NeXTSTEP, from NeXT Computers headed by Steve Jobs, is a Unix based operating system designed to run on m68K NeXT workstations. It later became the basis for OS X, with APIs and concepts preserved today.
This OS offered many unique things, in addition to the unique hardware it originally ran on. It had Interface Builder, a tool to create UIs with little to no code. To make building the UIs and code easier, it had robust database support to bind data with. Objective-C was the preferred programming language, a hybrid of C and Smalltalk. Underneath was a Mach microkernel and a 4.2BSD subsystem.
NeXTSTEP 3.x saw many major changes. 3.0 is only for NeXT 68k hardware, but 3.1, 3.2, and 3.3 also support Intel 32-bit x86 hardware. NeXTSTEP 3.3 was the final release under the NeXTSTEP name, and the most popular on NeXT hardware.
Note: The 3.x CDs are in BSD Unix format rather than standard ISO. Many CD utilities will not directly open these images, requiring you to write them as "raw" data.
Download name | Version | Language | Architecture | File size | Downloads |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
NeXT NEXTSTEP 3.1 (CD) [M68K][x86] | 3.1 | English | 230MB | 0 | |
NeXT NEXTSTEP 3.3 (CD) [M68K][x86] | 3.3 | English | 154.51MB | 6 | |
NeXT NeXTSTEP 3.2 (CD) [M68K][x86] | 3.2 | English | 171.02MB | 3 | |
NeXT NeXTSTEP 3.3.4.17 [Sun SPARC, HP PARISC] | 3.3.4.17 for Sparc and PARISC | English | 155.64MB | 0 | |
NextStep Nebula 1.0 Intel (August 1993) (ISO) | Nebula 1.0 Intel | English | 144.32MB | 1 | |
Nextstep 3.0 HD Image With Previous | 3.0 | English | 25.5MB | 1 | |
Nextstep 3.1 HD Image With Previous | 3.1 | English | 38.45MB | 0 | |
Nextstep 3.2 HD Image With Previous | 3.2 | English | 39.16MB | 0 | |
Nextstep 3.3 HD Image With Previous | 3.3 | English | 60.51MB | 2 |