[comp.sys.mac.system] I know what System 8 will be...

folta@tove.cs.umd.edu (Wayne Folta) (05/23/91)

Or at least a Wall Street Journal article caught my eye. They were discussing
Microsoft's efforts on a portable DOS/Windows. They mentioned that Apple was
rumored to be working on a portable OS as well. Then, the interesting part:

   Now people close to Apple say the company's goals are even more ambitious
   than Microsoft's. Apple has assembled a secret team of at least 100
   engineers on a software project code-names "Pink." The new system software,
   still at least a few years away from completion, is being designed to run
   on everything from a laptop to a mainframe.

   What's more, "Pink" is supposed to work on machines powered by dozens of
   processors, including some parallel-processing hardware that will keep pace
   with the fastest computers of today.

If "a few years" turns out to be two years, it would be perfect timing for
System 8 or at least a System 8 alternative. So maybe System 8 will be pink
with an oldMacOSVirtualOS running on top of it?
--


Wayne Folta          (folta@cs.umd.edu  128.8.128.8)

torrie@cs.stanford.edu (Evan Torrie) (05/23/91)

folta@tove.cs.umd.edu (Wayne Folta) writes:

>Or at least a Wall Street Journal article caught my eye. They were discussing
>Microsoft's efforts on a portable DOS/Windows. They mentioned that Apple was
>rumored to be working on a portable OS as well. Then, the interesting part:

  Yes, in its recent reorganisation, Apple created a Portable OS development
group.  That seems pretty certain to me that they're doing something in this
area.

>   Now people close to Apple say the company's goals are even more ambitious
>   than Microsoft's. Apple has assembled a secret team of at least 100
>   engineers on a software project code-names "Pink." The new system software,
>   still at least a few years away from completion, is being designed to run
>   on everything from a laptop to a mainframe.

  Actually, I heard this code-name "Pink" over a year ago in a speech by
Jerry Borrell (MacWorld's editor).  At that time, he seemed to think that
Pink was the code-name for Apple's next generation imaging environment 
(i.e. a replacement for QuickDraw).  When I asked him when we could expect
to see this, he seemed to think it was more a System 9, or System 10 job.

-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Evan Torrie.  Stanford University, Class of 199?       torrie@cs.stanford.edu   
Fame, fame, fame...  What's it good for?  Ab-so-lute-ly nothing

cbm@well.sf.ca.us (Chris Muir) (05/26/91)

In article <1991May22.233041.28470@neon.Stanford.EDU> torrie@cs.stanford.edu 
(Evan Torrie) writes:
>  Actually, I heard this code-name "Pink" over a year ago in a speech by
>Jerry Borrell (MacWorld's editor).  At that time, he seemed to think that
>Pink was the code-name for Apple's next generation imaging environment 
>(i.e. a replacement for QuickDraw).  When I asked him when we could expect
>to see this, he seemed to think it was more a System 9, or System 10 job.

As I understand it, there was a lot of next generation OS research going on
at Apple in the late eighties. At some time they seperated into two groups,
Blue and Pink. Blue turned into System 7 (there is some corroboration in the
name of the System 7 "SWAT team", the "Blue Meanies"). Pink was given a little
more breathing room to create system 8. There was a really "cute" init that 
got smuggled out of Apple a few years ago, the "Pink Init". Every time you
typed "blue" into a text edit field this init would erase it and type "pink"
instead. 

-- 
__________________________________________________________________________
Chris Muir                              |   "There is no language in our
cbm@well.sf.ca.us                       |    lungs to tell the world just
{hplabs,pacbell,ucbvax,apple}!well!cbm  |    how we feel"  - A. Partridge