Development MacOS version history

1 development

1.1 development outside apple
1.2 internal development
1.3 changed direction under jobs

development
development outside apple

diagram of relationships between unix systems including ancestors of macos

after apple removed steve jobs management in 1985, left company , attempted — funding ross perot , own pockets — create next big thing . result next. first workstation include dsp , high-capacity optical disc drive, next hardware advanced time, expensive relative rapidly commoditizing workstation market , marred design problems. hardware phased out in 1993; however, company s object-oriented operating system nextstep had more lasting legacy.

nextstep based on mach kernel developed @ cmu (carnegie mellon university) , bsd, implementation of unix dating 1970s. featured object-oriented programming framework based on objective-c language. environment known today in mac world cocoa. supported innovative enterprise objects framework database access layer , webobjects application server development environment, among other notable features.

all abandoning idea of operating system, next managed maintain business selling webobjects , consulting services, never commercial success. nextstep underwent evolution openstep separated object layers operating system below, allowing run less modification on other platforms. openstep was, short time, adopted sun microsystems. however, point, number of other companies — notably apple, ibm, microsoft, , sun — claiming releasing similar object-oriented operating systems , development tools of own. (some of these efforts, such taligent, did not come fruition; others, java, gained widespread adoption.)

on february 4, 1997, apple computer acquired next $427 million, , used openstep basis mac os x, called @ time. traces of next software heritage can still seen in macos. example, in cocoa development environment, objective-c library classes have ns prefixes, , history section of manual page defaults command in macos straightforwardly states command first appeared in nextstep.

internal development

meanwhile, apple facing commercial difficulties of own. decade-old classic mac os had reached limits of single-user, co-operative multitasking architecture, , once-innovative user interface looking increasingly outdated. massive development effort replace it, known copland, started in 1994, perceived outside apple hopeless case due political infighting , conflicting goals. 1996, copland near ready release, , project cancelled. elements of copland incorporated mac os 8, released on july 26, 1997.

after considering purchase of beos — multimedia-enabled, multi-tasking os designed hardware similar apple s — company decided instead acquire next , use openstep basis new os. avie tevanian took on os development, , steve jobs brought on consultant. @ first, plan develop new operating system based entirely on updated version of openstep, addition of virtual machine subsystem — known blue box — running classic macintosh applications. result known code name rhapsody, slated release in late 1998.

apple expected developers port software considerably more powerful openstep libraries once learned of power , flexibility. instead, several major developers such adobe told apple never occur, , rather leave platform entirely. rejection of apple s plan largely result of string of previous broken promises apple; after watching 1 next os after disappear , apple s market share dwindle, developers not interested in doing work on platform @ all, let alone re-write.

changed direction under jobs

apple s financial losses continued , board of directors lost confidence in ceo gil amelio, asking him resign. board asked steve jobs lead company on interim basis, giving him carte blanche make changes return company profitability. when jobs announced @ world wide developer s conference developers wanted modern version of mac os, , apple going deliver it, met thunderous applause. on next 2 years, major effort applied porting original macintosh apis unix libraries known carbon. mac os applications ported carbon without need complete re-write, making them operate native applications on new operating system. meanwhile, applications written using older toolkits supported using classic mac os 9 environment. support c, c++, objective-c, java, , python added, furthering developer comfort new platform.

during time, lower layers of operating system (the mach kernel , bsd layers on top of it) re-packaged , released under apple public source license. became known darwin. darwin kernel provides stable , flexible operating system, takes advantage of contributions of programmers , independent open-source projects outside apple; however, sees little use outside macintosh community. during period, java programming language had increased in popularity, , effort started improve mac java support. consisted of porting high-speed java virtual machine platform, , exposing macos-specific cocoa apis java language.

the first release of new os — mac os x server 1.0 — used modified version of mac os gui, client versions starting mac os x developer preview 3 used new theme known aqua. aqua substantial departure mac os 9 interface, had evolved little change of original macintosh operating system: incorporated full color scalable graphics, anti-aliasing of text , graphics, simulated shading , highlights, transparency , shadows, , animation. key new feature dock, application launcher took advantage of these capabilities. despite this, os x maintained substantial degree of consistency traditional mac os interface , apple s own apple human interface guidelines, pull-down menu @ top of screen, familiar keyboard shortcuts, , support single-button mouse. development of aqua delayed switch openstep s display postscript engine 1 developed in-house free of license restrictions, known quartz.