[NTLK] Rhapsody == OS X

From: Sean Luke (sean_at_cs.gmu.edu)
Date: Mon Nov 26 2001 - 22:26:19 EST


[yeah yeah, off topic]

On Monday, November 26, 2001, at 08:11 PM, newtontalk_at_newtontalk.net
wrote:

> Apple talked about Rhapsody or whatever "the new OS" was called at
> various points in time for how many years ? And eventually they
> abandonded it altogether and did something very different.

Well, they *did* abandon Copeland for Rhapsody/OSX. But I'm amazed at
how many people don't realize that, Apple's marketroid proclamations
aside, Rhapsody and OS X are basically one and the same. Here's the
deal.

With Rhapsody, Apple was designing an OS which had:

0. New driver architecture
1. Mach3/4.4BSD
2. Display PostScript window server
3. A new Finder and UI feel
4. NeXTSTEP/OPENSTEP API
5. Old mac apps running in a protected environment

But there were some problems.

#2 Adobe wouldn't play ball. They didn't want to license DPS to Apple
        like they had to NeXT (Adobe wanted to get rid of DPS entirely, pushing
        for PDF).

#4-5 Old mac developers (read: Microsoft) weren't happy with the devil's
choice
        of running their apps in, as they called it, a "penalty box"; or
rewriting
        them from scratch to adhere to OPENSTEP.

To deal with #2, Apple basically told Adobe, to heck with you, we'll
just write our own dang DPS-equivalent window server. Which they did.
It's called Quartz. Apple will tell you it's based on PDF, but that's
just marketspeak. Quartz is an API based on the PostScript3.0/DPS
graphics model, but without the rarely-used interpreter commands. That
it did PDF was just gravy. Basically, Quartz allowed Apple to replace
DPS without paying the DPS royalties.

To deal with #4-5, Apple added another UNIX library, called Carbon,
against which old Mac apps could be recompiled. A library does not an
operating system make.

So now the OS looks like this:

0. New driver architecture
1. Mach3/4.4BSD
2. Display PostScript <equivalent> window server (now called "Quartz")
3. A new Finder and UI feel
4. NeXTSTEP/OPENSTEP API (now renamed "Cocoa")
5. Old mac apps running in a protected environment (now renamed
"Classic")
6. Carbon libraries

Apple then renamed the slightly-revised Rhapsody to "OS X". And people
bought it hook line and sinker!

Sean

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