Jobs Pitches NeXTSTEP 3 to Unify PC, Mac, and Unix Corporate Desktops

Joseph Spiros

NeXT argues that an integrated object-oriented architecture allows enterprises to deploy custom SQL applications and share live documents across rival networks without writing code.

AI-assisted summary of NeXTSTEP Release 3: A Demonstration with Steve Jobs — original source. Check the original for full context.

Source published: 2020-04-07

Key ideas

NeXTSTEP Release 3 incorporates deep multi-network interoperability into its graphical File Viewer, providing out-of-the-box support for Unix NFS, Novell NetWare, and AppleShare without requiring manual protocol configuration. (13:48)
The new Database Kit framework allows developers to build functional SQL database client applications—including relational joins and binary image displays—entirely visually in Interface Builder without writing procedural code. (25:00)
Display PostScript powers integrated faxing and document rendering, enabling 50 networked workstations to share a single $500 modem for pristine 200 dpi outgoing faxes and completely paperless inbound delivery. (20:53)
NeXTSTEP 3 embeds Pixar's RenderMan and an interactive real-time 3D engine alongside advanced 2D alpha-channel compositing directly into the operating system architecture. (31:38)

Detailed notes

## Background Published on YouTube by channel Joseph Spiros on April 7, 2020, this video features a vintage demonstration of NeXTSTEP Release 3 presented by Steve Jobs. The original video description provides no additional notes or background text.

## TL;DR Steve Jobs showcases the core capabilities of NeXTSTEP Release 3, highlighting its advanced graphical user interface, Display PostScript rendering, multimedia NeXT Mail, and universal Services architecture. He demonstrates visual enterprise networking across heterogeneous platforms—including Sun workstations, Novell NetWare, and AppleShare—assembled seamlessly into live FrameMaker documents alongside dynamic object linking and paperless PostScript faxing. Jobs then transitions to application development, demonstrating how Interface Builder and the new Database Kit construct functional master-detail SQL database clients without writing code, before closing with legacy DOS emulation and native 3D RenderMan compositing.

## Atmosphere & style The presentation carries the classic early-1990s tech demo aura, driven by Steve Jobs's signature blend of casual charisma, dry wit, and intense product evangelism. With understated confidence, Jobs peppers live technical demonstrations with playful digs at DOS, Macintosh, and slow PC graphics, making complex architectural feats look effortless with casual clicks and trademark 'blammo' flourishes. Watching the session feels like peering into an alternate computing future ahead of its time, marked by a quiet, steady rhythm of practical enterprise solutions layered over remarkably modern software design concepts.

## Bulletin - [13:48](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=828s) NeXTSTEP Release 3 incorporates deep multi-network interoperability into its graphical File Viewer, providing out-of-the-box support for Unix NFS, Novell NetWare, and AppleShare without requiring manual protocol configuration. - [25:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=1500s) The new Database Kit framework allows developers to build functional SQL database client applications—including relational joins and binary image displays—entirely visually in Interface Builder without writing procedural code. - [20:53](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=1253s) Display PostScript powers integrated faxing and document rendering, enabling 50 networked workstations to share a single $500 modem for pristine 200 dpi outgoing faxes and completely paperless inbound delivery. - [31:38](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=1898s) NeXTSTEP 3 embeds Pixar's RenderMan and an interactive real-time 3D engine alongside advanced 2D alpha-channel compositing directly into the operating system architecture.

