Next computer

[sigmason]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeXT

I had access to one for a while.
There's really nothing to tell.
It was an interesting computer, tough I think at times it was more interesting innovation wise then for broad market appeal.

Sigmason

[sigmason]

Kind of...perhaps the dock is the most similar part of the comparison: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_graphical_user_interface#NeXTSTEP

Many of the concepts were later brought into Mac OSX but the interface was actually pretty simple in NeXTStep.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:NeXTSTEP_desktop.jpg

You could even say the UI visuals were Amiga-like.

They were just different enough from X at the time I can't really compare the 2.

One of the biggest differences being that NeXTStep was programmable in PostScript.

That said OpenStep looks a little different then NeXTStep as well:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OPENSTEP

Sigmason

[sigmason]

I'll admit I'm being a bit too broad with that comparison.

I'm referring to the some of the aspects of the UI more then the general look and feel.

Here's a fairly lengthy look at various graphical UIs...
http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/taouu/taouu.html

Obviously with themes in the mix the comparison gets a little messy.

Specifically I'm referring to the up and down arrows below the sliders next to each other, the use in Workbench of groupings in the Workbench folder itself (IE the drives and folders which, if you look at NeXTStep interface in the link, is kind of what that menu on the left manages to do in grouping functions), the ability to call window functions from the upper left of a window (functions like close), the ability to maximize the window from the upper right, and if I recall the NeXTStep windows didn't have that narrow frame on the windows like Windows started using in 2.0 and above, much like Workbench used that bottom right corner facing arrow to free resize a window.

Obviously that doesn't make them the same.
However there are some things they share.

Sigmason