20 years ago, Apple bought NeXT • Hacker News Board

Re: 20 years ago, Apple bought NeXT

#201

Post by 72deluxe » Wed, Dec 21, 2016, 10:27 AM UTC

code_duck wrote: post #138

nine_k wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I happily used an openstep-inspired (or directly derived?) desktop environment named WindowMaker in Linux somewhere around 1999. I also remember LiteStep for Windows being available around that time. So there were attempts at using that approach on other platforms. (Funnily, my current Xfce setup still visually resembles my OpenStep-like setup of that time.)

I used Window Maker for years - still have it installed as the desktop of choice on older machines. It's fast, simple, reliable and direct.

Yes and it makes for a great UI on a VNC server on a Raspberry Pi running as a SSH box, for example. Lightweight.

Re: 20 years ago, Apple bought NeXT

#202

Post by 3chelon » Wed, Dec 21, 2016, 10:28 AM UTC

PacketPaul wrote: post #167

pfarnsworth wrote: post #21

I was applying for jobs back in 1997, and during that time they had a huge career fair called the Brass Ring fair. Employers from around Silicon Valley would have booths and hire people on the spot. I distinctly remember Apple's booth being completely barren, they were practically dead to most engineers. How the tables have turned since then. The big question is, Apple's path appears to be following the path after St…

It will. No company remains dominant forever.

Sad but true. It's a cyclical world.

Re: 20 years ago, Apple bought NeXT

#203

Post by 72deluxe » Wed, Dec 21, 2016, 10:28 AM UTC

locusm wrote: post #91

msimpson wrote: post #38

"I’d argue that this is probably the single most important tech acquisition of all time." However, it was not Apple's first choice. They first attempted to acquire Be Inc. (BeOS) but Jean-Louis Gassée held out for $275 million and lost the deal in a surprise move when Apple, instead, bought NeXT.

Heh, threw out my last BeOS floppies yesterday in a cleanup.

Nooooo! BeOS was really great. If only the wxWidgets port for it continued and we'd have easy cross platform software for it.

I see the package manager addition to Haiku and wonder if this was what was really intended for BeOS - it always struck me that it was more akin to the Mac and DMGs on there instead of a Linux-style package system.

Re: 20 years ago, Apple bought NeXT

#204

Post by 72deluxe » Wed, Dec 21, 2016, 10:29 AM UTC

LordKano wrote: post #154

msimpson wrote: post #38

"I’d argue that this is probably the single most important tech acquisition of all time." However, it was not Apple's first choice. They first attempted to acquire Be Inc. (BeOS) but Jean-Louis Gassée held out for $275 million and lost the deal in a surprise move when Apple, instead, bought NeXT.

I knew at the tine that Gassee was making a huge mistake. Be had some fantastic tech but it wasn't otherworldly. A MacOS based on Be would have been amazing, at the time. X ended up being a better way to go, the other changed made when Jobs came back turned me off of Apple's products but I can appreciate the overall improvements.

But Be was really really fast and the demos showed its power. It had a tidy C++ API for application development as I remember?

Re: 20 years ago, Apple bought NeXT

#205

Post by 72deluxe » Wed, Dec 21, 2016, 10:36 AM UTC

hota_mazi wrote: post #101

> What came out of this deal not only saved Apple and the Mac, Er... interesting revisionism, here. That acquisition didn't do much to save Apple from the financial hole it had dug for itself. Bill Gates is really what saved Apple back then.

I enjoy watching the later videos on YouTube where Steve has a Bill Gates video and announces that Internet Explorer will be the default browser on MacOS.

The disbelief in the room is stunning, including the shouts of "NO!!!!!!". Very amusing today, perhaps not then.

