Actually, NeXTstep, then OPENstep, has been in development since 1986. The OPENstep/MacOS marriage began in 97 (December 96, if I recall) when Jobs returned to Apple.
Also, with all the flack Apple is getting about release dates, let's not forget that they have release Darwin and Mac OS X Server. The Mac OS X that is pending is a far better creature than originally planned.
One more note about x86 - Darwin compiles on x86 now. Once you can boot into Darwin on Intel, theoretically, most of the work is done. As far as I can tell, the Mac OS X GUI should sit on top of Darwin - abstracted from the hardware. So, I would conclude that, once Darwin is running on x86, it should be possible to install the Mac OS X GUI on Darwin on Intel. Of course, I don't know if this will be an option, but it's a nice thought, eh?
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Actually, NeXTstep, then OPENstep, has been in development since 1986. The OPENstep/MacOS marriage began in 97 (December 96, if I recall) when Jobs returned to Apple.
Also, with all the flack Apple is getting about release dates, let's not forget that they have release Darwin and Mac OS X Server. The Mac OS X that is pending is a far better creature than originally planned.
One more note about x86 - Darwin compiles on x86 now. Once you can boot into Darwin on Intel, theoretically, most of the work is done. As far as I can tell, the Mac OS X GUI should sit on top of Darwin - abstracted from the hardware. So, I would conclude that, once Darwin is running on x86, it should be possible to install the Mac OS X GUI on Darwin on Intel. Of course, I don't know if this will be an option, but it's a nice thought, eh?