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From the wikipedia page it was that they were just adding feature after feature. As an aside it is very interesting that Classic Mac OS was attempted to be repl

From the wikipedia page it was that they were just adding feature after feature. As an aside it is very interesting that Classic Mac OS was attempted to be replaced by a microkernel twice but was successful because they figured out how to ship NeXT with fresh paint and an slightly improved window manager that really was just NeXT if you compare the two. (A/UX https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A/UX https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A/UX, Copland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copland_(operating_system) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copland_(operating_system)

KerrAvon 2y ago
I think “slightly improved” and “fresh paint” undersells the work Apple did. Replacing the NeXTstep Display PostScript server wasn’t a small thing!
- lallysingh 2y ago
  With PDF? Afaik it's a subset of PS so their main work would be in reducing the amount of PS features.
  - WillAdams 2y ago
    Mike Paquette wrote extensively about the effort involved to replace Display PostScript (which NeXT mostly wrote) with "Display PDF" as Quartz is often referred to as. See postings to usenet on comp.sys.next.*
    - xorcist 2y ago
      I'd love a link or two if you can dig them up.
      - WillAdams 2y ago
        It would have been in a thread like to: https://groups.google.com/g/comp.sys.mac.advocacy/c/OLc8T6KOrM4/m/Vec3gLCPgnwJ https://groups.google.com/g/comp.sys.mac.advocacy/c/OLc8T6KO...
- musicale 2y ago
  As I noted in another comment, it was a remarkable accomplishment that Mac OS X was reasonably recognizable to Mac users and ran the same apps (via Classic and Carbon), all while having a completely different core OS under the hood (though as another poster noted they had prior experience building Mac-on-Unix environments.) Apple has pulled off a number of surprisingly successful "brain transplant" transitions for the Mac platform, including moving from 68K to PowerPC to intel to ARM. In each case, the user experience remained largely the same and old apps continued to run via emulation.
- pjmlp 2y ago
  This was the second go at it, they already tried once with A/UX, even though it wasn't as well integrated, nonetheless there was this previous experience.
SllX 2y ago
You missed MkLinux, but of the three (Copland, A/UX, and MkLinux), only one of those was ever slated to be the future of the Macintosh. A/UX was very interesting, but it was also encumbered with a fairly expensive UNIX license and was never really a consideration as a replacement for the existing Macintosh System software. Neither was MkLinux.

KerrAvon 2y ago

I think “slightly improved” and “fresh paint” undersells the work Apple did. Replacing the NeXTstep Display PostScript server wasn’t a small thing!

lallysingh 2y ago
With PDF? Afaik it's a subset of PS so their main work would be in reducing the amount of PS features.
- WillAdams 2y ago
  Mike Paquette wrote extensively about the effort involved to replace Display PostScript (which NeXT mostly wrote) with "Display PDF" as Quartz is often referred to as. See postings to usenet on comp.sys.next.*
  - xorcist 2y ago
    I'd love a link or two if you can dig them up.
    - WillAdams 2y ago
      It would have been in a thread like to: https://groups.google.com/g/comp.sys.mac.advocacy/c/OLc8T6KOrM4/m/Vec3gLCPgnwJ https://groups.google.com/g/comp.sys.mac.advocacy/c/OLc8T6KO...
musicale 2y ago
As I noted in another comment, it was a remarkable accomplishment that Mac OS X was reasonably recognizable to Mac users and ran the same apps (via Classic and Carbon), all while having a completely different core OS under the hood (though as another poster noted they had prior experience building Mac-on-Unix environments.) Apple has pulled off a number of surprisingly successful "brain transplant" transitions for the Mac platform, including moving from 68K to PowerPC to intel to ARM. In each case, the user experience remained largely the same and old apps continued to run via emulation.
pjmlp 2y ago
This was the second go at it, they already tried once with A/UX, even though it wasn't as well integrated, nonetheless there was this previous experience.

SllX 2y ago

You missed MkLinux, but of the three (Copland, A/UX, and MkLinux), only one of those was ever slated to be the future of the Macintosh. A/UX was very interesting, but it was also encumbered with a fairly expensive UNIX license and was never really a consideration as a replacement for the existing Macintosh System software. Neither was MkLinux.