NeXTSTEP

NeXTSTEP (also stylized as NeXTstep, NeXTStep, and NEXTSTEP[4][5]) is a combination of several parts:

• a Unix operating system based on the Mach kernel, plus BSD
• Display PostScript and a proprietary windowing engine
• the Objective-C language and runtime
• an object-oriented (OO) application layer, including several "kits"
• development tools for the OO layers.

NeXTSTEP is a preeminent implementation of the last three items. The toolkits are the canonical development system for all of the software on the system.

It introduced the idea of the Dock (carried through OpenStep and into macOS) and the Shelf. NeXTSTEP originated or innovated a large number of other GUI concepts which became common in other operating systems: 3D chiseled widgets, large full-color icons, system-wide drag and drop of a wide range of objects beyond file icons, system-wide piped services, real-time scrolling and window dragging, properties dialog boxes called "inspectors", and window modification notices (such as the saved status of a file). The system is among the first general-purpose user interfaces to handle publishing color standards, transparency, sophisticated sound and music processing (through a Motorola 56000 DSP), advanced graphics primitives, internationalization, and modern typography, in a consistent manner across all applications.

Additional kits were added to the product line. These include Portable Distributed Objects (PDO), which allow easy remote invocation, and Enterprise Objects Framework, an object-relational database system. The kits made the system particularly interesting to custom application programmers, and NeXTSTEP had a long history in the financial programming community.[4]

NeXTSTEP was built upon Mach and BSD, initially 4.3BSD-Tahoe. A preview release of NeXTSTEP (version 0.8) was shown with the launch of the NeXT Computer on October 12, 1988. The first full release, NeXTSTEP 1.0, shipped on September 18, 1989.[6] It was updated to 4.3BSD-Reno in NeXTSTEP 3.0. The last version, 3.3, was released in early 1995, for the Motorola 68000 family based NeXT computers, Intel x86, Sun SPARC, and HP PA-RISC-based systems.

NeXT separated the underlying operating system from the application frameworks, producing OpenStep. OpenStep and its applications can run on multiple underlying operating systems, including OPENSTEP, Windows NT, and Solaris. In 1997, it was updated to 4.4BSD while assimilated into Apple's development of Rhapsody for x86 and Power Macintosh. NeXTSTEP's direct descendants are Apple's macOS, iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, and tvOS.

The first web browser, WorldWideWeb, and the first app store[7] were all invented on the NeXTSTEP platform.

1990 CERN: A Joint proposal for a hypertext system is presented to the management. Mike Sendall buys a NeXT cube for evaluation, and gives it to Tim Berners-Lee. Tim's prototype implementation on NeXTStep is made in the space of a few months, thanks to the qualities of the NeXTStep software development system. This prototype offers WYSIWYG browsing/authoring! Current Web browsers used in "surfing the Internet" are mere passive windows, depriving the user of the possibility to contribute. During some sessions in the CERN cafeteria, Tim and I try to find a catching name for the system. I was determined that the name should not yet again be taken from Greek mythology. Tim proposes "World-Wide Web". I like this very much, except that it is difficult to pronounce in French...

— Robert Cailliau, 2 November 1995[8]

Some features and keyboard shortcuts now common to web browsers originated in NeXTSTEP conventions. The basic layout options of HTML 1.0 and 2.0 are attributable to those features of NeXT's Text class.[9]

Lighthouse Design Ltd. developed Diagram!, a drawing tool, originally called BLT (for Box-and-Line Tool) in which objects (boxes) are connected together using "smart links" (lines) to construct diagrams such a flow charts. This basic design can be enhanced by the simple addition of new links and new documents, located anywhere in the local area network, that foreshadowed Tim Berners-Lee's initial prototype that was written on NeXTStep in October–December 1990.

In the 1990s, the pioneering PC games Doom, Doom II, Quake, and their respective level editors were developed by id Software on NeXT machines. Other games based on the Doom engine such as Heretic and its sequel Hexen by Raven Software, and Strife by Rogue Entertainment were developed on NeXT hardware using id's tools.[10]

Altsys made the NeXTSTEP application Virtuoso, version 2 of which was ported to Mac OS and Windows to become Macromedia FreeHand version 4. The modern "Notebook" interface for Mathematica, and the advanced spreadsheet Lotus Improv, were developed using NeXTSTEP. The software that controlled MCI's Friends and Family calling plan program was developed using NeXTSTEP.[11][12]

About the time of the release of NeXTSTEP 3.2, NeXT partnered with Sun Microsystems to develop OpenStep. It is the product of an effort to separate the underlying operating system from the higher-level object libraries to create a cross-platform object-oriented API standard derived from NeXTSTEP. OpenStep is hosted on multiple underlying operating systems, including NeXT's own OPENSTEP. It was released for Sun's Solaris, Windows NT, and NeXT's version of the Mach kernel. NeXT's implementation is called "OPENSTEP for Mach" and its first release (4.0) superseded NeXTSTEP 3.3 on NeXT, Sun, and Intel IA-32 systems.

Following an announcement on December 20, 1996,[13] Apple Computer acquired NeXT on February 4, 1997, for $429 million. Based upon the "OPENSTEP for Mach" operating system, and developing the OPENSTEP API to become Cocoa, Apple created the basis of Mac OS X,[14] and eventually of iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, and tvOS.

GNUstep is a free software implementation of the OpenStep standard.[15]

Versions up to 4.1 are general releases. OPENSTEP 4.2 pre-release 2 is a bug-fix release published by Apple and supported for five years after its September 1997 release.

• OpenStep, the object-oriented application programming interface derived from NeXTSTEP
• GNUstep, an open-source implementation of Cocoa API respectively OpenStep API
• Window Maker, a window manager designed to emulate the NeXT GUI for the X Window System
• Bundle (macOS)
• Miller Columns, the method of directory browsing that NeXTSTEP's File Viewer used
• Multi-architecture binary
• NeXT character set
• Previous, an emulator for NeXT hardware capable of running some versions of NeXTSTEP

• NeXT at Curlie
• NeXTComputers.org
• Video of Steve Jobs Demoing NeXTSTEP Release 3 on YouTube
• The Next Step BYTE Magazine 14-03, Object Oriented Programming with NextStep