Steve Jobs and the usable computer (2011)
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Re: Steve Jobs and the usable computer (2011)
#2>Programming the WorldWideWeb client was remarkably easy on the NeXT. There was already a software module, the Text Object, which was an editable multifont editor. I just had to subclass it to make a hypertext object, and add the internet code. Designing the app’s menus was trivial — just drag and drop with InterfaceBuilder. The code framework of the app was generated automatically. That is a platform: something which allows you to build things which without it would have been possible, but a lot of work.
Strange to think what the web would've been if Berners-Lee didn't have such a strong platform and tooling to build his ideas with.
Re: Steve Jobs and the usable computer (2011)
#3I was born in the late 1980s and thus was too young to experience NeXT in its heyday, but sometime in high school was when I learned Mac OS X and its NeXT heritage. I was enamored by a highly usable Unix GUI, and since then I've been a fan of Mac OS X and NeXTSTEP. I even own a non-working NeXTstation Turbo Color that I bought on eBay with the intention of restoring it.
However, I was so intrigued with NeXTSTEP as Unix with a polished GUI that I didn't realize or appreciate its Smalltalk influences until roughly a year or so ago. In a way, NeXTSTEP could be thought of as the realization of a polished Smalltalk desktop, albeit with Objective-C and Unix rather than actual Smalltalk. On one hand, NeXT lacks Smalltalk's image-based, live-object environment, which I think is something that would still be revolutionary if a desktop operating system environment offered this today. (My dream is a desktop based on live objects, but the substrate I'd personally pick would be the Common Lisp Object System with its support for multiple dispatch.) On the other hand, Objective-C brought the benefits of Smalltalk-style message-passing object-oriented programming to NeXTSTEP programmers while being compatible with C, which was important for supporting an ever-growing base of software written in C. NeXTSTEP also sweetened GUI programming through its Interface Builder, which was originally for Lisp.
On a somewhat related note, there were attempts by Apple to catch up to NeXT or to even leapfrog them. The Pink/Taligent project would have created a modern operating system (e.g., one with preemptive multitasking and memory protection) with an object-oriented API, though that API was in C++ instead of something more dynamic such as Smalltalk, CLOS, or Dylan (Apple's own internal language that was heavily Lisp-influenced but had an Algol-like syntax). Unfortunately this project failed, which led to a scaled-down effort called Copland (the original plans for Mac OS 8) which also failed, which ultimately led to the purchase of NeXT and the return of Steve Jobs.
Re: Steve Jobs and the usable computer (2011)
#4It's a shame what happened to macOs since then.
Re: Steve Jobs and the usable computer (2011)
#5I was born in the late 1980s and thus was too young to experience NeXT in its heyday, but sometime in high school was when I learned Mac OS X and its NeXT heritage. I was enamored by a highly usable Unix GUI, and since then I've been a fan of Mac OS X and NeXTSTEP. I even own a non-working NeXTstation Turbo Color that I bought on eBay with the intention of restoring it. However, I was so intrigued with NeXTSTEP as Un…
Come join us over at http://www.nextcomputers.org/forums/
you can find the part you need to fix that machine.
There's also a NeXT emulator, Previous that works really well.
Re: Steve Jobs and the usable computer (2011)
#6A video of the welcome to NeXT multimedia mentioned in the article: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCPlGgA6tE4
Re: Steve Jobs and the usable computer (2011)
#7I was born in the late 1980s and thus was too young to experience NeXT in its heyday, but sometime in high school was when I learned Mac OS X and its NeXT heritage. I was enamored by a highly usable Unix GUI, and since then I've been a fan of Mac OS X and NeXTSTEP. I even own a non-working NeXTstation Turbo Color that I bought on eBay with the intention of restoring it. However, I was so intrigued with NeXTSTEP as Un…
In case you still haven't seen this,
https://www.nextop.de/NeXTstep_3.3_Developer_Documentation/
http://www.kevra.org/TheBestOfNext/BooksArticlesWhitePapers/...
"NeXT vs Sun" commercial, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGhfB-NICzg
https://www.macintoshrepository.org/531-mac-os-8-0-copland-b...
Re: Steve Jobs and the usable computer (2011)
#8I once blew up a Next. We had sent one (our only one) back to the States from the UK to fix a fault (can't remember what the original fault was). When we got it back I was stoked to plug it in and start using it. When I did - BANG! The Americans had left the voltage selector on the power supply set to 120V, rather than the UK 240V.
Edit: Thinking back, I think it was actually the monitor (which was a Next one) that blew, not the computer itself.
Re: Steve Jobs and the usable computer (2011)
#9I once blew up a Next. We had sent one (our only one) back to the States from the UK to fix a fault (can't remember what the original fault was). When we got it back I was stoked to plug it in and start using it. When I did - BANG! The Americans had left the voltage selector on the power supply set to 120V, rather than the UK 240V. Edit: Thinking back, I think it was actually the monitor (which was a Next one) that b…
Nice try blaming someone else.
Re: Steve Jobs and the usable computer (2011)
#10I once blew up a Next. We had sent one (our only one) back to the States from the UK to fix a fault (can't remember what the original fault was). When we got it back I was stoked to plug it in and start using it. When I did - BANG! The Americans had left the voltage selector on the power supply set to 120V, rather than the UK 240V. Edit: Thinking back, I think it was actually the monitor (which was a Next one) that b…
Nice try blaming someone else.
Well, I did blame myself somewhat (anything in my comment suggest otherwise?), but do you always inspect the voltage selector when you plug something in to the mains?