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Excerpts from netnews.comp.sys.next.software: 28-Oct-92 NeXTStep query
by Sanjay B Shah@andromeda. 
> Q: What is NeXTStep (is this the 'official' name?) and what will
>    it do when it is released?  From the numerous posts about it
>    that I have read, I gather that it is an operating system for
>    the Intel 486 chip (I won't be surprised if I am waaaaay
>    wrong, though :-).  A summary of it's purpose, expected
>    features, hardware requirements, etc. would be greatly
>    appreciated!

"NeXTSTEP" is the current capitalization, though I prefer the older
"NeXTstep" more.

What it is, is a Display PostScript-based windowing environment that is
superior to X-Windows (and OS/2 or MS-Windows if you're not familiar
with X).  This lies on top of a reasonably well done BSD/SysV Unix
hybrid (some vendors have tried to mix the two and failed miserably,
NeXT has done pretty well) running the Mach kernel.

It's purpose is "to revolutionize the world of computing...", of course :-)

"Expected features?"  NeXTstep has been around for several years now,
running on machines made by NeXT.  It offers the best user interface of
any operating system currently in existence.  It also offers the best
programming environment available.  This results from programming tools
like InterfaceBuilder, which makes the creation of a good user interface
for programs trivial.  The language primarily used on the machine is
Objective-C; which is what C++ could be if done correctly and had the
run-time environment appropriate (and IMHO necessary) to an
object-oriented language.

Hardware, hmm.  Well, there are NeXT's machines, which are based on the
Motorola 680x0 family; the current machines run off of a 33MHz 68040.

I haven't seen what the requirements for NeXTstep/486, but I can make a
well-educated guess:

-- a 486, probably at 33MHz or faster due to performance considerations
-- 8 MB of RAM at a minimum; 16 MB or more for a decent configuration
-- an absolute minimum would be a 150 MB hard drive; note 250MB is too
small      to hold the full release of the system
-- a non-monochrome (ie at least 2-bit grey) 800x600 video display

-Chuck

PS:  Anyone out there know how the alpha channel is gonna be implemented
in NS/486??  PC video cards simply don't have the memory architechure
for it....



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