[XCSSA] NextStep

[xcssa@xcssa.org]

On 8/26/05, xcssa-admin@xcssa.org <xcssa-admin@xcssa.org> wrote:
> Hey guys/gals, I'm going over the computers that were donated and one
> Digital Ventuis GL system boots the NextStep MACH Operating System.
> I've never heard of this. The boot section seems a LOT like *nix. I'm
> curious if anybody has worked with this before.

I haven't worked with it, but I've heard of it.  NeXT computers wrote
a BSD-like "personality" for MACH, which is a microkernel.  The basic
idea was to write an OS on top of a microkernel so that they didn't
have to muck with the low-level (driver) details quite so much.  They
then spent a fair amount of time on their window manager, NeXTStep (on
which openstep and afterstep are based), creating things like tear-off
menus.

One cool part was that the display used "display postscript", and when
they later made a printer it used the postscript engine in the monitor
to render the [regular] postscript as a raster image.

Incidentally, I still think microkernels were the way to go... yes,
macrokernels run faster, but some people want security, extensibility,
and stability, not always "crap in a hurry".  The difference really is
apparent when trying to extend the OS, for example when developing an
encrypting file system layer (which really shouldn't need direct
access to hardware, the ability to crash or deadlock the kernel, etc.
etc.)

Anyone ever play with plan 9 or inferno?  Always wanted to try those out.
-- 
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