## Key takeaways - [00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=0s) NeXTSTEP is engineered as a multitasking Unix workstation environment built to bridge custom enterprise applications with standard productivity tools. - [00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=0s) Real-time full-color graphics rendering and window management vastly outpace contemporary Macintosh and PC platforms. - [02:18](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=138s) NeXT Mail serves as an integrated document hub supporting PostScript rich text, drag-and-drop imagery, CD-quality audio, and 'Lip Service' voice annotations. - [06:16](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=376s) The NeXTSTEP Services menu is a system-wide architecture that exposes capabilities registered by one application—such as Webster's Dictionary—across all running software. - [10:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=600s) The File Viewer provides intuitive, button-like network browsing with customizable preset shelves that bookmark local or wide-area network directories instantly. - [10:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=600s) Digital Librarian provides rapid boolean full-text indexing and retrieval across extensive document archives stored anywhere on the network. - [13:48](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=828s) NeXTSTEP 3 integrates heterogeneous file systems—including Sun NFS, Novell NetWare, and AppleShare—into a unified visual workspace. - [15:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=900s) Live multiplatform collaboration is demonstrated by assembling a single FrameMaker document from assets hosted simultaneously across NeXT, Sun, PC, and Macintosh systems. - [18:50](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=1130s) Dynamic object linking replaces static copy-pasting, keeping embedded graphics and data automatically synchronized with their source files across applications and networks. - [20:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=1200s) System-wide drag-and-drop color enables immediate live updates across linked documents and user interface elements. - [20:53](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=1253s) Integrated network faxing uses Display PostScript in memory to achieve clean 200 dpi transmissions and paperless electronic routing via NeXT Mail. - [22:36](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=1356s) Interface Builder operates on an underlying Objective-C 'cake,' allowing developers to assemble user interfaces from reusable object palettes dynamically. - [25:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=1500s) Database Kit connects UI widgets directly to SQL database engines using message-based bindings that eliminate the need to compile intermediate code. - [26:55](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=1615s) Master-detail interfaces with relational SQL joins and binary image records can be constructed and tested live against Sybase servers in minutes. - [30:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=1800s) Modular Database Kit adapters insulate application code from specific database engines, supporting Sybase, Oracle, and Teradata with more planned. - [30:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=1800s) Legacy DOS applications run seamlessly alongside NeXTSTEP software via Insignia SoftPC, preserving compatibility for unmigrated corporate tools. - [31:38](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=1898s) Native alpha-channel transparency and embedded Pixar RenderMan allow sophisticated 2D and 3D compositing without low-level graphics programming. - [34:25](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=2065s) NeXTSTEP 3.0 aims to drastically compress enterprise software development timelines while bringing workstation power to ordinary end users.

## Detailed walkthrough ### [00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=0s) The NeXTSTEP Productivity Environment and Interface Basics

Steve Jobs introduces the demonstration on the NeXT computer, setting out two primary goals: examining how to build mission-critical enterprise applications and demonstrating the NeXT productivity environment. He stresses that NeXT provides far superior networking and group productivity tools compared to PCs and Macintoshes, specifically designed so custom mission-critical applications can interoperate cleanly with off-the-shelf software. He provides an orientation to NeXTSTEP's core interface elements, including menus, windows, and the Dock. The Dock can be repositioned or left in constant view, serving as a persistent shelf for frequently accessed programs like an X Terminal Emulator.

Jobs demonstrates NeXTSTEP's advanced graphical performance, noting that moving a window moves the entire window contents in real time rather than a wireframe outline. He emphasizes how essential this is when dealing with full-color imagery:

> “If this was a Macintosh or a PC, moving around these full-color images would take until next week for them to all repaint.”

Because NeXTSTEP is a fully multitasking operating system built on Unix, users are not forced to quit running programs to clear their screen. Jobs shows how pushing the "Hide" command instantly collapses application windows behind their corresponding Dock icons, and clicking an icon restores them immediately to show off how fast NeXTSTEP graphics perform.

[02:18](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=138s) Multimedia Capabilities in NeXT Mail

