NeXTSTEP

The book argues that NeXT was not a failure, but the hidden turning point.

Its operating system, NeXTSTEP, became the foundation of Mac OS X and later the iPhone, and its fingerprints are still visible in Apple's code today.

Dan'l Lewin was an early Apple employee who led the initial launch of the Macintosh into higher education.

In 1985, he left the company alongside Steve Jobs to co-found NeXT, where he served as VP of marketing and sales.

And so they learned how to port Unix as undergraduates.

And then when he went on to get his PhD with Bill at, at Berkeley, they were weaving internet protocol into the Berkeley distribution, which as the distributions went out to the computer science departments around the country, which g- were all new 'cause they were all double E prior to that time, that's how things got strung together.

And the universities were also crazy about what we were doing with NeXTSTEP, which was based on the Berkeley distribution, but engineering a kernel that would allow for all kinds of interesting long-term things around parallelism and portability and all kinds of the rest.

That's a great segue 'cause NeXTSTEP is the thing that, as Jeffrey was talking about, like it still lives today, which is absolutely bonkers to me in a good way.

With time running out and its talks on acquiring Be still hung up on price, Apple and NeXT, the Redwood City, California, company Mr.

Jobs founded after he left Apple, have met in recent days to discuss the possibility of Apple buying or licensing NeXT's NeXTstep operating system, people following the matter said.

That's a report from the December 16th, 1996, edition of the Wall Street Journal, headlined Apple Talks with Steve Jobs about New Operating Systems.

And it broke the news that Apple and its co-founder are talking about using NeXT's operating system as the basis for the future of the Mac.

Yes.

Hi, John.

macOS X, what's that? We're just talking about NeXTstep, right?

At some point, you will get to talk about your subject matter, but it's not gonna be on this episode, I don't think.

A condensed version of what NeXT had to offer.

It had its own operating system called NeXTstep.

It was based on the Mach microkernel, which was developed at Carnegie Mellon University by, among other people, a young man named Avie Tevanian, who Steve Jobs had hired to come work for him on software at NeXT.

Mach is M-A-C-H.

The Muck microkernel.

Mach had the modern operating system features Apple was looking for.

NeXTstep had protected memory.

Say it with me, everybody.