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mactropolis · Feb 4, 2001, 11:18 PM

will/is it possible to take an out of the box OS X Server 1.X/OPENSTEP *.app application and open it on OS X?

would it be very hard do develop some sort of interpreter to allow this to happen?

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Mac OS 10: not just a new OS, but a new concept!

gregomni · Feb 4, 2001, 11:47 PM

Some out-of-the-box OS X Server apps will run unmodified on OS X, if they don't directly use display postscript. (Which is the major Cocoa change between the two - there are plenty more additions in OS X over server, but not many removals or changes.) This means apps which use standard views (textfields, buttons, etc) will probably work, but apps which do a bunch of custom drawing probably won't.

OpenStep apps, on the other hand, won't run at all. Mostly because there was never a version of OpenStep for PowerPC (unless you count OS X Server 1.0....) To get them running you'd need an instruction set emulator like Virtual PC.

mactropolis · Feb 5, 2001, 01:06 AM

Cocoa = OpenStep API, right?

and the OpenStep API was highly portable, thus it ran on Solaris/WinNT/OPENSTEP? so how come Cocoa/OpenStep apps don't just run on OS X?

or perhaps a better question is what did NeXT have to do to get the OpenStep applications running on Solaris/NT? In other words, could a user just download a single application and have it execute on a Solaris/NT/OPENSTEP without modifications? or were their still 3 separate downloads for each platform?

Or did the user have to first install some 'compatibility layer' on Solaris/NT in order for it to then run OpenStep apps? and was that 'compatibility layer' basically a port of DisplayPostScript to the respective platforms?

BTW, if i understand it correct DisplayPostScript was the imaging system on OPENSTEP (ala X11 on UNIX). How does it compare to OS X's Quartz? Why didn't Apple just use DPS as the imaging layer for OS X. I read it was fast.

i'm confused:-)

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Mac OS 10: not just a new OS, but a new concept!

Angus_D · Feb 5, 2001, 12:45 PM

OS X Server/OpenStep/NeXTStep apps will require minor modifications to run on OS X. There have been lots of changes to Cocoa as the development has progressed. Hell, some apps that ran on DP3 were broken on DP4, and were broken from DP4 to the Public Beta.

So basically I'm pretty sure they won't 90% of the time, I'm not even sure if they ever would. An interpreter would be pretty pointless, since it would be much less work to just rework the apps to run on OS X.

Yellow Box for Windows was a compatibility layer that enabled Yellow Box and Objective C apps to run on Windows (NT?). I don't know how complex it was.

There are reasons for why Apple is using Quartz (PDF-based) as the imaging system for OS X instead of DPS, I think it is related to its recognition as a standard, and it's probably more advanced. It might even be faster, but I'm not sure.

crazyjohnson · Feb 13, 2001, 04:16 PM

Originally posted by Angus_D:
OS X Server/OpenStep/NeXTStep apps will require minor modifications to run on OS X. There have been lots of changes to Cocoa as the development has progressed. Hell, some apps that ran on DP3 were broken on DP4, and were broken from DP4 to the Public Beta.

So basically I'm pretty sure they won't 90% of the time, I'm not even sure if they ever would. An interpreter would be pretty pointless, since it would be much less work to just rework the apps to run on OS X.

Yellow Box for Windows was a compatibility layer that enabled Yellow Box and Objective C apps to run on Windows (NT?). I don't know how complex it was.

There are reasons for why Apple is using Quartz (PDF-based) as the imaging system for OS X instead of DPS, I think it is related to its recognition as a standard, and it's probably more advanced. It might even be faster, but I'm not sure.

And the weird thing is, most NeXTStep developers are not porting to OS X. The people that made Write Up have to plans of releasing their awesome software for OS X. Its a shame! A few other programs that we all loved on NeXTStep are not going to be ported . . .

MadBrowser · Feb 14, 2001, 12:46 AM

NeXT Fat binaries allowed one executable to run on NeXTSTEP, Solaris and NT but you have to specifically target each platform at build time, meaning that since OS X/PowerPC wasn't available, they won't run without at least recompilation, but realistically a lot of code changes since the framework has evolved quite a bit and Apple never promised backwards compatibility with OPENSTEP/NeXTSTEP

crazyjohnson · Feb 14, 2001, 10:59 AM

Yes . . but a rewrite would not be that hard . . .we need apps!

eyadams · Feb 14, 2001, 12:15 PM

"There are reasons for why Apple is using Quartz (PDF-based) as the imaging system for OS X instead of DPS, I think it is related to its recognition as a standard, and it's probably more advanced. It might even be faster, but I'm not sure."

One big reason is cost. Display Postscript had a licensing fee that had to be paid to Adobe; PDF is an open standard with no licensing fee.