[X4U] OS History (was: "Backwards Compatibility")

[Zane H. Healy]

>At 12:05 -0400 6/22/08, Jon wrote:
>On Jun 21, 2008,  "Zane H. Healy" 
><<mailto:healyzh at aracnet.com>healyzh at aracnet.com> wrote:
>
>Interesting how Apple has taken an OS that started out on the 68030,
>had x86, Sparc, and PA-RISC support added for V3.1, then supported
>all three through V4.2, at which point they removed 68k, Sparc and
>PA-RISC support to add in PPC support.
>
>I really would appreciate it if you had a citation for this, especially
>x86 support.
>
>I assume when you talk about support, you mean the ability to run
>on computers with those chips (x86, Sparc, and PA-RISC). Never
>happened until Boot Camp!
>
>
>I think he's talking about the Next OS rather than Mac OS  or Mac OS neXt.
>
>But it is said that all versions of the Mac classic OS were compiled 
>for the X86 because Apple wanted Motorola to know there was an 
>option. I don't think any binaries ever left Cupertino.

I guess I was being a little to subtle.  Yes, I was talking about 
NeXTStep, after all in spite of what the reality distortion field 
might have you believe, we're running NeXTStep, not the classic Mac 
OS.  Nothing here has anything to do with emulation.  Not a good 
citation, but here is a time-line of sorts.  It seems a bit ragged in 
the 4.x timeframe, so take the dates with grain of salt. 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeXTSTEP

A Sparc 5 can run OPENSTEP, and that is about it for the Sparc.  I'm 
not sure what HP hardware is needed, I think it's one or two models 
of the HP 9000.  I've been meaning for years to try and get OPENSTEP 
4.2 up and running on one of my Sparc 5's.  My mind is a bit foggy 
here, but I think there were also libraries which would let you run 
OPENSTEP applications on Solaris and MS Windows.  Perhaps someone 
else remembers something on this.

Jon, at least the first 3 developers releases of Mac OS X (aka 
Rhapsody) ran on Intel hardware, not PPC.  "Prelude to Rhapsody" was 
nothing more than OPENSTEP 4.2 (at the time a copy cost several 
thousand, so getting a free copy was very cool).  The next 2 or three 
releases at least ran on Intel hardware and actually had the classic 
Mac interface.  It was very cool to see something like that booting 
on a Pentium 133Mhz system that had been thrown together out of parts 
bought from the local PC chop shop.

Doug,
I'm not sure how true it is that all versions of the classic OS ran 
on x86.  I have my doubts, and this is the first time I've heard of 
such a rumor.  There was a project in the (early 90's IIRC) to port, 
I believe, System 7 to Intel, but that was killed before I bought my 
first Mac (I ran PC's for years prior to '95).  I am confident that 
all versions of Mac OS X have run on x86 hardware, it doesn't make 
sense that Apple would have removed that capability, besides look at 
how quickly they brought out the Intel Mac's.

Another interesting tidbit of OS history would be the CHRP PPC's that 
IBM and Apple were working on in the '95 timeframe.  Had the idea 
worked out, they'd have run OS/2, AIX, System 7 (Mac OS), and maybe 
others all at the same time.  I actually saw IBM demo a computer 
running both OS/2 and AIX at the same time around '93 at a government 
trade show in DC.  Now that was *SERIOUSLY* cool!  Of course now with 
all the x86 virtualization stuff going on, we're finally reaching the 
point where this kind of thing actually is being done.  Of course IBM 
did this decades ago on their mainframes.

What can I say, Operating Systems have been a hobby of mine for 
YEARS, I find them to be more fun that computer games.

Zane


-- 
| Zane H. Healy                    | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh at aracnet.com (primary)    | OpenVMS Enthusiast         |
| MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet)           | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
|     Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing,    |
|          PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum.         |
|                http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/               |