Moving to NeXT Mail—the bundled electronic mail client that serves as the core spine of the demonstration—Jobs walks through its message viewer and editing capabilities. The system features universal smooth scrolling, Display PostScript rendering that supports any font and size, inline graphics, digitized signatures, and sender portraits alongside standard message metadata (dates, times, and action buttons).

```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: NeXT Mail Composition and Embedded Media accDescr: Diagram illustrating how multimedia elements attach directly inside a NeXT Mail message.

subgraph Composition ["NeXT Mail Message Window"] TXT["PostScript Rich Text"] LIP["Lip Service Audio Clip"] IMG["Color Photo / Drag & Drop Graphic"] APP["Embedded File Attachments"] end

TXT --- LIP LIP --- IMG IMG --- APP ```

The mail client allows users to compose, forward, reply, and look up individual network addresses or entire distribution lists, such as the entire marketing department. Jobs highlights the "Lip Service" feature, which permits voice annotation directly inside documents: 1. The user clicks "Lip Service" to record audio (*"Hey, can you check this out and let me know what you think? Thanks. Bye."*). 2. A pair of lips icon drops directly into the message body. 3. The recipient plays the recorded message simply by clicking the lips icon.

Jobs observes how accessible this makes the software:

> “And we found that this mail system is so easy to use that executives can use it without reading manuals, which is sort of our test of ease of use.”

NeXT Mail also integrates drag-and-drop color imagery from desktop scanners and supports full CD-quality audio playback, which Jobs illustrates by opening an audio clip linked to a photo of his young son.

[04:36](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=276s) Live Document Embedding, Lotus Improv, and WYSIWYG WordPerfect

Jobs demonstrates attaching structured application files directly inside an email message rather than sending external detached payloads. Opening the system-wide Font Panel—an object-oriented interface element governing all system fonts—he selects 36-point Stencil Bold to type "Check this out," joking that the large type guarantees the recipient will read it. From the NeXTSTEP File Viewer, he drags Lotus Improv spreadsheet files directly into the text stream between arbitrary words. Double-clicking an embedded spreadsheet icon automatically launches the native parent application (Lotus Improv), presenting the live model right out of the email.

Jobs then displays an incoming mail message bearing an embedded document for WordPerfect: - The NeXT release represents the most advanced build of WordPerfect, featuring full WYSIWYG ("What You See Is What You Get") formatting. - Users can reposition embedded images within running text, and the layout reformats dynamically in real time. - The document layout easily switches into multi-column formats (such as three columns), allowing images to be resized or dropped across column boundaries while maintaining file compatibility with other platforms.

[06:16](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=376s) System-Wide Architecture: The Services Menu

Demonstrating cross-application integration, Jobs highlights the "Services" menu within WordPerfect:

> “Now the services menu is rather unique in that it appears in every application but the contents of the services menu is not owned by any one application, it's owned by NeXTSTEP.”

Any application can register its specific capabilities with NeXTSTEP, making those operations instantly available across the Services menus of all other running applications. Selecting the word "preserve" in WordPerfect, Jobs navigates to Services and chooses the bundled *Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary and Thesaurus*. NeXTSTEP launches the dictionary, feeds it the selected string, and displays the complete definition and thesaurus entries in a matter of seconds.

[07:08](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=428s) Visual Workstation Networking and the Digital Librarian

Addressing the network architecture of NeXTSTEP, Jobs reflects on the engineering challenge of bringing workstation-class power to ordinary office workers:

> “However, you had to be a rocket scientist to figure out how to use it. So we asked ourselves, could we use this much more powerful workstation networking and yet make it even easier than a Macintosh to use.”

He reviews a mail note from a colleague named Gary, which mentions that Ross Perot was featured in the *Wall Street Journal* the previous week and invites Jobs to check Gary's home directory on the marketing server. NeXTSTEP bundles an indexing application named Digital Librarian, designed to accept any local text (policy manuals, correspondence, or archival articles) and generate rapid keyword lookup indexes.

Jobs returns to the File Viewer to navigate the enterprise network visually: - Clicking the globe icon on the local machine exposes network-accessible volumes. - Navigating into the demo server displays company departments, leading directly to Marketing. - Remote user home directories are visually distinct from the local user's home directory, depicted as small "neighborhood" icons so users never confuse local directories with remote directories. - Inside Gary's directory, Jobs locates the *Wall Street Journal* index shelf. - As the user clicks down the hierarchy, a horizontal path browser preserves the exact traversal history (`Computer` $\rightarrow$ `Network` $\rightarrow$ `Demo Server` $\rightarrow$ `Marketing` $\rightarrow$ `Gary's Home Directory`), allowing complete visibility into the network path.

[10:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=600s) File Viewer Shelves, Digital Librarian, and System Services

Steve Jobs demonstrates how easy it is to navigate the network using the NeXTSTEP File Viewer. Clicking through directories functions just like pushing buttons, making traversal rapid and intuitive. To illustrate this, Jobs compares finding a colleague's machine to tuning a car radio: having navigated across the network to locate Gary's home directory, he explains that if one intends to visit frequently, it makes sense to program a preset button. In NeXTSTEP, this is accomplished simply by dragging Gary’s home directory icon up onto the shelf at the top of the File Viewer. The user’s own home directory is already permanently docked there by default, so clicking it returns the user home instantly with a “blammo, I’m home.” Clicking the newly created shelf icon jumps straight back to Gary's machine, regardless of whether Gary is located right next door or across the globe in Tokyo.

