Re: Re: The mac with nine lives
Originally posted by Tequila Grandma
I think it's a bit weird that they're latching on to the codenames of the products for marketing, but I suppose it does help some people to more easily tell them apart. I've always wondered just what will happen when they reach OS 11. Will they just ditch "X" altogether, will it be "OS XI", or will they just follow OS 10.9 with OS 10.9.6.7.5 etc etc etc, so that they'll never have to give up their precious X?
I think by that time it'll be time for a new rewrite of the OS. Mac OS X is just another BSD, with an Apple UI. I think it's only a transitionary OS into whatever's next. I'm thinking of an Apple/IBM collaboration into future OS technologies that will yield an entirely new Mac OS.
You have to realize that Mac OS X was a rebranded Rhapsody (with Carbon to make porting easier). Rhapsody itself was a desparate lunge to get to a suitably good operating system by buying and improving someone else's. To understand this, let's go back to the 1990's.
The entire thing started in the 1987 when various Apple development groups drew colored index cards. The blue index card went to the group in charge of updating and improving System 7 (hence their nickname, "Blue Meanies"). The pink index card went to the group in charge of future technologies. Hence, Pink, the first Apple attempt to replace the Macintosh System and Finder (this was pre-Mac OS). The red index card went to the group working on the most futuristic concepts that were well ahead of where Apple was.
The Pink group, along with some IBM OS engineers, were spun off into a separate enterprise called Taligent. IBM at this time was heavily invested in OS/2, after taking it completely in-house from a joint IBM/Microsoft collaboration. OS/2 was out, but IBM realized the value of collaborating with what was at that time still the top maker of personal computers.
Taligent promptly crashed into the ground.
Stymied again, Apple decided that they needed the System to have a kernel. Their kernel, NuKernel, was under development. A fully backwards-compatible version of the operating system, code-named Copland, would implement NuKernel. Immediately, everyone and their grandmother got transferred to the Copland project, and started developing all sorts of great ideas for the OS and the UI, to the point where Copland bloated. Technical difficulties with implemented protected memory, preemptive multitasking, and other high-tech features led Apple to split the project in two. Copland (the immediate goal) would be a part-way implementation, while Gershwin would implement everything fully. (They also added CHRP support as a goal when cloning began.)
Meanwhile, Apple started to die. From 1994 to 1996, it quickly crashed from "world's number one computer maker" to "bleeding money". That made future development hard.
In 1996, it was clear that Copland wasn't getting anywhere. The company was dying, CEO Michael Spindler was fired and Gil Amelio took charge. As CEO, Amelio restructured Apple, leading to 100 days of absolutely no new product releases. Chief Technology Officer Ellen Hancock made the rather obvious choice of releasing Copland in stages, gradually releasing various Copland technologies into System 7 until the kernel was implemented, yielding System 8. (Gershwin was System 9.) The name change to Mac OS came as a result of cloning (so System 7.5 was followed by Mac OS 7.6).
Later, when it became clear that Copland was doomed, Apple decided to develop a version of someone else's OS. Some of the choices were NeXTStep, BeOS, and Windows NT (seriously!). NeXTStep was chosen, and NeXT was purchased by Apple. Rhapsody (the NeXT-based operating system) was announced.
At that point, NeXT CEO Steve Jobs (officially a "consultant") managed to consolidate power, replacing Amelio's executive staff with Rubenstein, Avie Tevanian, and other NeXT veterans. Ellen Hancock was transferred to an obscure position (she later resigned) while only Fred Anderson remained on board. Amelio himself was fired after Apple lost 1 billion dollars in one quarter. Steve became the de facto CEO, then the interim CEO (for several years), then the full-time CEO. (Apple was officially looking for a CEO for several years after Amelio was fired.)
Jobs changed Rhapsody into Mac OS X, restructired Apple, and saved the company.
But the point is, Mac OS X was only an emergency out Apple took because their internally developed OS wouldn't work and the company was dying anyway. Now that Apple's recovered and relatively safe, they have the stability to successfully write a new OS. I'm sure they will do that.
