Funny Post: BeOS, OSX
Found this on the maccentral boards i thought it was a pleasant and funny reminder of where we were and we hopefully will be going june 23rd.
the link
Quote:
Thank you, Jean-Louis Gassee!
If you hadn't been such a bonehead about selling BeOS to Apple, we wouldn't have this marvelous OS with a plethora of applications just waiting to be ported from Unix. Nor would we have Steve and, by extension, the iPod, iBook, iMac, iTunes Music Store, the 17" PowerBook, etc. So from the bottom of my heart, thanks again!
Thank you, Jean-Louis Gassee!
If you hadn't been such a bonehead about selling BeOS to Apple, we wouldn't have this marvelous OS with a plethora of applications just waiting to be ported from Unix. Nor would we have Steve and, by extension, the iPod, iBook, iMac, iTunes Music Store, the 17" PowerBook, etc. So from the bottom of my heart, thanks again!
the link
Comments
About the same time, an engineer at NeXT emailed ellen hancock (then apple cto) and told her apple should buy next instead. the rest is history....
I can't imagine what Apple would be trying to do right now had there been no buying of NeXT or return of Jobs. No original iMac, no OS X, no marking keynote's on the calendar... Weird.
Originally posted by alex_kac
Imagine ol Gil and Hancock running Apple today...I'd be using a PC again.
Try and read On the Firing Line and see what state Apple was in when Amelio started - we're talking about total chaos.
Amelio did many things right, but he was axed before the results really showed.
obviously a value cant be put on having Jobs back at Apple but personally, I think we would have seen a "modern OS" sooner if they bought Be. But that doesnt neccessarily mean it would have been better.
- BeOS had various features OS X still doesn't have, such as live queries for metadata, an enormously speedy file system and generally SPEEEEED.
- Then again, this speed mainly comes from BeOS's compactness, which one the other hand is due to its lack of drivers, applications and layers. If Apple had added Classic, and Carbon, and QuickTime, and ColorSync, and, and, and, and so on, the resulting OS wouldn't have been nearly as fast. Maybe even slower than Mac OS X is, who knows.
- BeOS wasn't multi-user capable in the way modern UNIXes are supposed to be. All it offered - through a shareware - was a Mac OS 9-like login capability, but no security / permissions / multi-login / etc.
- Jean-Louis was an *** and Steve is less of one.
All in all, a Mac OS -- BeOS cross might have been great, but I don't think so. NeXT's features were more interesting, IMHO. Cocoa.. yummy.
Originally posted by Chucker
Remember this:
- Then again, this speed mainly comes from BeOS's compactness, which one the other hand is due to its lack of drivers, applications and layers. If Apple had added Classic, and Carbon, and QuickTime, and ColorSync, and, and, and, and so on, the resulting OS wouldn't have been nearly as fast. Maybe even slower than Mac OS X is, who knows.
well, you're looking at it from a Mac OS X point of view. Perhaps apple wouldnt have gone with the 3 APIs (Classic, Carbon, Cocoa) perhaps they would have just went Classic and Native. Classic could have been added via the work from the shareware Sheepshaver which works amazingly well in my experience. There's your blue box. And then native, could have been updated apps for the new OS. Since Be uses Java and C++ i would imagine the transition wouldnt be THAT bad. I'm no programmer so I dont know. Obviously a lot of work would be needed. but neXTStep wasnt exactly ready for release when Apple bought it
and QT, be already supported many of the same codecs. of course the media layer would be changed to a QT based one but I dont see why that would slow it down.
Originally posted by applenut
Classic could have been added via the work from the shareware Sheepshaver which works amazingly well in my experience. There's your blue box.
Now, come on. Apple sometimes *does* cheap things, but they would never use a shareware emulator as a BlueBox.
And then native, could have been updated apps for the new OS. Since Be uses Java and C++ i would imagine the transition wouldnt be THAT bad. I'm no programmer so I dont know.
It's merely a matter of frameworks and APIs, and not of languages. If you know Java, that helps you understand Cocoa's object-oriented environment, but doesn't tell you much about Cocoa's object _structure_. Learning Objective C _and_ Cocoa takes less time than just learning Cocoa for Java. So unless you *really* prefer Java's syntax, there's no reason not to use Objective C.
I don't know the Be APIs - maybe they're really simple. But surely they're largely different from the Mac OS Toolbox.