```mermaid flowchart LR accTitle: System Services and Multi-App Integration accDescr: Diagram showing how NeXTSTEP links Digital Librarian, FrameMaker, and Webster's Dictionary seamlessly. subgraph DL["Digital Librarian (Gary's Machine)"] WSJ["1,300 WSJ Articles"] --> Filter["Bush + Japan + GM (6 results)"] Filter --> Article["'Automakers Hobble into the New Year'"] end subgraph Services["NeXTSTEP Services"] Article -->|"Highlight 'debacle'"| Dict["Webster's Dictionary Service"] end ```

On Gary's system, Jobs opens a collection of *Wall Street Journal* articles indexed in Digital Librarian, the bundled full-text indexing and search application. Out of approximately 1,300 articles, Jobs performs boolean keyword searches to demonstrate speed and indexing precision. Searching for the word "Perot" produces exactly one match. Searching for "Bush" yields 106 articles. Narrowing the query to "Bush and Japan" drops the count to 45, and refining it further to "Bush, Japan, and GM" returns just six articles. Opening one titled *Automakers Hobble into the New Year* (referencing President George H. W. Bush's trade mission to Japan), he reviews another headline containing the word "debacle." Without switching contexts or manually opening a reference tool, Jobs highlights "debacle" and invokes the system-wide Services menu to define it in Webster's Dictionary, returning the definition in a couple of seconds.

Jobs reflects on the workflow just completed: receiving an email, navigating across the network via the File Viewer, creating a shelf shortcut, launching Digital Librarian, searching through 1,300 articles, inspecting an article in a viewer, and querying the system dictionary service. All of these separate applications operate in concert without configuration hurdles:

> “All these applications are running simultaneously and as you see they work seamlessly together, without the user having to play system integrator.”

Jobs emphasizes that this level of out-of-the-box productivity simply does not exist on corporate desktops of the era. He also reminds the audience that NeXTSTEP is scheduled to arrive on the Intel 486 processor family early the following year, delivering the identical user experience to standard PC hardware.

- **Digital Librarian search filtering**: 1,300 total articles → "Perot" (1 match); "Bush" (106 matches); "Bush and Japan" (45 matches); "Bush, Japan, and GM" (6 matches). - **Shelf functionality**: Any folder, volume, or directory across a local or wide-area network can be dragged to the top shelf of the File Viewer to create an instant bookmark.

---

[13:48](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=828s) Heterogeneous Networking: Sun, Novell NetWare, and AppleShare

