A Brief History of Time, acc. to Steven P. Jobs

• 1975

  • Steve Jobs co-founds Apple Computer

• 1985

  • Steve Jobs leaves Apple, and founds NeXT Computer

    • Avadis ("Avie") Tevanian, co-developer of Mach, leads software engineering efforts for NeXT

    • Jon Rubinstein leads NeXT hardware development

• 1988

  • NextStep 0.8

  • NeXT Computer (story)

    • Black magnesium cube

    • Motorola 68030

    • Magneto-optical drive, no hard drive or floppy drive

    • 2-bit greyscale

    • ~$10,000

• 1989

  • NextStep 1.0

• 1990

  • NeXTstep 2.0

  • second-generation NeXT hardware

    • NeXT Cube

    • NeXTstation

    • Motorola 25-MHz 68040

    • hard drives and floppy drives

    • starting at under $5000

• 1991

  • NeXTstep 2.1

  • color systems

• 1992

  • NeXTstep 2.2, NeXTSTEP 3.0

  • Turbo systems: 33-MHz '040; ADB systems

  • NeXT RISC Workstation (NRW) in development

    • multiprocessor, based on PowerPC 601

• 1993

  • Black Wednesday

    • end of NeXT hardware

  • NEXTSTEP 3.1, 3.2

  • Intel x86 support

  • Portable Distributed Objects (in cooperation with HP)

• 1994

  • NEXTSTEP 3.3 (screenshot)

  • HP PA-RISC

  • OpenStep API specification (in cooperation with Sun)

  • GNUstep(?)

  • Enterprise Objects Framework (EOF), NEXTIME

• 1995

  • OPENSTEP/Mach 4.0, 4.1(?)

  • Sun SPARC support

  • OpenStep/Solaris

  • OPENSTEP Enterprise for Windows NT

  • WebObjects(?)

• 1996

  • OPENSTEP/Mach 4.2

  • NeXT Software purchased by Apple Computer (story)

• 1997

  • Steve Jobs made "interim" CEO of Apple

    • Avie Tevanian leads software engineering

    • Jon Rubinstein leads hardware development

  • Rhapsody DR1

    • support for PowerPC and Intel

• 1998

  • Rhapsody DR2

• 1999

  • Mac OS X Server 1.0

    • support for PowerPC only; specifically most G3 Macs, some pre-G3 PCI Macs

    • peripheral hardware support still limited: no serial or Firewire, very limited USB

  • Darwin

    • open-source release of underlying technologies

  • Mac OS X DP1, DP2

• 2000

  • Aqua demonstrated

  • Mac OS X DP3, DP4

  • Mac OS X Public Beta

• 2001

  • Mac OS X (March 24)

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Copyright © 1999-2001 Leon Towns-von Stauber. All rights reserved.