NeXTSTEP

NeXTSTEP
Logo
Screenshot
DeveloperNeXT
Initial releaseNeXTStep 0.8
(October 1988)
Latest releaseOPENSTEP 4.2
(January 1997)
Supported platformsm68k, x86, SPARC, HPPA

NeXTSTEP,[a] later known as OPENSTEP, is a discontinued Unix-based operating system based on the Mach kernel and BSD. It was initially developed by NeXT for its proprietary computer systems and later ported to other architectures. It includes the Display PostScript and a proprietary windowing engine, the Objective-C language and runtime, an object-oriented application layer with several "kits" and developments tools. The three mentioned toolkits are the development system for all of the software on the system itself.

The last officially released version was OPENSTEP 4.2, which was released before Apple's acquisition of NeXT, however, Apple's developer releases of Rhapsody and the subsequently released Mac OS X Server 1.x were still directly based off OPENSTEP. The core technology was later incorporated in Darwin, the base layer of macOS.

List of known versions[edit | edit source]

Pre-1.x[edit | edit source]

1.x[edit | edit source]

2.x[edit | edit source]

3.x[edit | edit source]

4.x[edit | edit source]

Notes[edit | edit source]

  1. Alternatively stylized as NeXTstep, NeXTStep or NEXTSTEP