View Source: Copland - Waikato Linux Users Group

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Around 1993/1994 [Apple] decided that they needed a more modern version of [MacOS]. They announced that they were starting work on two new [OperatingSystem]s, Copland which would be released in 1996 as MacOS 8 and [Gershwin] estimated to come out in 1998 as MacOS 9.

The [Macintosh] hardware market at the time was relatively unstable with [Apple] licencing [MacOS] to third parties and [RAM] prices were fluctuating wildy and as such the goals of Copland changed a number of times during development. The main feature of Copland was the !NuKernel. This was to add PreemptiveMultitasking, MemoryProtection, SymmetricMultiProcessing and substantially improved VirtualMemory support into [MacOS]. Additional features of note were a fully Power PC Native OperatingSystem, robust [Theme] support, [MultiUser] support, Quickdraw3D, a new filesystem (HFS+), advanced !OpenTransport networking, the (V-Twin) search engine and !OpenDoc, a powerful ComponentArchitecture.

In order to support these features, a number of old and obsolete [API]'s were removed from [MacOS], mostly relating to task management and memory management. [Apple] claimed that 70% of the software available at the time would run on the new OperatingSystem with the remaining software requiring source code changes.

In the end (1997) the project got a bit out of hand with the feature list being a constantly moving target and it was all taking too long to develop. Developers wanted some firm direction and [Apple]'s management and marketing department were worried about increasing discontent in the user base. It was this with this train of thought that [Apple] cancelled both Copland and Gershwin, bought [NeXT] and announced a plan to turn [NeXTStep] into the next version of [MacOS] which they codenamed Rhapsody.

Copland is generally considered to be a failed project but this is not entirely true. While the project as a whole was cancelled, many of the technologies and ideas were released independantly or as part of other system updates. Quickdraw3D, !OpenTransport and !OpenDoc were all released as freely available downloads for existing versions of [MacOS] and shipped with MacOS 7.5.2 and 7.5.3. Much of the Internet integration support was released in MacOS 7.6. Limited [Theme] support was released with MacOS 7.6 and was enhanced with MacOS 8 (codenamed Tempo) and MacOS 8.5 (codenamed Allegro) although even today [MacOS] [Theme]s are not as powerful as what the Copland demos were showing. HFS+ was released with MacOS 8.1 (Codenamed Bride Of Buster). The V-twin search engine (now known as Sherlock) was released with MacOS 8.5. Parts of the !NuKernel (this portion referred to as the !NanoKernel) and a largely Power PC Native [Finder] were released as part of MacOS 8.6 (codenamed Veronica). Rudimentary [MultiUser] support was added in MacOS 9 (codenamed Sonata). Many smaller pieces were merged into MacOS 9.0.4 (codenamed Minuet), MacOS 9.1 (codenamed Fortissimo), MacOS 9.2 (codenamed Moonlight) and MacOS 9.2.1 (codenamed Limelight) and the rumored future update, MacOS 9.3 (codenamed Starlight). The new [API] developed for Copland became known as [Carbon] which was released progressively from MacOS 8 onwards. Other portions of the !NuKernel and a more complete version of the [Carbon] API were merged into Rhapsody which was later renamed to MacOSX (codenamed Cheetah).

Copland is also the last name of famous American composer Aaron Copland. His music was said to convey the energy of New York and the visual power of skyscrapers much like that of George Gershwin.
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Last edited on Wednesday, February 11, 2004 1:27:52 pm by AristotlePagaltzis
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