http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=72660&coll=ap
This document pertains to the NeXTSTEP operating system, which is no longer a supported product of Apple Computer.
Assuming Apple began supporting NeXTSTEP after the acquisition of NeXT (4 Feb 1997), when did they stop supporting it?
Ok, lets not assume anything... did Apple ever support NeXTSTEP or OPENSTEP? Where is the documentation? Are there Apple manuals for NeXT software somewhere?
Also... did NeXTSTEP actually run on Apple's 68k archetecture? Which versions? Which models?
Apple assumed the support responsibility for NeXT's customers when they acquired the company. As to how long they supported them, well, good luck finding the End-Of-Support announcement. (The WWW wayback machine on archive.org might have it buried somewhere.)
No, never. NeXT workstations shared some peripheral hardware standards (ADB) with Macs but otherwise were completely incompatible. Don't forget that Apple was Steve Jobs' sworn enemy during the period he was selling 68k workstations.
--Peace
right... but didn't NeXT still sell 68k software after they stopped producing hardware? oh, wait... I suppose that was for their previous hardware customers... darn. You'd think that Steve would have seen it as clever to allow NeXT to run on Apple 68k hardware, to compete with the native MacOS on their own archetecture (if Linus, Microsoft's sworn enemy, had that kind of self-defeating strategy... Linux would run... uh... no where, and we'd all be tinkering with NetBSD.)
Well... nice trip down memory lane...
btw
If anyone needs somewhere to legally keep a backup copy of their even-as-you-read-this-deteriorating optical OPENSTEP 4.2 installation and developer discs, I have plenty of room
lmao