Contributed by Saad | osViews This article was syndicated under osViews' Open Content License. November 12, 2004 12:30 PM

With the beginning of 1996, Apple realized that with the next generation PC's running Windows NT to be released within the decade, they would need a new, modern operating system to run on their machines. Most in the industry were certain that Apple would choose Be, whose operating system, BeOS, already ran on Apple's newest computers.

Amongst Apple's other options were to license Solaris from Sun, NT from Microsoft, or to purchase a small net services company called NeXT. Apple chose the latter.

Neither Apple or NeXT were doing well during 1996. NeXT had ceased production of all hardware several years before, and was now relying on OPENSTEP for Windows, a tool to help developers port their NeXT apps to Windows, and WebObjects, an e-commerce tool, for almost all of its revenue.

But in 1996, Apple did not seem to be a success either. The company was desperate for a new operating system, and after briefly flirting with BeOS decided to acquire NeXT. Avie Tevanian took over OS development, leading the Rhapsody project to transform the NeXT operating system into the next generation Mac OS while Steve Jobs was brought on as a consultant. Apple continued to bleed red ink, though, and eventually Steve persuaded the existing board to fire Gil Amelio, and appoint him Chairman and interim CEO. Jobs was, in essence, given carte blanche by the Apple board to both return the company to profitability and to lead the search for a new CEO.

Apple's key personnel and the company's hardware and software plans were completely revamped by Jobs, and the NeXT influence could have scarcely been greater. NeXT's software engineers began the task of transforming their workstation-centric operating system into something suitable for Apple's humanist following, and Rhapsody in 1998 became Mac OS X, and Apple's future.

Shortly after the acquisition of NeXT, Apple canned their own next generation operating system, Copland, in favor of Rhapsody, which was to be based on OPENSTEP. Apple set to work porting OPENSTEP to Apple hardware, and removing licensed technologies like Display Postscript in favor of license free technologies like Quartz.

By 1999, Apple had a runnable beta version, and released it to developers as Rhapsody DP1. This first developer's preview still ran only on the PC, but it showed the increasing power of what would become OS X. By this time, the operating system engineers had managed to graft a Mac OS looking interface onto Rhapsody while maintaining something of a dock for running applications. Rhapsody DP1 was also the first version to feature the Darwin project. The Darwin project was created to advance the Mach microkernel, originally designed by software czar Avie Tevanian, to the point it would be used as the basis of a consumer operating system.

With the creation of the Darwin project, Apple blessed its first open source project since the axing of mkLinux and nuKernel years before. Apple chose not to use an existing software license and created its own, the APSL, or the Apple Public Source License, which was approved by the Free Software Foundation as Free Software.

The proceeding betas of Rhapsody were renamed OS X, and included the new Aqua user interface, a hybrid of OPENSTEP, Windows and Mac OS elements into one interface. The Dock morphed from a task switcher to a launcher/twitcher creation, allowing users to quickly switch between and launch applications. The new interface also included various special effects, like translucent windows, title bars and menus.

Of the more important changes involved the desktop. Unlike previous versions of Mac OS, the desktop no longer served as a container for mounted drives, instead users used the new finder windows to navigate to the 'Computer' level and open them. Unlike OPENSTEP, users were able to save files directly to the desktop.

The new versions of OS X included a virtual machine to run Classic applications that were not yet ported to OS X. Unlike Mac OS X Server, the Classic applications would be able to run alongside one eachother. When running, the Classic applications would use a special, doctored theme to conform to some of the interface standards of OS X. Classic applications also showed up in the dock.

By this time, Apple had eliminated Display PostScript in OS X in favor of the royalty free Quartz. Quartz is based on PDF which has several advantages over Display Postscript, chiefly being cost. PDF is a subset of those PostScript language elements that define the graphics, and only requires a very simple interpreter. Ultimately, Quartz performed better than Display PostScript, while maintaining very high output quality.

Apple released the first consumer available version of OS X at Apple Expo 2000 in Paris as Mac OS X Public Beta. The new version largely preserved the interface from previous developer previews. The major changes came under the hood, with an optimized version of Quartz and OpenGL handling most of the interface effects.

The Public Beta became the best selling beta software ever, and convinced Apple to reinstate the Apple menu and restore the mounted disks to the desktop.

Apple Expo Paris also saw the launch of the OpenDarwin.org project, which would help provide updated versions of the Mach microkernel to Apple at a low cost. With OpenDarwin came the new Darwin mascot, Hexley the Platypus.

Mac OS X 10.0 was released March 24th 2001, the anniversary of Apple's shift from the Motorola 68000 processors to the Power Macs. Throughout the Mac community. The excitement was tangible. Lines formed outside computer vendors waiting for the midnight launch time. Mac OS X was quickly of the best selling computer applications ever.

Initial excitement wore off eventually as the public realized the lack of native applications for OS X. Microsoft, Adobe, Macromedia and Quark, the keystone of Macintosh development, had all yet to release their flagship products for OS X, and in the case of Quark, would not until two years later.

Editor:  This article can also be found here.



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