OS X - History

History

OS X is based upon the Mach kernel. Certain parts from FreeBSD's and NetBSD's implementation of Unix were incorporated in NeXTSTEP, the core of Mac OS X. NeXTSTEP was the graphical, object-oriented, and UNIX-based operating system developed by Steve Jobs' company NeXT after he left Apple in 1985. While Jobs was away from Apple, Apple tried to create a "next-generation" OS through the Taligent, Copland and Gershwin projects, with little success.

Eventually, NeXT's OS, then called OPENSTEP, was selected to be the basis for Apple's next OS, and Apple purchased NeXT outright. Steve Jobs returned to Apple as interim CEO, and later became CEO, shepherding the transformation of the programmer-friendly OPENSTEP into a system that would be adopted by Apple's primary market of home users and creative professionals. The project was first known as Rhapsody and was later renamed to Mac OS X.

Mac OS X Server 1.x, was incompatible with software designed for the original Mac OS and had no support for Apple's own IEEE 1394 (FireWire) interface. Mac OS X 10.x included more backward compatibility through Classic and more functionality by introducing the Carbon API as well as FireWire support. As the operating system evolved, it moved away from the legacy Mac OS to an emphasis on new "digital lifestyle" applications such as the iLife suite, enhanced business applications (iWork), and integrated home entertainment (the Front Row media center). Each version also included modifications to the general interface, such as the brushed metal appearance added in version 10.3, the non-pinstriped titlebar appearance in version 10.4, and in 10.5 the removal of the previous brushed metal styles in favor of the "Unified" gradient window style.

In 2012, with the release of OS X Lion, the "Mac" prefix was officially dropped in all references to the operating system name within marketing materials - and with OS X Mountain Lion "Mac" was dropped in all references within the operating system itself.

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Famous quotes containing the word history:

    History is the present. That’s why every generation writes it anew. But what most people think of as history is its end product, myth.
    —E.L. (Edgar Lawrence)

    In history the great moment is, when the savage is just ceasing to be a savage, with all his hairy Pelasgic strength directed on his opening sense of beauty;—and you have Pericles and Phidias,—and not yet passed over into the Corinthian civility. Everything good in nature and in the world is in that moment of transition, when the swarthy juices still flow plentifully from nature, but their astrigency or acridity is got out by ethics and humanity.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    If man is reduced to being nothing but a character in history, he has no other choice but to subside into the sound and fury of a completely irrational history or to endow history with the form of human reason.
    Albert Camus (1913–1960)