Chapter 1. Origins of Mac OS X

"Most ideas come from previous ideas."

Alan Curtis Kay

The Mac OS X operating system represents a rather successful coming together of paradigms, ideologies, and technologies that have often resisted each other in the past. A good example is the cordial relationship that exists between the command-line and graphical interfaces in Mac OS X. The system is a result of the trials and tribulations of Apple and NeXT, as well as their user and developer communities. Mac OS X exemplifies how a capable system can result from the direct or indirect efforts of corporations, academic and research communities, the Open Source and Free Software movements, and, of course, individuals.

Apple has been around since 1976, and many accounts of its history have been told. If the story of Apple as a company is fascinating, so is the technical history of Apple's operating systems. In this chapter,^[1] we will trace the history of Mac OS X, discussing several technologies whose confluence eventually led to the modern-day Apple operating system.

^[1] This book's accompanying web site (www.osxbook.com) provides a more detailed technical history of all of Apple's operating systems.