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History Of The NeXT Platform

Posted by timothy on from the now-previous dept.

ToothBrush writes "OSNews published an article about the BSD/Mach-based NeXT Platform, discussing its history and its capabilities back then. The article has lots of screenshots and it is generally a good introduction --of the once innovative platform-- for younger readers who are unaware of the inheritance that lead to Mac OS X."

3 of 96 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Let the bidding begin by tbone1 · · Score: 3, Funny
    yet I can't find a single serious buyer

    I'm married and rather silly, but I'd be interested in buying it. How much?

    --

    The Independent: Reverend Spooner Arrested in Friar Tuck Incident - ISIHAC, Historical Headlines
  2. Spreadsheets to die for by Frequency+Domain · · Score: 3, Funny
    Lotus developed Improv on NeXT computers, and then ported it over to Windows. I've heard at conferences that Lotus killed off Improv because sales were eating into 1-2-3, which they considered their bread and butter product.

    When Improv got shut down, a group called Lighthouse Design built a functional workalike called Quantrix. They also made several other excellent apps such as Diagram!, the precursor to OmniGraffle. Lighthouse was bought out by Sun for their expertise in object-oriented design, but Lighthouse threw their licensing keys into the public arena when they stopped shipping. Sadly, Sun owns the rights to the code, and has no interest in releasing it - I say sadly, because I suspect it would be relatively easy for someone to resurrect the apps on OS X.

    Improv and Quantrix spoiled me for life - to this day, I can't stomach working in Excel. This is particularly ironic since I'm required to use Excel in several courses I teach.

    I still have my NeXTDimension Cube boxed up in the garage, I don't have room to set it up but can't bear the thought of selling it off either. I guess when I die, my grandchildren will dig it out and fire it up to see what computing was like "way back when". Won't they be surprised to see that Excel still hasn't caught up to what Quantrix could do back in the 90's.

  3. Re:Let the bidding begin by Nick+of+NSTime · · Score: 2, Funny
    I threw mine in the Dumpster when I moved out of my apartment.

    For anyone who might have fished it out, the root password was "heretic."