Obviously a lot of work would be needed. but neXTStep wasnt exactly ready for release when Apple bought it
NeXT STEP, in 1996, was an OS many academics loved. The first web browser was written in it in '91. It was, for many academics, the reference OS for the future. So yeah, it was very ready - it's just that it wasn't oriented at consumers just yet.
BeOS, however, wasn't nearly as finished. There was one productivity software I know of - gobeProductive. There was lots of shareware which is still available for the free "Personal Edition". Driver support, and commercial software, was lacking, though.
BeOS would have *possibly* given us a superior file system, for instance. But even that isn't for sure: Classic and Carbon applications even today have trouble using UFS. How much trouble would they have with BFS?
Now, come on. Apple sometimes *does* cheap things, but they would never use a shareware emulator as a BlueBox.
of course not. but they could have bought it and they would have had a quality start. i was just responding to the statement that there would be no backwards compatibility layer.
NeXT STEP, in 1996, was an OS many academics loved. The first web browser was written in it in '91. It was, for many academics, the reference OS for the future. So yeah, it was very ready - it's just that it wasn't oriented at consumers just yet.
you understate Be's readiness and overstate NeXT's readiness. NeXTStep was basically gutted out in order to create what is now OS X. NeXTStep was a dying platform while Be was sort of new and fresh and growing. NeXT had an academic base but the price restricted it from ever growing that base or anything else.
BeOS, however, wasn't nearly as finished. There was one productivity software I know of - gobeProductive. There was lots of shareware which is still available for the free "Personal Edition". Driver support, and commercial software, was lacking, though.
what productivity software was available for NeXTSTEP?
all the same (and probably more) were lacking from NeXTSTEP
Originally posted by applenut
of course not. but they could have bought it and they would have had a quality start. i was just responding to the statement that there would be no backwards compatibility layer.
you understate Be's readiness and overstate NeXT's readiness. NeXTStep was basically gutted out in order to create what is now OS X. NeXTStep was a dying platform while Be was sort of new and fresh and growing. NeXT had an academic base but the price restricted it from ever growing that base or anything else.
what productivity software was available for NeXTSTEP?
all the same (and probably more) were lacking from NeXTSTEP
Lotus, if I recall correctly, had some good applications available, but they were discontinued (or the company went under) due to difficult porting due to use of the Cocoa goodies that we all love so much.
Originally posted by applenut
[B]you understate Be's readiness and overstate NeXT's readiness. NeXTStep was basically gutted out in order to create what is now OS X. NeXTStep was a dying platform while Be was sort of new and fresh and growing. NeXT had an academic base but the price restricted it from ever growing that base or anything else.[b]
NeXT's "dying" ways had more to do with its tiny markets and bad spending than for the quality or readiness of its technology. OS X has been gutted of some amazing technology that was in NeXT, some due to better tech being available (why should apple provide 3D frameworks when 3D apps bring their own platforms now?), some for unknown reasons (Enterprise Object Frameworks -- though maybe it's being included with WebObjects instead of at the OS level).
what productivity software was available for NeXTSTEP?
I believe that Lighthouse made the big productivity suite for NeXT, plus remember that NeXT had all those built-in frameworks, more robust than even OS X's in some ways. I think NeXT had their own suite something akin to the original Mac Write/Paint/Draw suite. Almost everything was provided by the system, with developers simply writing new front-ends and extending them.
Originally posted by BuonRotto
OS X has been gutted of some amazing technology that was in NeXT, some due to better tech being available (why should apple provide 3D frameworks when 3D apps bring their own platforms now?), some for unknown reasons (Enterprise Object Frameworks -- though maybe it's being included with WebObjects instead of at the OS level).
OS X also pruned out Mac OS technologies that were going nowhere fast, like QuickDraw 3D - which was pretty, and useful for many things, but which never got any traction.
I've heard rumblings that EOF is coming back, by the way. Given the recent push into enterprise IT - which NeXTStep/OpenStep thrived in - it only makes sense.
As for Jean-Louis Gassée, he's the guy who tried pushing Apple's profit margins up to 40%, "because we can." This is not a man who'd have any chance of making Apple relevant.
Heck, all Apple needed to do was to exploy Carbon-like technology for NuKernel and Apple would have been fine without purchasing anybody, but the engineering and executive management was apparently rotting out becoming dysfunctional. Copeland, Gershwin and Pink never should have been invested in. Cleaning up and making the Mac OS Toolbox thread-safe should have been Apple's number priority prior to inventing some fancy new operating system.
Originally posted by THT
Copeland, Gershwin and Pink...
OT, but why do so many people call it Copeland? It's Copland.