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points by felixding 4 days ago | 0 comments
I've always liked NeXTSTEP's distinctive user interface. I wish we had a version that ran on modern hardware, similar to what https://github.com/trunkmaster/nextspace is trying to achieve.

Also, Steve Jobs in Exile, the most recent book about NeXT, is highly recommended.

[–] elcritch 3 days ago
I've been working on an attempt at a modern OpenStep/Cocoa inspired GUI called Merenda [1], but built with modern GPU based stack. The original theme was an Aqua clone but without using any images for the buttons! I used the NextSTEP OpenStep specification as part of the original specs. The workspace ideas were fascinating.

The GUI library aspect is progressing well, but getting a desktop environment going is challenging even with AI. Still I want to capture things like the document workspaces and such. Lately Ive been tempted with making a postscript like display server based on GPU accelerated vector primitives.

1: https://github.com/elcritch/merenda

[–] mmargerum 3 days ago
How did they get it to run well on the iPhone 2 I wonder if it was that slow
[–] elcritch 3 days ago
From what I've read careful programming. They also used images for buttons and other widgets. Pre-canned images look great but are also fixed in size, shape.

One of my goals with Merenda is to make a NextStep/Cocoa like GUI system but with a richer primitives - things like resizing corners dynamically with the shadows or adjusting gloss positions on skeuomorphic buttons.

Things web pages can do nowadays but in a NextStep like framework with rich MVC. Also with message passing but in Nim a more strongly typed language than ObjC.

An alternative evolution of Cocoa instead of SwiftUI.

[–] OhMeadhbh 4 days ago
Just get a modern Mac and remove half the RAM. That should get you the same experience. The visual design was first class, but I remember when I went from NeXTStep to NEWS to X11 and was very relieved to not have to have my mouse spin for minutes at a time.
[–] WillAdams 3 days ago
One will still be missing:

- pop-up/vertical main menu

- PANTONE colour library

- Display PostScript

I actually used similar machines running NeXT/OPENSTEP, Mac OS, and Windows shortly after graduation and the performance was smoother and more consistent in NeXTstep 3.3, though I will admit OPENSTEP 4.2 felt just a tad more sluggish, but it was far and away the more useful and capable machine, even when running the same software (e.g., Altsys Virtuoso vice Aldus Freehand, or FrameMaker or WordPerfect).

Probably helped that the Cube had 52MB RAM, the Mac 8MB, and the Windows 12MB.

[–] OhMeadhbh 2 days ago
Talking about DPS... People will tell you that the Quartz/PDF rendering engine is just the same as DPS, but they're wrong. NEWS was... delightful. It was close enough to DPS as to make little difference, but running on SPARC processor. I just looked at some NeWS screen-shots and they look much worse than I remember. Greyscale NeXTStep on the mono monitor was a tough act to follow. Even the colour NeXTStations weren't as sharp.
[–] WillAdams 1 day ago
It also enabled nxhosting, which was magical --- allowed one to do remote control over dial-up (so long as one didn't manipulate too large a pixel image).

I really wish Display GhostScript had gotten traction w/ the GNUstep folks.

On comp.sys.next.advocacy Mike Paquette talked about how he might not have stayed at Apple after the NeXT acquisition if he'd realized that that first decade was going to be a re-tread of his first decade at NeXT (writing Quartz vice writing Display PostScript) which I think really understates how important that code is.

[–] kjs3 1 day ago
I remember NeWS being significantly slower than NeXTStep (and on a faster processor). X11 could be slow, too (VAXStation QVSS, anyone?), but flew on decent hardware. The tragedy is that with 5+ orders of magnitude more processor, 3+ orders of magnitude more memory and a GPU, I still think "crap this is laggy".
[–] tonyedgecombe 3 days ago
To some extent everything was like that unless you had bleeding edge hardware. Running an up to date version of Windows was endlessly frustrating until the Core 2 Duo came along.
[–] jtfrench 3 days ago
That brought me back! The Intel Core 2 Duo was the “Apple Silicon” moment before Apple Silicon.
[–] endemic 2 days ago
I have fond memories of running https://www.windowmaker.org/ back in the 90s.
[–] ithkuil 4 days ago
I have a toy recreating the visuals: https://github.com/mkmik/nextstop

(It's vobecoded in the original sense of the word)

[–] segmondy 3 days ago
You can vibe up your own distinctive user interface today! it's 2026.
[–] HoldOnAMinute 3 days ago
It looks so similar to Motif to me