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I was going to ask, why hasn't anyone ported NeXTSTEP to modern architectures? It was a pretty decent windowing system. Then I realized duh that's what Apple di

I was going to ask, why hasn't anyone ported NeXTSTEP to modern architectures? It was a pretty decent windowing system. Then I realized duh that's what Apple did with OS X. Too bad they ruined it.

neoCrimeLabs 7mo ago
Also, https://www.gnustep.org/ https://www.gnustep.org/ That reminds me, I should pull out my NeXT Cube and play with it. That machine is 33mhz of pure power. :-D None the less I still love it.
- linguae 7mo ago
  I remember when I first learned about GNUstep in 2004 when I was in high school. It's a shame GNUstep never took off; we could have had an ecosystem of applications that could run on both macOS and Linux using native GUIs. With that said, the dream is not dead. There's a project named Gershwin (https://github.com/gershwin-desktop/gershwin-desktop https://github.com/gershwin-desktop/gershwin-desktop), which is a Mac-like desktop environment built on top of GNUstep. Gershwin appears to be heavily inspired by Apple Rhapsody (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhapsody_(operating_system) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhapsody_(operating_system)) with some modern touches.
- pjmlp 7mo ago
  My graduation thesis was to port visualisation software from NeXT into Windows, obviously rewriting it in the process. My supervisor used to have a Cube, and every time I visited his office for demos or questions, there it was left in the corner, with the expectation that everything related to NeXT was going to be away. Thus this project, and others, as means to keep the research going. This was before Jobs coming back to Apple, and OpenStep not really going as well as hoped for.
h4ch1 7mo ago
I wasn't alive at the time NeXTSTEP was a thing, but I did look at a demo[0] to figure out what you were talking about (i love building/tinkering with window managers); it just looks like a regular old window manager? Is there something I'm missing/something specific you're talking about? [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA
- neoCrimeLabs 7mo ago
  NeXTSTEP was everything from the OS to the user experience and everything inbetween. I'd say there were 3 distinct abstractions within NextSTEP: - The microkernel / OS (Mach / BSD) (for the hardware) - The Objective C based SDK - The User experience (not just window manager, but largely the window manager) The SDK is what is still arguably the most highly regarded part of NeXTSTEP even today. That aside, at the time nothing else was so well polished and integrated on almost every level.
- pjmlp 7mo ago
  Besides the sibling comment, it was a full stack experience, just like most operating systems outside UNIX land. NeXTSTEP (carried on with OS X), NeWS, Irix are kind the exception on UNIX land. There is a vertical integration from kernel to application programming and user desktop, alongside its hardware, to provide an unique experience. In what hardware can do, what programming languages are the official one, THE framework to do XYZ. Not a mismatch of pieces that often we need to break a corner so that they barely fit with each other.

I was going to ask, why hasn't anyone ported NeXTSTEP to modern architectures? It was a pretty decent windowing system. Then I realized duh that's what Apple did with OS X. Too bad they ruined it.

neoCrimeLabs 7mo ago

Also, https://www.gnustep.org/ https://www.gnustep.org/ That reminds me, I should pull out my NeXT Cube and play with it. That machine is 33mhz of pure power. :-D None the less I still love it.

linguae 7mo ago
I remember when I first learned about GNUstep in 2004 when I was in high school. It's a shame GNUstep never took off; we could have had an ecosystem of applications that could run on both macOS and Linux using native GUIs. With that said, the dream is not dead. There's a project named Gershwin (https://github.com/gershwin-desktop/gershwin-desktop https://github.com/gershwin-desktop/gershwin-desktop), which is a Mac-like desktop environment built on top of GNUstep. Gershwin appears to be heavily inspired by Apple Rhapsody (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhapsody_(operating_system) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhapsody_(operating_system)) with some modern touches.
pjmlp 7mo ago
My graduation thesis was to port visualisation software from NeXT into Windows, obviously rewriting it in the process. My supervisor used to have a Cube, and every time I visited his office for demos or questions, there it was left in the corner, with the expectation that everything related to NeXT was going to be away. Thus this project, and others, as means to keep the research going. This was before Jobs coming back to Apple, and OpenStep not really going as well as hoped for.

h4ch1 7mo ago

I wasn't alive at the time NeXTSTEP was a thing, but I did look at a demo[0] to figure out what you were talking about (i love building/tinkering with window managers); it just looks like a regular old window manager? Is there something I'm missing/something specific you're talking about? [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA

neoCrimeLabs 7mo ago
NeXTSTEP was everything from the OS to the user experience and everything inbetween. I'd say there were 3 distinct abstractions within NextSTEP: - The microkernel / OS (Mach / BSD) (for the hardware) - The Objective C based SDK - The User experience (not just window manager, but largely the window manager) The SDK is what is still arguably the most highly regarded part of NeXTSTEP even today. That aside, at the time nothing else was so well polished and integrated on almost every level.
pjmlp 7mo ago
Besides the sibling comment, it was a full stack experience, just like most operating systems outside UNIX land. NeXTSTEP (carried on with OS X), NeWS, Irix are kind the exception on UNIX land. There is a vertical integration from kernel to application programming and user desktop, alongside its hardware, to provide an unique experience. In what hardware can do, what programming languages are the official one, THE framework to do XYZ. Not a mismatch of pieces that often we need to break a corner so that they barely fit with each other.