the troubled history getting to OS X: http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/RDM.Tech.Q1.07/4B800F78-0F75-455A-9681-F186A4365805.html http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/RDM.Tech.Q1.07/4B800F78-0F7... http://5by5.tv/hypercritical/14 http://5by5.tv/hypercritical/14

rwc 10y ago

This is demonstrably false. MacOS Copland was scrapped in favor of a descendant of NeXTSTEP that became MacOS X. Hundreds (thousands?) of API calls in both Desktop iOS development are prefaced NS_ ... that is NeXTSTEP

sengork 10y ago
This internal demonstration of NeXTSTEP shows just how much this similarity applies to what the end-user sees in macOS/OS X as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gveTy4EmNyk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gveTy4EmNyk
pavlov 10y ago
This is ridiculous pedantry, but the "NS" prefix actually means "Next / Sun". It was introduced in OpenStep [1], which was supposed to become Sun's GUI layer on Solaris until Java happened. Before the OpenStep revamp, the class prefix used in NeXTSTEP was "NX". I think there are still some lingering NX* classes/functions you might see in AppKit stack traces. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenStep https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenStep
- Apocryphon 10y ago
  That's an amazing factoid. "NS" standing for NeXTSTEP would then be a popular misconception, then. It also introduces an interesting hypothetical of what if Sun ended up adopting OpenStep, if Java was not developed in time or fell through or whatever.
  - jahewson 10y ago
    Actually it's just a fact! A factoid is something which sounds like a fact but is actually false.
    - mypalmike 10y ago
      I always thought a factoid was a tiny fact. Merriam Webster actually lists both meanings (small fact and non-fact). https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/factoid https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/factoid
  - ksherlock 10y ago
    The OpenStep spec was a collaboration between NeXT and Sun. OpenStep was available as a full OS (for 68k NeXT hardware and 486 beige PCs) as well as running on top of Solaris (SPARC), HPUX, and Windows NT. Sun went with Java instead but Microsoft has a WinObjC project. Go Figure. Until 10.7 or so, OS X still included Windows NT theme graphics [1]. NeXTStep 3.0 used the NS namespace; 2.0 and earlier was NX. [1] http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/02/mac_images/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/02/mac_images/
    - mycall 10y ago
      TIL WinObjC is alive and well. https://github.com/Microsoft/WinObjC https://github.com/Microsoft/WinObjC
  - pjmlp 10y ago
    You can get some information how Objective-C related to Java at Sun, by the original Java team. https://cs.gmu.edu/~sean/stuff/java-objc.html https://cs.gmu.edu/~sean/stuff/java-objc.html
mikey_p 10y ago
Yes at the time all the major mac magazines were acknowledging that it looked like Copland would never ship, but the question was whether to replace it with NeXTSTEP or BeOS. Both had strong ties to former Apple execs with obviously Jobs being the bigger draw at NeXT, but Jean-Louis Gassée at Be was not to be discounted either. Both Jobs and Gassée were both forced out by Sculley who alot of people credit with driving Apple toward the mediocrity that defined it in the mid 90s. The other big factor at the time was the fact that BeOS ran on PowerPC, and NeXTSTEP did not. NeXT had done some work to produce their own hardware with dual 601s, but never shipped it and abandoned that work to focus on the IBM PC hardware. This meant that the first few years of the Apple/NeXT merger were spent just getting NeXTSTEP running on PowerPC. The biggest buzz of the time was that even though Steve's return to Apple had killed the growing Mac clone industry, maybe Rhapsody would run on x86 hardware. There were rumors all over that they would make this happen, although they were many years too early, as Apple wouldn't make that switch until 2005.

threeseed 10y ago

Don't agree with this at all. NeXT was an actual operating system that people used. You could run word processing apps from which you could print and email. There was a fully fledged development platform with real developers building real third party apps. BeOS was more like a giant tech demo. If we focus on just the technologies choosing BeOS would have meant at least a few years more engineering effort. And you still wouldn't have been able to replicate the ground breaking nature of OSX in the short time frame required. I suspect both financially and in consumer mind share they would have never recovered from selecting BeOS.

TheCondor 10y ago
If it was even possible. I liked beos, but it was an rtos with a GUI on it. No real network stack, no real print stack, I don't even remember the state of internationalization. No multiuser story or security story. It's not clear the you could add that stuff to be.
rthille 10y ago
BeOS/BeBox was demoed at a MacWorld. There was a cool display of the utilization of each CPU and you could disable each CPU by unchecking a checkbox. The demo app didn't prevent you from disabling the last CPU. The booth-guy wasn't very happy with me.
- kkylin 10y ago
  Hey, I remember that! The NeOS demo at Macworld expo was indeed cool. Down to the ability to shut off the last CPU.