NeXTSTEP was an object-oriented, multitasking operating system based on UNIX, which was developed by NeXT Computerin the late 1980s and early 1990s.
It was used initially its range of proprietary workstation computers such as the NeXTcubeand later ported to several other computer architectures. Although relatively unsuccessful at the time, it attracted interest from computer scientists and researchers. It was used as the original platform for the development of the first AppStore, The Electronic App Wrapper was the first commercial electronic software distribution catalog to collectively manage encryption and provide digital rights for apps and digital media and it was also the platform that created the first web browser by Tim Berners-Lee . After the purchase of NeXT by Apple, it became the source of the much more popular Mac OS X and iOS and now WatchOS. Many bundled OS X apps, such as TextEdit, Mail and Chess, are descended from NeXTSTEP applications.
It was used initially its range of proprietary workstation computers such as the NeXTcubeand later ported to several other computer architectures. Although relatively unsuccessful at the time, it attracted interest from computer scientists and researchers. It was used as the original platform for the development of the first AppStore, The Electronic App Wrapper was the first commercial electronic software distribution catalog to collectively manage encryption and provide digital rights for apps and digital media and it was also the platform that created the first web browser by Tim Berners-Lee . After the purchase of NeXT by Apple, it became the source of the much more popular Mac OS X and iOS and now WatchOS. Many bundled OS X apps, such as TextEdit, Mail and Chess, are descended from NeXTSTEP applications.
Overview
NeXTSTEP (also stylized as NeXTstep, NeXTStep, and NEXTSTEP) is a combination of several parts:
- a Unix operating system based on the Mach kernel, plus source code from BSD
- Display PostScript and a proprietary windowing engine
- the Objective-C language and runtime
- an object-oriented (OO) application layer, including several "kits"
- development tools for the OO layers
NeXTSTEP is notable for having been a preeminent implementation of the latter three items. The toolkits offer considerable power, and are the canonical development system for all of the software on the machine.
NeXTSTEP's user interface is considered to be refined and consistent. It introduced the idea of the Dock (carried through OpenStep and into today's OS X) and the Shelf. NeXTSTEP also originated or innovated a large number of other GUIconcepts which became common in other operating systems: 3D "chiseled" widgets, large full-color icons, 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 called "inspectors", and window modification notices (such as the saved status of a file). The system is 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. These include Portable Distributed Objects (PDO), which allow easy remote invocation, and Enterprise Objects Framework, a powerful object-relational database system. The kits made the system particularly interesting to custom application programmers, and NeXTSTEP had a long history in the financial programming community.
History
A preview release of NeXTSTEP (version 0.8) was shown with the launch of the NeXT Computer on October 12, 1988. The first full release, NeXTSTEP 1.0, shipped on September 18, 1989. The last version, 3.3, was released in early 1995, by which time it ran on not only the Motorola 68000 family processors used in NeXT computers, but also on Intel x86, Sun SPARC, and HP PA-RISC-based systems.
NeXTSTEP was later modified to separate the underlying operating system from the higher-level object libraries. The result was the OpenStep API, which ran on multiple underlying operating systems, including NeXT's own OPENSTEP. NeXTSTEP's legacy stands today in the form of its direct descendents, Apple's OS X and iOS operating systems.
Legacy
The first web browser, WorldWideWeb, and the first ever AppStore were both invented on the NeXTSTEP platform.
Some features and keyboard shortcuts now commonly found in web browsers can be traced back to NeXTSTEP conventions. The basic layout options of HTML 1.0 and 2.0 are attributable to those features available in NeXT's Text class.
In the 1990s, the pioneering PC games Wolfenstein 3D, Doom (with its WAD level editor), Doom II, and Quake (with its respective level editor) were developed by id Software on NeXT machines. Other games based on the Doom engine such as Heretic and its sequel Hexen by Raven Software as well as Strife by Rogue Entertainment were also developed on NeXT hardware using id's tools.
Altsys made a NeXTSTEP application called Virtuoso, version 2 of which was ported to Mac OS and Windows to become Macromedia FreeHand version 4. The modern "Notebook" interface for Mathematica, and the advanced spreadsheet Lotus Improv, were developed using NeXTSTEP. The software that controlled MCI's Friends and Family calling plan program was developed using NeXTSTEP.
About the time of the release of NeXTSTEP 3.2, NeXT partnered with Sun Micro systems to develop OpenStep. It is the product of an effort to separate the underlying operating system from the higher-level object libraries to create a cross-platform object-oriented API standard derived from NeXTSTEP. The OpenStep API targets multiple underlying operating systems, including NeXT's own OPENSTEP. Implementations of that standard were released for Sun's Solaris, Windows NT, and NeXT's version of the Mach kernel. NeXT's implementation is called "OPENSTEP for Mach" and its first release (4.0) superseded NeXTSTEP 3.3 on NeXT, Sun and Intel IA-32 systems.
Following an announcement on December 20, 1996, Apple Computer acquired NeXT on February 4, 1997 for $429 million. Based upon the "OPENSTEP for Mach" operating system, and developing the OPENSTEP API to become Cocoa, Apple created the basis of OS X, and eventually, in turn, of iOS. Apple purchased NeXT in 1996, to use its more advanced operating system to replace classic Mac OS, which Apple had been unable to modernize internally. Apple's OS X and iOS are direct descendants of NeXTSTEP, through the OPENSTEP lineage.
A free software implementation of the OpenStep standard, GNUstep, also exists.
In popular culture
The anime series Serial Experiments Lain was influenced by NeXTSTEP and Mac OS. References may be found throughout the show and its affiliated media, most notably the slogan for the Lain PSX Game, "Close the world, Open the NeXT".
The interface of NeXTSTEP 3.3 made a brief appearance in the animated film Evangelion: 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance, as Ritsuko Akagi's workstation desktop.
Release history
| Version | Date | Distribution Medium | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.8 | October 12, 1988 | MO disc | First available version; for NeXT hardware only. |
| 0.8a | 1988 | MO disc | |
| 0.9 | 1988 | MO disc | |
| 1.0 | 1989 | MO disc | |
| 1.0a | 1989 | MO disc | |
| 2.0 | September 18, 1990 | MO disc | |
| 2.1 | March 25, 1991 | MO disc | |
| 2.1a | MO disc | ||
| 2.2 | |||
| 3.0 | September 8, 1992 | CD-ROM | |
| 3.1 | May 25, 1993 | CD-ROM | First release for the i486 architecture. |
| 3.2 | October 1993 | CD-ROM | |
| 3.3 | February 1995 | CD-ROM | Support for the PA-RISC and SPARC architectures added, introducing Quad-FAT Binaries. Last and most popular version released under the name NeXTSTEP |
| 4.0 | July 1996 | CD-ROM | Support for the PA-RISC architecture dropped. Support for m68k, i486 and SPARC architectures. Initial Release of Openstep for Windows |
| 4.1 | January 1997 | CD-ROM | Support for m68k, i486 and SPARC architectures, and Openstep for Windows, under OPENSTEP Enterprise (NT only). |
| 4.2 Pre-release 2 | September 1997 | CD-ROM | Pre-release 2 circulated to limited number of developers before OpenStep and Apple acquisition |
Versions up to 4.1 are general releases. OPENSTEP 4.2 pre-release 2 is a bug-fix release published by Apple and was supported for five years after its September 1997 release.
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