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Rhapsody Still In Development?
- Thread starter tjwett
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Yes it is. It's the same under the surface. Rhapsody was the NeXTSTEP code with a OS 9 look and feel patched on top of it.
OS X is the greatly-enhanced NeXTSTEP codbase, with Carbon added and an aqua-look and feel (and without Display Postscript - sniff, sniff).
Doesn't mean it's not the same program.
I bet that if you were to throw the source for, say, Grab.app into filemerge with the original NeXTSTEP version, you'd see that about 80% of the source is still the same.
Given the strange PC hardware on one of those images, and the similarity of some of the widgets to that of WindowMaker for X11 (www.windowmaker.org) I'd say its an X11 window manager made to look like Rhapsody. Although, the interface itself looks like the ORIGINAL Mac OS X server (theres some talk about it on this SlashDot article that might further help us understand.
Then again, it could be a cheeseball on a PC thinking he's 31337 because he's an Apple h4x0r. Or something.
Then again, it could be a cheeseball on a PC thinking he's 31337 because he's an Apple h4x0r. Or something.
Old Rhapsody developer releases ran on both PPC and x86 hardware (they had two separate versions given to developers). It wasn't until OS X public beta, I think, that the OS was made PPC-only.
As far as I'm concerned, these shots are completely legitimate and real. Quicktime's code was just made to keep the copyright up-to-date with the computer's date and time as far as I think.
You're absolutely right. I totally forgot about that little fact.
Along the same lines, an x86 Darwin kernel exists as well - doesn't it?
Apple is rumored to keep OS X more or less up to date on x86, internally, as a safety net for the future. If so, who's to say it has the Aqua GUI? They have focussed on the lower layers. So maybe somewhere out there are recent mutant OS X versions sitting on x86 hardware. Unlikely to be what we're looking at I know--just a thought.
i was having a bit of fun. a bit of insight - the os9 (apple) programmers dont like some of the things that the osx (neXt) guys are doing:
filename extension based system
dock
no labels (getting fixed)
non-dockable folders
moving menus (app menu moves file menu)
non-mutable apple menu
metal interface
able to access system level (terminal.app, netinfo, etc)
that is what i was saying. i know it is the same code essentially bar the re-compile. go to my web page - i do obj-c. i know what your going on about.
simX said:
Maybe I can iron out some of this...
The OmniWeb 3.1 about panel was from my PowerBook G3 running Rhapsody 5.6 (aka Mac OS X Server 1.2). On both my PowerBook and my ThinkPad (running Rhapsody 5.1 and using OmniWeb 3.0) I changed the icon for OmniWeb to that of OmniWeb 4.x (icons in Rhapsody are just TIFF images).
Many of the Apple applications in Rhapsody had the changing copyright date (including the Workspace Manager).
As for the reference to Mac OS X Server in the OmniWeb about panel, it makes the same reference in the Rhapsody for Intel version and the OPENSTEP version of OmniWeb 3.x.
Apple dropped the name Rhapsody publicly in 1998 when they started working on Mac OS X. Still, beyond a little graphic dressings, the product Mac OS X Server 1.0 still believes that it is Rhapsody. The first public release was in 1999, known only as Mac OS X Server at the time (Apple only thought there was going to be one release), this was actually Rhapsody 5.3. Apple released two updates for Mac OS X Server which represented Rhapsody 5.4 and 5.5. When the Mac OS X project proved to be more time consuming than they originally thought, Apple released a new version designed to work with the new G4 processors in their PowerMacs. This was called Mac OS X Server 1.2 and corresponded to Rhapsody version 5.6. Apple made an additional update for compatibility with newer G4 systems (including the first eMacs). While this was given the product name Mac OS X Server 1.2 v3, the Rhapsody version stayed at 5.6.
Apple stopped shipping all versions of Rhapsody in 2001 months before the release of Mac OS X Server 10.0.3 (the first server based on the Mac OS X client operating system).
Only Rhapsody 5.0 (Rhapsody Developer Release) and Rhapsody 5.1 (Rhapsody Developer Release 2) had versions that could run on Intel hardware. Rhapsody 5.2 was to be the first public release of the Rhapsody OS but was pulled in favor of using Apple's resources on Mac OS X development. Rhapsody 5.3 was to be the Rhapsody Server release and was renamed Mac OS X Server to show that Apple was making progress on their new technologies.
