At the end of the 80s and throughout the 90s, Apple experienced one of the most intense and chaotic stages in its history. Far from the image of the solid and innovative company that we have today, the apple of that time was a home of ideas, but also of doubts. It was the time when Steve Jobs was outside the company (1985-1997) and managers, fearing to be left behind, have desperately sought to maintain the identity that made the Mac unique.
Macintosh's initial success had been diluted while Microsoft and Windows have gained giant's length. For many inside Apple, the largest nightmare was to end up being “another window”, ” lose the essence that differentiated them. Thus, Apple decided to play everything by completely reinventing its operating system. And it was not one, but twice. First of all with pink, such a secret and advanced project that seemed to be a science fiction. And then with Copand, the direct response to the threat of Windows 95 and the promise to return Apple to the center of innovation.
Pink: the first big jump (and stumbling)
In 1988, the original Mac has already shown its limits. He had no real multitasking or memory protection, and the engineers were tired of patches on patches. A group known as “Gang of Five” has raised an ultimatum: or let them create a new operating system from zero, or they left. Thus, Pink was born, the secret project that many in apples saw how the salvation of Macintosh.
The name of Pink emerged almost by accident, during a brainstorming session during which the most revolutionary ideas were written on pink cards (pink cards). The team, convinced that they were facing something big, moved to a warehouse Apart from the apple campus to work without interference. Clearness was such that no one outside the group could see the code or prove the system, which led to situations as surreal as that, while Pink has developed its own graphic system, another Apple team did the same with Quickdraw GX, without knowing the other.
Pink bet on a Architecture completely oriented object, multitaskingProtected memory and an advanced graphical interface, with 3D icons and non -rectangular windows. Protected memory was a huge jump: each program had its own memory space, isolated from others. Thus, if a request failed, the rest was still working without being affected. In the old systems, a failure could hang the entire computer. With protected memory, each application was by way.
The development was however much slower than expected. The model reached more than 100 people, but the system was still unstable and barely functional. Internal tensions and lack of results have prompted several key members to leave the ship. Finally, in 1992 Apple decided to outsource the project and, in collaboration with IBMPink has become a bulct. The objective was to create a multiplatform operating system, but after years of development, Taligent was canceled in 1998 with practically no impact on the market.
While journalist Michael S. Malone collected in his infinite book Loop (1999), Pink was “a beautiful idea: a radically oriented operating system to the object that I was going to make Mac seem obsolete. But the project increased in size and ambition until it becomes impossible to finish. “A feeling that many project engineers, like Donn Denman, also shared at the time. For years, the joke was repeated in Apple rooms:” When will Pink come out? Within two years!
Copand: the great hope of the 90s
After Pink's fiasco, Apple needed an urgent response to Windows 95. Thus, Copand was born in 1994, in order to be Mac OS 8 which would revolutionize personal IT. The name, according to the Apple tradition to baptize projects with names of composers (In this case, Aaron Copland), it was a declaration of intentions. Even the following system, which never came to see the light, was going to be called Gershwin.
Copland bet on a microkernel -based architecture (Nukernel), real multitasking, protected memory and an interface called Platinum, with Customizable songs and windows with eyelashes. The system authorized, for example, to copy several files at the same time, use multi-user accounts and search for real-time files from the toolbar. Certain functions, such as the “spring loaded” folders (which opened alone during the trail of the files), years were ahead of their time and then inspired the characteristics of MacOS.
Apple has put all the meat on the grill: More than 500 engineers and 250 million dollars per yearIn addition to an internal campaign that included shirts and cups to motivate equipment. Beta versions have even been distributed to developers, whose albums are now coveted by collectors of vintage software.
But development was chaos. Each team wanted to add their own star function and the project developed without control. The result: Delays, unstable beta versions and unwarmed promises. In 1996, with Apple losing hundreds of millions and without final product, management decided to cancel Copand. Some ideas have been recycled in Mac OS 8 and 9, but the big jump has never happened.
Gil Amelio, CEO of Apple in 1996, summed it up for years later with a very graphic sentence in his own book: “Copland became uncontrollable. It was like trying to build an airplane by flying.”
Certain Copand ideas, such as his integrated search engine, were so advanced that Apple reused its concept of years later to patent projectorsAdvanced research that would arrive much later in MacOS. And it is that Pink and Copland did not lack innovation, but rather the opposite: they tried to cover so much that it was impossible to assimilate everything in a single version.
Unexpected turn: look outside and really start from scratch
After two unsuccessful attempts to reinvent its operating system, Apple made a radical decision: stop trying internally and buy the technology it needed. In December 1996, then, Steve Jobs acquiredFor $ 429 million. NextSTEP, its operating system based in Unix, has become the basis of what we know today under the name of MacOS. And with the purchase, the jobs returned to Apple, changing the company's course forever.
The new operating system, first called Rhapsody then Mac OS X (launched in 2001), inherited the robustness of Nextstep and added compatibility with conventional Mac applications. Thus, so, so, Apple finally obtained a modern and stable systemMultitage, of course … and very different from Windows. From this moment, the evolution of MacOS and the return of Steve Jobs marked the start of the apple that we know today, with products and operating systems that are already part of our life.
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