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NEXTSTEP
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 NEXTSTEP graphical user interface |
|
| Company/ developer: |
NeXT |
| OS family: | Unix-like |
| Source model: | Closed source |
| Latest stable release: | 3.3 / 1995 |
| Supported platforms: | Motorola 68000, Intel x86, SPARC, PA-RISC |
| Kernel type: | Hybrid kernel |
| License: | Proprietary |
| Working state: | Historic |
NEXTSTEP was the original object-oriented, multitasking operating system that NeXT Computer developed to run on its proprietary NeXT computers ("black boxes"). NEXTSTEP 1.0 was released on September 18, 1989 after several previews starting in 1986. The last version, 3.3, was released in early 1995, by which time it ran not only on Motorola 68000 family processors, but also IBM PC compatible x86, Sun SPARC, and HP PA-RISC.
Contents |
NEXTSTEP was a combination of several parts:
- a Unix-like operating system based on the Mach kernel, plus source code from BSD Unix
- Display PostScript and a windowing engine
- the Objective-C language and runtime
- an object-oriented (OO) application layer, including several "kits"
- development tools for the OO layers
The key to NEXTSTEP's fame were the last three items. The toolkits offered incredible power, and were used to build all of the software on the machine. Distinctive features of the Objective-C language made the writing of applications with NEXTSTEP far easier than on many competing systems, and the system was often pointed to as a paragon of computer development, even a decade later.
NEXTSTEP's user interface was refined and consistent, and introduced the idea of the Dock, carried through OPENSTEP and into Mac OS X, and the Shelf. NEXTSTEP also created or was among the very first to sport a large number of other GUI concepts now common in other operating systems: 3D "chiseled" widgets, system-wide drag and drop of a wide range of objects beyond file icons, system-wide piped services, real-time scrolling and window dragging, properties dialog boxes ("inspectors"), window modification notices (such as the saved status of a file), etc. The system was among the first general-purpose user interfaces to handle publishing color standards, transparency, sophisticated sound and music processing (through a Motorola 56000 DSP), advanced graphics primitives, internationalization, and modern typography in a consistent manner across all applications.
Additional kits were added to the product line to make the system more attractive. This included Portable Distributed Objects (PDO), which allowed easy remote invocation, and Enterprise Objects Framework, a powerful object-relational database system. These kits made the system particularly interesting to custom application programmers, and NEXTSTEP had a long history in the financial programming community.
The name was officially capitalized in many different ways, initially being NextStep, then NeXTstep, then NeXTSTEP, and became NEXTSTEP (all capitals) only at the end of its life. The capitalization most commonly used by "insiders" is NeXTstep. The confusion continued after the release of the OpenStep standard, when NeXT released what was effectively an OpenStep-compliant version of NEXTSTEP with the name OPENSTEP.
The first web browser, WorldWideWeb, was developed on the NEXTSTEP platform. Some features and keyboard shortcuts now commonly found in web browsers can be traced to originally being native features of NEXTSTEP, which other web browsers for other operating systems later reimplemented as features of the browser itself. The basic layout options of HTML 1.0 and 2.0 are attributable to those features available in NeXT's Text class. The game Doom was also largely developed on NeXT machines, as was Macromedia FreeHand, the modern "Notebook" interface for Mathematica, and the advanced spreadsheet Lotus Improv.
About the time of the 3.2 release NeXT teamed up with Sun Microsystems to develop OpenStep, a cross-platform standard and implementation (for Sun Solaris, Microsoft Windows, and NeXT's version of the Mach kernel) based on NEXTSTEP 3.2. Following an announcement on December 20, 1996,[1] on February 4, 1997 Apple Inc acquired NeXT for $427 million, and used the OpenStep operating system as the basis for Mac OS X.[2]
A free software implementation of the OpenStep standard, GNUstep, also exists.
| Version | Appeared | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| 0.9 | 1988 | first available version; for NeXT hardware only |
| 1.0 | 1989 | |
| 1.0a | ||
| 2.0 | September 18, 1990 | |
| 2.1 | March 25, 1991 | |
| 2.2 | ||
| 3.0 | At the end of 1992 | |
| 3.1 | May 25, 1993 | Support for the i386, PA-RISC, and SPARC architectures. |
| 3.2 | October 1993 | |
| 3.3 | February 1995 | Last and most popular version released under the name NEXTSTEP |
| 4.0 (beta) | 1996 | Beta circulated to limited number of developers before OpenStep and Apple acquisition |
Versions up to 4.2 were published, the last version 4.2 after purchase of NeXT by Apple
- ^ Apple Computer, Inc.. Apple Computer, Inc. Agrees to Acquire NeXT Software Inc.. Press release.
- ^ Linzmayer, Owen W. (1999). Apple Confidential: The Real Story of Apple Computer, Inc.
This article was originally based on material from the Free On-line Dictionary of Computing, which is licensed under the GFDL.
- Openstep
- GNUstep, a GPL version
- Window maker, a window manager designed to emulate the NeXT GUI for Linux and others
- NeXTarchive.net - The Last Outpost: This Community keeps NeXTSTEP / OpenStep / Rhapsody alive with new software and patches
- A complete guide to the confusing series of names applied to the system
- NeXT at the Open Directory Project (suggest site)
- Intro to NEXTSTEP
- NeXTComputers.org