How to show the "shared DNA" between NeXTSTEP and early Mac OS X?

Something on an open-ended question here, but I'm curious: if you had a few minutes to visually highlight some of the "shared DNA" between NeXTSTEP and early editions of Mac OS X (or even iOS, if possible), what would you show? Here are a few examples I'm already thinking of (mainly looking for more visual stuff that would resonate / make sense to less-technical audiences):

- Chess.app seemed relatively unchanged between late NeXTSTEP and early Mac OS X
- Column View in the Workspace >> Column view in Mac OS X Finder
- The Dock concept in NeXTSTEP >> Mac OS X Dock
- Services menus in common between both OS's
- Mail.app in common between both OS's

Obviously tons of BSD / Unix / CLI stuff in common, but I think that would rapidly get too 'geeky' for the audience I'm aiming for here

Thanks for any more suggestions!

The developer tools and TextEdit have remained pretty much the same for the first few years. Especially InterfaceBuilder remained untouched until a few years after the introduction of Xcode.

Furthermore the folder structure with the capital letter Library, Users, Applications, and so forth directories clearly stems from the NEXTSTEP days.

Here are a few screenshots from a talk I held two years ago:



(It was the Macoun conference in Germany, hence the "Hallo Macoun 2018")

There was a configuration in early versions of MacOS X that I can not remember now. Perhaps a configuration file had to have an option set or something like that, but if it was set the entire MacOS X interface would look like NeXTstep (black title bars etc). It's been like 20 years, so I can remember the details, perhaps someone else can recall?

Quote from: Huxley on October 11, 2020, 07:18:31 PMSomething on an open-ended question here, but I'm curious: if you had a few minutes to visually highlight some of the "shared DNA" between NeXTSTEP and early editions of Mac OS X (or even iOS, if possible), what would you show? Here are a few examples I'm already thinking of (mainly looking for more visual stuff that would resonate / make sense to less-technical audiences):

- Chess.app seemed relatively unchanged between late NeXTSTEP and early Mac OS X
- Column View in the Workspace >> Column view in Mac OS X Finder
- The Dock concept in NeXTSTEP >> Mac OS X Dock
- Services menus in common between both OS's
- Mail.app in common between both OS's

Obviously tons of BSD / Unix / CLI stuff in common, but I think that would rapidly get too 'geeky' for the audience I'm aiming for here

Thanks for any more suggestions!

Appkit still uses "NS" prefix for every system call NS, standing for Next Step.  The "beach ball" was never a beach ball. It's a spinning magneto optical disc. Fat binaries, interface builder, project builder. Preview app, TextEdit, system preferences app. The ".app" extension and wrapper for binaries and support files. The way preference files are saved. The ~/Library folder.

The reality is, macOS isn't "shared", it's just NeXTSTEP/OPENSTEP version 5, 6, 7...with a lobotomy. Still lots of cool stuff in NeXTSTEP that didn't make it over to the Mac. System level 3D real time render man. Live over internet publish and subscribe. A real processes panel in Workspace that let you pause/stop control individual finder processes. Lip service. Bunch of other things too. Lots of things were dumbed down for Mac users.

Hi, not sure if it is too obvious or not relevant, but the link between NeXTstep/OPENSTEP and (early) MacOSX is called Rhapsody.
For me the most obvious, still living things are, the mouse pointer as colored spinner (like zombie said) on system load. But also the Menu parts "hide" and "quit".

How did I never make the spinner to OD connection?! Mind blown.

Initially it was greyscale. In early versions you saw the hub/center of the spinning disk was like in the magneto optical drive. Then as it got colorized the hub went away, I guess to represent a colorful hard drive, and since NeXT abandoned the magneto optical drive in later machines! :D

Hello NeXT Community: great info here http://www.rhapsodyos.org/misc/docs_and_faqs/Main_FAQs.html

Quote from: zombie on February 25, 2021, 10:52:13 AMAppkit still uses "NS" prefix for every system call NS, standing for Next Step.

Some people argue that it might stand for NeXT Sun, as it was introduced just before Sun stepping in for the combined work on OpenStep. I find that pretty plausible, as there was the NX prefix before that. NXHost for instance was a class that was never renamed and was still present in OpenStep. Maybe even in Rhapsody, I would have to check.

NS nomenclature predates openstep and that relations.