Re: 20 years ago, Apple bought NeXT

#206

Post by gruturo » Wed, Dec 21, 2016, 10:37 AM UTC

jcims wrote: post #161

rootbear wrote: post #25

I was working at Pixar at the time and a couple of us went out to lunch when the news broke to figure out What It All Meant. We passed Steve's office on the way out and one of our party, who had worked with him since early Apple days, congratulated him. The big question was whether they would keep the Unix plumbing visible and useful, or would it be buried under some API layer of no use to us Unix graybeards. Fortuna…

Didn't Steve have an email that was in your mailbox by default when you got a new account on a NeXT machine? It had some embedded images and an audio file of him talking. Anyway, I sent whoever it was, pretty sure Steve, an email with read receipt enabled and he bitched me out for invading his privacy. This was ~93 or so.

Honestly I find read receipt requests to be in very poor taste, if not a sign of outright hostility, and no, having them by default is not an acceptable excuse, no more than forgetting capslock on would.

Re: 20 years ago, Apple bought NeXT

#207

Post by pmelendez » Wed, Dec 21, 2016, 10:45 AM UTC

jacobush wrote: post #185

jcims wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't Steve have an email that was in your mailbox by default when you got a new account on a NeXT machine? It had some embedded images and an audio file of him talking. Anyway, I sent whoever it was, pretty sure Steve, an email with read receipt enabled and he bitched me out for invading his privacy. This was ~93 or so.

You see, HIS privacy is (was) very important to HIM

Funny, that is the same guy that in his youth cold called a CEO asking for free samples and he got it.

Re: 20 years ago, Apple bought NeXT

#208

Post by pilsetnieks » Wed, Dec 21, 2016, 11:03 AM UTC

cha-cho wrote: post #198

jcims wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't Steve have an email that was in your mailbox by default when you got a new account on a NeXT machine? It had some embedded images and an audio file of him talking. Anyway, I sent whoever it was, pretty sure Steve, an email with read receipt enabled and he bitched me out for invading his privacy. This was ~93 or so.

I sent him an email from a NeXTStep configured PC in around 1996/97/98 stating I had some window GUI ideas that would give him a distinct advantage over Windows. As I recall, his reply was terse, along the lines of: ~~~ What are they? sj ~~~ I was doubtful it was actually the man himself responding. I thought it was some email administrator trying to steal my ideas (I was 20yrs younger then). I proceeded cautiously a…

So you were okay with Steve Jobs personally stealing your ideas but not with his assistant doing so?

Re: 20 years ago, Apple bought NeXT

#209

Post by osullivj » Wed, Dec 21, 2016, 11:14 AM UTC

lobster_johnson wrote: post #116

pvg wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The totality of Nextstep (kernel, os, obj-c runtime/component model, frameworks, gui layer, tooling, expert teams who built and maintained these things, etc, etc) was much greater than Palm or QNX, let alone something yet unbuilt 'based on Linux'.

Speaking of NeXT, I've yet to read a good history that explains how that came together. There's so much innovation there -- the NeXTStep kits (which became Cocoa, among other things), Objective-C, the fact that they used a Unix kernel. It was a lot of great ideas, but I don't think I have heard about who designed it. It's interesting to note, for example, that NeXT didn't invent Objective-C; they licensed it from the…

Brad Cox was a visionary, and his Planning the Software Industrial Revolution paper [1] from 1990 stands up well today. Especially worth referencing to any developer taking a dogmatic stance on static vs dynamic binding.

[1] http://virtualschool.edu/cox/pub/PSIR/

Re: 20 years ago, Apple bought NeXT

#210

Post by mmjaa » Wed, Dec 21, 2016, 11:19 AM UTC

alkonaut wrote: post #183

acchow wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linux = "Linux Is Not UniX" It's in the name.

I never heard that one before. I thought Linux was just a conflation of "Linus" and "Unix", while GNU was a recursive abbreviation of "GNU is Not Unix".

Linux means "Linus's Unix" and the name came from the sysadmin at funet.fi who had to give the kernel a home subdirectory when Linus asked him to host the kernel on an FTP site ..