Post your desktop!
- Thread starter joeth
- Start date
nixgeek
Mac of the SubGenius! :-)
Amie, you're basically looking at the grandaddy of OS X there. It's called NeXTSTEP and was made by NeXT which was a company started by Apple's very own Steve Jobs after he was ousted from Apple in the late 80s. He was ahead of his time with this one: a UNIX operating system easy enough to use by everyone. In a nutshell, Steve Jobs basically took his OS and integrated a lot of the good things from the Mac OS (desktop icons, Finder, etc.) giving us Mac OS X. Short and sweet (and doesn't do it justice), but that's basically it.
Here's more info on NeXT:
http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=4042&page=1
BTW, nice screenie.
Here's more info on NeXT:
http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=4042&page=1
BTW, nice screenie.
Lt Major Burns
"Dicky" Charlteston-Burns
it's an interesting read, that. one thing i did notice, was this:
http://www.levenez.com/NeXTSTEP/NeXTstation_4.jpg
it's the inside of the a NeXTstation, and bear more than a slight reseblance to the layout and cleanliness of this...
http://www.macdiscount.com/pictures/G5_imac_inside.jpg
http://www.levenez.com/NeXTSTEP/NeXTstation_4.jpg
it's the inside of the a NeXTstation, and bear more than a slight reseblance to the layout and cleanliness of this...
http://www.macdiscount.com/pictures/G5_imac_inside.jpg
RacerX
Old Rhapsody User
Well, nixgeek covered the first part... though I would have linked to my NEXTSTEP and OPENSTEP Resource Page (but I'm a little bias ;p ).Amie said:
As for where everything is... the old NeXT dock wasn't that great at handling a lot of apps... so I use a dock replacement that gives me different levels (the one in the first image is for my internet apps... OmniWeb, Mail and RBrowser), this one is my main set of apps...
And this is what my PowerBook desktop looks like... as you can see I tend to keep my environments pretty similar to each other.
RacerX
Old Rhapsody User
It is OPENSTEP 4.2 running on my IBM ThinkPad 760ED. I have two hard drives, a 2 GB drive for OPENSTEP and a 6 GB drive for Rhapsody, which I can switch out in a matter of seconds. Usually it is running Rhapsody (which is set up for most of the things I need for my consulting work) but when I'm doing mathematics I pop in the OPENSTEP drive (mainly for using Geomview).nixgeek said:Is that NeXTSTEP on a NeXT box or OPENSTEP? I would love to get my hands on OPENSTEP to play with on an x86 box (I already have OS X, so please don't say that
As for NEXTSTEP, I have a VirtualPC image of NEXTSTEP 3.3 that I use when answering support questions that I get (these shots are from VPC), but most everything that can run in NEXTSTEP 3.3 can be run in OPENSTEP 4.x.
It has been harder and harder to find OPENSTEP these days. It pops up on ebay every so often, and I think it is still being sold over at Black Hole.
Satcomer
In Geostationary Orbit
RacerX - I see you also get your wall paper at Plasma Design.
RacerX
Old Rhapsody User
Yeah, the guy is awesome!Satcomer said:RacerX - I see you also get your wall paper at Plasma Design.
Amie
Mac Convert for Life
nixgeek said:Amie, you're basically looking at the grandaddy of OS X there. It's called NeXTSTEP and was made by NeXT which was a company started by Apple's very own Steve Jobs after he was ousted from Apple in the late 80s. He was ahead of his time with this one: a UNIX operating system easy enough to use by everyone. In a nutshell, Steve Jobs basically took his OS and integrated a lot of the good things from the Mac OS (desktop icons, Finder, etc.) giving us Mac OS X. Short and sweet (and doesn't do it justice), but that's basically it.
Here's more info on NeXT:
http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=4042&page=1
BTW, nice screenie.
Thank you. I like it, too.
Well, your description of NeXTSTEP sounds like the best OS of all the best OSs. Which brings me to the obvious question of: Where *is* it? I mean, I've been using Macs for a while now, and I've never heard of it. Until now. Why isn't this OS shipped with Apple computers if it's so good?
nixgeek
Mac of the SubGenius! :-)
NeXT and their OS were ahead of their time back then. Unfortunately, their machines were too expensive (sometimes more than Macs back then and Macs back then were expensive as well), and from what I can tell not many companies made software for them, and we all know what happens when a great operating system doesn't have the software support. (For the record, BeOS would have been the successor to Classic had it not been for Jobs convincing Apple's then-CEO Gil Amelio. This and some bad business decisions killed BeOS).
NeXT is basically OS X before it was OS X. RacerX can definitely elaborate more on this since he's used NeXTSTEP in all its iterations up until its current version, OS X Tiger.
So anyways, back on topic....I would post my screenie but I haven't changed it since my last post.
