by Steven Noble from the February 1997 issue of Australian MacUser magazine Apple computer has bought NeXT Software, and is going to use that company’s high-perfor­mance operating system (OS) NeXTstep as the basis of the next major revision of the Mac OS - code-named Rhapsody. This is good news, because NeXTstep has many of the fea­tures that bring speed, stability and strength to next-generation operating systems, including protected memory, preemptive multitasking, and a modern vir­tual memory system.

by Howard Baldwin RUNS BEOS ON INTEL AS NEW APPS ARE UNVEILED from the November 1997 issue of MacWorld magazine As Apple celebrates strong sales of Mac OS 8, Be (650/462-4100, www.be.com), developer of one of the oter operating systems for PowerPC CPUs, continues to bop along with new releases of its software. In July, the company shipped its BeOS Preview Release for PowerPC, followed by an update that adds AppleTalk printing and improves video drivers and IDE support.

by David Morgenstern from the February 1997 issue of Australian MacUser magazine Apple this year hopes to put an extra shine on its Macintosh product lines with Halo, a strategy that will aim models at specific market segments. Sources said the company will offer several high-performance configurations with limited availability. The Halo systems will reportedly offer the highest-­speed single or multiple processors available and will provide unique features via bundled PCI cards.

by John Poultney from the February 1997 issue of Australian MacUser magazine Iomega is spinning a new scheme for portable storage: 20MB floppy disks roughly half the size of business cards. The company has shown prototypes at Comdex/Fall in Las Vegas. The new N*hand disks will measure 48mm square and will incorporate floating read-write heads, much like Iomega’s Zip drives. Positioning the products as OEM devices for portable electronics, Iomega said it envisions N*hand competing with flash­-memory PC cards, such as those used in digital cameras.

by Clifford Colby with Stephen Howard & Kelly Ryer from the February 1997 issue of Australian MacUser magazine On 20 December 1996 Apple announced it was buying NeXT Software for $US400 million and would use NeXTstep - NeXT’s Unix-based operating system - as the underpinnings of its future operating system. The announcement ends all speculation that Apple might acquire Be for the same purpose. According to Ellen Hancock, Apple’s chief technical officer, the company is commit­ted to releasing a beta version of the next-generation OS to select user sites and developers by the end of 1997.

by Henry Bortman and Jeff Pittelkau from the February 1997 issue of Australian MacUser magazine The Mac commnunity has been electrified by the announce1nent that Apple’s next OS will be based on NeXTstep technologies. But, if this hybrid OS does not meet our expectations, Power Mac users will soon be able to use a third-party alternative: a strategy we dub ‘Plan Be .’ Apple has its work cut out for itself.

by Richard Foxworthy, Editor from the February 1997 issue of Australian MacUser magazine By now, most readers will have heard the news - Gil Amelio and the crew at Apple Computer spent their Christmas break writing large cheques - totalling $US400 million - to acquire NeXT Software, the company launched by original Apple co-founder Steve Jobs after losing a 1985 power struggle with then Apple CEO John Sculley. In a twist that will delight many and horrify some, Steve Jobs himself - the single person most responsible for the Macintosh - is part of the deal.