NeXTSTEP

NeXTSTEP
A NeXTSTEP desktop
Type:	Multitasking, multiuser
Creator:	NeXT
Architecture:	m68k, portable to big & little endian (i386,sparc,hppa).
This Version:	3.3 (1995)
Date Released:	1989

NeXTSTEP was the Operating System popularized by NeXT, and is commonly thought of with the NeXT hardware.

Architecture

NeXTSTEP uses the Mach microkernel 2.5 as a library into a custom BSD kernel that is based on 4.3 BSD. Sourcecode to the descendant of NeXTSTEP can be found on Apple's site in the XNU project sources. The direct descendant of NeXTSTEP was OPENSTEP, an effert that was helped by SUN into making the NeXT object technology a portable framework. SUN dropped the effort just before launch infavor of Java.

NeXTSTEP developed into a niche as a RAD tool, and a data modeling tool. It was also envisioned as a middleware tool, however it would have required NeXT hardware on the client & middle tiers, with the EOF (Enterprise Object Framework) packages. Later this would morph into an OPENSTEP offering to run on Sun, HP & Microsoft Windows, and then a Java/Web solution. NeXTSTEP was later transitioned into OPENSTEP as part of a collaborative work with SUN which was later abandoned by SUN in favor of Java. When NeXT was later bought out by Apple the then shelved OPENSTEP was brought back to life as the base OS for Rhapsody, then OS X. It also has been opened up via the Darwin project.

Interesting features

NeXTSTEP 3.0 was the first OS to ship on CD-ROM, a welcome change from floppies & tapes of the past.

Another thing I've always loved is the bundle concept in which all of the application dll's resources are all in one directory, making moving apps around trivial, along with installation (almost always just unpack and run).

Ports

While NeXTSTEP is based on portable software (Mach/BSD) it was ported to the following machines:

• m68k
• hppa
• i386
• sparc
• m88k -unreleased
• PowerPC -unreleased

Versions

• 0.8 m68k only
• 0.9 m68k only
• 1.0 m68k only
• 2.0 m68k only
• 2.1 m68k only
• 2.2 m68k only
• 3.0 m68k then i386
• 3.1 m68k, i386
• 3.2 m68k, i386, sparc
• 3.3 m68k, i386, sparc, hppa

Emulation

Emulating NeXTSTEP can be tricky. It should generally run on actual stock PC hardware from the late 90s which is not in short supply yet, so that may be a preferable option. Otherwise you could try an attempt to patch Qemu to run NeXTSTEP. While the latest Qemu can run Solaris, the NeXTSTEP bootloader for SPARC loads, but it seems to hang loading a kernel.

There is some work here on trying to emulate the 68000 next platform. They have managed to get it to boot the ROM, and load a kernel but there remains some issues with the SCSI controller.