NeXT is basically OS X before it was OS X. RacerX can definitely elaborate more on this since he's used NeXTSTEP in all its iterations up until its current version, OS X Tiger.
So anyways, back on topic....I would post my screenie but I haven't changed it since my last post.
RacerX
Old Rhapsody User
Well, let us not forget that we are talking about (in the case of my screenshot) an operating system from 1996... it's 10 years old now.Amie said:
More importantly, NeXT was locked out of the desktop market.
Back when Jobs lost the position of CEO at Apple, he didn't actually leave right away. He was still around on campus but with little or no power. So having access to anyone at Apple, he collected together a number of the best people from the Macintosh development team and set off to start NeXT Computer.
Needless to say, Apple wasn't very happy about this. They sued NeXT and Jobs. The suit was settled with the agreement that NeXT would not hire anyone else from Apple for at least one year and that NeXT would never compete in Apple's core market... desktop computers. This forced NeXT to sell their systems as workstations.
The price of the systems started out pretty high, but became more reasonable as time went on. Comparing the prices between machines from NeXT and Apple (with comparable features) from 1991:
NeXTstation (68040 at 25MHz, 8 MB of RAM, 105 MB hard drive, 2 bit (black & white) 17" display, Ethernet) $4,995.00
Macintosh IIsi (68030 at 20MHz, 5 MB of RAM, 80 MB hard drive, 8 bit 12" display, LocalTalk) $5,097.00
NeXTstation Color (68040 at 25MHz, 12 MB of RAM, 105 MB hard drive, 16 bit (color) 17" display, Ethernet) $7,995.00
Macintosh IIci (68030 at 20MHz, 4 MB of RAM, 80 MB hard drive, 8 bit 13" display, LocalTalk) $7,897.00
On the other hand, when NeXT hardware went away, the price of the operating system on any platform was still pretty high...Macintosh IIsi (68030 at 20MHz, 5 MB of RAM, 80 MB hard drive, 8 bit 12" display, LocalTalk) $5,097.00
NeXTstation Color (68040 at 25MHz, 12 MB of RAM, 105 MB hard drive, 16 bit (color) 17" display, Ethernet) $7,995.00
Macintosh IIci (68030 at 20MHz, 4 MB of RAM, 80 MB hard drive, 8 bit 13" display, LocalTalk) $7,897.00
NEXTSTEP 3.3 (single user license) about $820.00
System 7.5 (single user license) about $100.00
A/UX 3.0.1 (single user license) about $795.00
But this was before Linux had taken off, so $800-$900 was about average for a Unix based operating system at the time (NEXTSTEP used 4.3BSD while A/UX was using a modified version of System V Release 2).System 7.5 (single user license) about $100.00
A/UX 3.0.1 (single user license) about $795.00
Okay... that was most likely more than what people wanted to know.
Well... it does in a way. Apple acquired NeXT, OPENSTEP (which was the name for the fourth version of NEXTSTEP) became the foundation of Apple's Rhapsody operating system (Rhapsody is basically the name of the fifth version of NEXTSTEP), and after removing parts that had license restrictions (which created Darwin), Rhapsody became Mac OS X (Mac OS X Developer Preview 1 looks and acts identical to all previous Rhapsody releases, Mac OS X didn't start to look like, well, Mac OS X until Developer Preview 3)... and Mac OS X currently ships with all Apple computers.
To keep this on the screenshot topic... here is a shot of my main Rhapsody system at work.
ergo proxy
Guest
Nice one RacerX, now I know a bit more about OS X and where that Apple Cube design came from.
I have no desktop pictures to post, it's just boring dark grey. sometimes
I change it to plain aqua blue or tiger stripes when I get sick of the grey
but it's mostly dark grey when I'm working
I have no desktop pictures to post, it's just boring dark grey. sometimes
I change it to plain aqua blue or tiger stripes when I get sick of the grey
but it's mostly dark grey when I'm working
nixgeek
Mac of the SubGenius! :-)
ergo proxy said:Nice one RacerX, now I know a bit more about OS X and where that Apple Cube design came from.
I have no desktop pictures to post, it's just boring dark grey. sometimes
I change it to plain aqua blue or tiger stripes when I get sick of the grey
but it's mostly dark grey when I'm working
Nothing wrong with a minimalist look. Post it anyways...
ergo proxy
Guest
nixgeek said:Nothing wrong with a minimalist look. Post it anyways...
after viewing everyone's cool looking desktops? a bit too minimalist plus
someone already posted a plain dark grey one
Amie
Mac Convert for Life
See, I've always liked that look. I'd get the tape and pocket protector myself, but I just don't think I'm cool enough to pull it off.nixgeek said:You mean you didn't notice the tape over our glasses??? Heck, my pens almost fell out of my protector just now reading this!
