Filed under: Gaming, Steve Jobs, Apple
A decade of NeXT and Apple
In the summer of 1989, I had a really, really tough assignment: I had to evaluate the NeXT Cube for a publishing company. What a hardship to have that black box on my desk, along with that 400-dpi laser printer! I don't know how I ever managed.It's hard to believe that it was ten years ago, on 12/20/1996, that we welcomed Steve Jobs and NeXT Computers back into the Apple family. Legendary game developer John Romero remembers, and he's got a fascinating post up about the role of NeXT in bringing his babies to market.
According to Romero, the original development environment for both Doom and Quake was NeXTSTEP; in fact, the first four years of id Software's efforts were on NeXT. He fondly remembers the days of simultaneously building for three different architectures, and side-by-side map editing across the LAN with cofounder John Carmack.
Romero ends his post by noting that he spent the 15 years prior to 1996 working on computers built by Steve Jobs, and that "maybe someday I'll get one of those kickass iMacs." Cue the salivary glands of Mac gamers everywhere...
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Fazal Majid said 11:12AM on 12-26-2006
Don't forget that Tim Berners-Lee invented the World-Wide-Web on a NeXT.
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Utterer said 8:27PM on 12-27-2006
Why would my salivary glands go off? Romero hasn't been a part of a hit since Quake.
You mean it? We can get that long awaited Daikatana port???
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Nitewing 98 said 3:46AM on 12-27-2006
..and Steve Jobs invented Mac OS X on the NeXt...essentially Mac OS X _IS_ NeXtStep...
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Werner Kempler said 1:51PM on 12-26-2006
I was a campus consultant for NeXT in those years. I remember trying to convince people how awesome Object Oriented technology was, and people just laughed - I was a 'religious nut'. Now we have java, c# (c++ need not apply - it's a different and unwieldy kind of beast) and others. I was sad to see them fail, but then Apple bought them for something like 400 million. Good idea, Apple. Mac OS-X IS NextStep.
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tv online said 4:46PM on 12-26-2006
that would have been a big mess!
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Kristopher Browne said 12:53PM on 12-27-2006
I know whatyou mean... I can't wait for OpenStep 6.0 this spring!
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tv online said 1:56PM on 1-21-2007
If only romero had something good to create, and daiktana what a complete and miserable failure.
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