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Rhapsody (operating system) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Rhapsody was the code name given to Apple Computer’s next-generation operating system during the period of its development between Apple’s purchase of NeXT in late 1996 and the announcement of Mac OS X in 1998. It consisted primarily of the OPENSTEP operating system ported to the PowerMac along with new graphics in the GUI to make it appear more Mac-like. Several existing Mac OS technologies were also ported to Rhapsody, including QuickTime and AppleSearch. Rhapsody could also run a selection of existing Mac OS programs through the “Blue Box” emulation layer. Compared to OS X, Rhapsody’s Blue Box was “noticeable” as it opened a Classic like program (OS X’s is “invisible”) and there was no Carbon to help port existing Mac software to the new OS without the Blue Box.
Rhapsody was first demonstrated at the 1997 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC). There were two subsequent Developer Releases for computers with Intel x86 or PowerPC processors. The full version was intended for release in spring of 1998. At the 1998 MacWorld Expo in New York, Steve Jobs announced that Rhapsody would be released as Mac OS X Server 1.0 (which shipped in 1999). Its code base was forked into Darwin, the open source underpinnings of Mac OS X.

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