OSNews Takes A Look Back At NeXT

Almost anyone that pays even the slightest attention to OS X knows that itis based on Unix. While itis not uncommon knowledge, not everyone knows that OS X is in fact a direct descendant of NEXTSTEP, and those that do may be shocked at how similar they are. In fact, if youire reading this from a Mac running OS X, you probably have at least one application running that dates back to the NEXTSTEP days.

OS News has posted an introduction to NeXT for anyone interested in the history of Steve Jobsi other groundbreaking computer, and how the operating system evolved over time, eventually becoming OS X. The article looks at NeXTis beginnings in 1986, the move from 68k to multiple platforms (even x86!), NEXTSTEP becoming OPENSTEP, current implementations of the OS such as OS X and GNUStep, and more. From OSNews:

When Steve Jobs was unceremoniously kicked out of Apple in 1985, he already had a vision of the computer he wanted to create that would rock the world. He found investors, and with the help of some ex-Apple engineers, he created NeXT in 1986. In two years they would already have an OS to show: NEXTSTEP 0.8 was ready, and it was based on the Mach kernel and 4.3BSD Unix. Commercial Unix was very big at that time, and Jobs had envisioned a computer that would run on research labs, universities. He wanted it to be the crown of science.

And it was impressive: The GUI was very detailed, very refined, the best looking and most advanced graphical system of its time (based on Postscript). NeXT Engineers also created a brand new language to leverage the fantastic-looking GUI: Objective C. Around that time, the first web browser in the world was created at CERN, on the NeXT platform.

You can read the full article at OSNewsi Web site.