I have since moved my PowerBook to Mac OS X v10.2, but my ThinkPad is still running it's original installation of Rhapsody 5.1 and is still in daily use. I bought a PowerMac 7500 and put a 604e/210 MHz processor in it so I could have a system that would still run Rhapsody 5.6. I own (that is, have fully paid licenses) a lot of Rhapsody software, so my perspective of Rhapsody is usually a little different from those who grab a copy off the internet and install it without any applications. Most of the software titles I use today in Mac OS X are the same as those that I use on my Rhapsody systems... though the Rhapsody versions are much earlier versions (for example I use Create 12.1 on my Mac OS X systems, while I use Create 10.0 in Rhapsody 5.6 and Create 5.1 in Rhapsody 5.1).
Here is a shot of my 7500 with OmniWeb running. I haven't changed the icons on this system.
Attachments
Way to shut up the non-believers. Nice setup you have there.RacerX said:
I'd like to have a poke around, I have a couple of old PCs and System 7 machines doing very little -- would it be considered warez-speak to ask where I could get binaries? I have a bit of a fixation with "how-it-could-have-been", I still use Acorn Risc OS 3 every once in a while - now that was an OS...
WindowMaker is meant to look like the NeXT window manager. Rapsody is built off NeXT. So it's not really surprising that they look similar. As NeXT ran fine on PC hardware (and so did Rapsody iirc) it's entirly possible to see PC hardware in the system.BrandonRP0123 said:
brap said:
Well, there has been at least one copy of Rhapsody on eBay every week for the last 20 weeks. Most have been PowerPC versions (specifically the Rhapsody 5.3 release), but there have been copies of 5.1 and 5.6 on auction from time to time also (I rounded out my collection by finding a copy of Mac OS X Server 1.2 v3, which was the only version I had been missing).
During that time the price has ranged from a low of about $10 to as high as $76, one went for $50 yesterday (and a current auction for a copy can be found here).
I've never downloaded Rhapsody from the internet (I have the original media for all the copies I use), so I have no idea where to get it that way.
The minimum requirements for the PowerPC version would be a PowerPC 604/120 based system, but faster is better. Also 64 MB of RAM (128 MB of RAM if you plan on using Blue Box).
For anyone wanting to get the most out of Rhapsody, I highly suggest the PowerPC version. One of the problems faced by the Intel version was that many developers only made PowerPC versions of their software. Between the larger amount of PowerPC software and the Mac software that could be run in Blue Box, the Intel version of Rhapsody was facing an applications barrier long before Apple shifted it's attention to Mac OS X.
Most Rhapsody applications have a very liberal demo mode, so even unlicensed apps can be very useful. The best place to start is the Peanuts software archive. It is also good to keep in mind that the software there may not have been updated (a good example is a piece of software for using scanners with Rhapsody... which has become freeware). If you come across something you like or that may be useful, a little more research can often turn up a much more refined version of the software.
A number of months ago I started a Rhapsody section of my web site to help people get started with this software. It is made completely on my Rhapsody systems using Rhapsody native applications (in response to another question I get a lot: "what can you do with Rhapsody?").
I also have a screenshot section of my site which can be found here.
On a side note, for those looking for Yellow Box for Windows, you can get the same basic software from WebObjects 4.x for Windows which has been going for around $20 - $50 on ebay every so often. Any software designed for Yellow Box for Windows can run on a Windows (NT 4.0, 2000 Pro) system with WebObjects 4 developer environment installed on it.
Vector said:
Ummm, well, one of the problems with images grabbed without the original captions is that they tend to be... misleading.
Like the OmniWeb "about panel", the Blue Box startup panel isn't how it looks by default. I made that panel from a scanned image (from one of my OPENSTEP manuals) in Photoshop and used ResEdit to replace the original startup panel (which was the generic "Mac OS 8.6" startup panel).
I have gotten e-mails asking why the Blue Box startup panel on someone's installation isn't like the one shown there.
This was the image I use to replace the startup panel, there is no way (that I know of) to actually get a screenshot of the actual Blue Box start up.
Just FYI.