Jobs moves to a complex collaborative scenario based on an incoming email request to assemble an autumn company newsletter. In this real-world office scenario, the assets are scattered across four completely distinct computer platforms across the corporate network: 1. Ralph has the document template on his Sun workstation. 2. Vicki has the headline on her NeXT computer. 3. Kevin has the body text on his PC. 4. Cynthia has the graphic on her Macintosh.

```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: Multiplatform Newsletter Assembly accDescr: Flowchart illustrating how assets from Sun, NeXT, PC, and Mac are integrated into a single FrameMaker document. subgraph Remote["Heterogeneous Network Sources"] Sun["Ralph's Sun Workstation (NFS / TCP/IP)"] NeXT["Vicki's NeXT Machine (NeXTSTEP / Display PostScript)"] PC["Kevin's PC (Novell NetWare)"] Mac["Cynthia's Macintosh (AppleShare)"] end subgraph Workspace["NeXTSTEP 3.0 Workspace"] Frame["FrameMaker Template"] TouchType["Adobe TouchType EPS Headline"] Text["ASCII Body Text"] Image["Mac EPS Graphic"] end Sun -->|"Open Document"| Frame NeXT -->|"Drag & Drop"| TouchType --> Frame PC -->|"Drag & Drop"| Text --> Frame Mac -->|"Drag & Drop"| Image --> Frame ```

To solve this without friction, NeXTSTEP 3.0 includes deep, native support for alien network environments. While NeXT computers already ship out of the box with workstation-grade networking—including standard TCP/IP and NFS to communicate seamlessly with Sun Microsystems and DEC networks—enterprise customers demanded identical plug-and-play capability for existing local area networks. In response, NeXT worked directly with Novell to build NetWare client services directly into NeXTSTEP, and engineered its own native AppleShare client from scratch. Rather than running cumbersome terminal emulators or command-line transfer utilities, these foreign file servers appear natively inside the standard NeXTSTEP graphical File Viewer alongside local disks.

Jobs begins the assembly by opening the network view, browsing the Sun workstations in the creative department, and opening Ralph's directory. There he locates a template built in FrameMaker (a high-end document processor for NeXTSTEP) and double-clicks it. While the document launches, Jobs drags Ralph's folder onto his shelf for quick access.

> “We got requests from our customers to make the same thing be true for Novell networks for their existing PC LANs and AppleShare networks for their existing Macintosh LANs, and so we did the work working with Novell to get their NetWare fully integrated into NeXTSTEP, and we wrote our own AppleShare to get it fully integrated again into NeXTSTEP.”

---

[15:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=900s) Live Collaborative Document Assembly in FrameMaker

With the FrameMaker newsletter template open on screen—displaying designated placeholder frames for a headline, body copy, and an illustration—Jobs proceeds to pull in the remote assets one by one via direct drag-and-drop:

- **Vicki’s headline (NeXT)**: Navigating through the marketing department to Vicki’s machine, Jobs locates a document created in Adobe TouchType, an application exclusive to NeXTSTEP used for precise typographic kerning. He drops Vicki’s folder onto his shelf, then drags the TouchType document file directly into the header frame in FrameMaker. Behind the scenes, the two independent applications negotiate the transfer via Display PostScript to render the kerning perfectly, without their software developers ever having coordinated support. - **Kevin’s body text (PC / Novell NetWare)**: Jobs clicks on the Novell network icon in the File Viewer. The NetWare file server is immediately accessible via the standard NeXT file browser interface. Browsing to the marketing department, he finds Kevin. Jobs quips that NetWare does not permit him to represent Kevin with the custom “fancy little house” icon used for NeXT home directories, but provides a standard folder instead. Dragging the text file over the Novell network directly into FrameMaker, the application prompts him about how to handle line endings; Jobs confirms, and the PC text instantly flows into the newsletter column. - **Cynthia’s graphic (Macintosh / AppleShare)**: Jobs clicks into the AppleShare network browser, navigates to "Building 1 Lower," locates the Macintosh server for the marketing department, and finds Cynthia's directory. He bookmarks Cynthia onto his shelf and drags an Encapsulated PostScript (EPS) graphic directly into the newsletter illustration box. Jobs points out that this is an entirely live demonstration running over native AppleShare protocols: "The text is really coming off a PC. This EPS file is really coming off a Mac, which is why it takes a second because the Mac is a little slow to give it up. But there it is."

After toggling off the layout borders in FrameMaker to reveal the finished newsletter, Jobs reviews each contributor's directory bookmarked on his shelf: Ralph's Sun NFS share, Vicki's NeXT folder, Kevin's PC NetWare share, and Cynthia's Mac AppleShare volume.

> “We're not aware of any other computer that can do this and create the seamless integration from three different worlds of networking: the workstation world with NeXT and Sun, the PC world with Novell, and the Apple world with AppleShare.”

---

[18:50](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=1130s) Dynamic Object Linking Across Applications and Networks

Jobs transitions to another major architectural addition in NeXTSTEP Release 3: dynamic object linking. Unlike static data exchange, object linking operates across distinct applications and over the network, allowing documents to remain continuously synchronized with their source files.

He demonstrates this with a scenario involving an employee handbook. The handbook document is complete except for the company organizational chart; an accompanying email instructs him to object-link the current chart so that the handbook updates automatically whenever the personnel structure changes. Jobs pulls up the employee handbook document and launches a basic vector drawing program over the network that contains the master org chart.

Jobs explains the crucial architectural distinction between traditional clipboard operations and NeXTSTEP object linking. On every other system, a user would select all, copy the graphic, and choose "Paste"—an operation that merely inserts "dead data." If the master graphic is altered later, the pasted version remains outdated. In NeXTSTEP 3.0, Jobs copies the chart in the drawing tool, switches to the employee handbook, opens the Link menu, and selects "Paste and Link." This establishes a persistent link back to the source data, guaranteeing that any future revisions saved by the author of the original chart will propagate to the handbook automatically.

> “And then what I do today on every other system is I come over here and I would say paste, except that paste will paste dead data in. So rather than do that, I will go down to my link menu and say simply paste and link, which will paste in linked data.”

[20:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=1200s) Dynamic Data Linking and Drag-and-Drop Color

To illustrate dynamic live updates across documents, Steve Jobs demonstrates the capabilities of the Link Inspector panel in NeXTSTEP. The inspector gives users granular control over live data links, allowing them to open the original source file, pull manual updates, break the link entirely, or set the connection to update continually. After selecting an embedded organizational chart in a target document, Jobs toggles the link to continuous update mode, demonstrating how changes made to the master chart immediately propagate.

Jobs opens the source document, selects the top box for the company president, and brings up NeXTSTEP's color picker. Remarking playfully that “presidents like to be blue,” he uses NeXTSTEP's systemwide drag-and-drop color mechanism to drop blue directly into the box, causing the linked graphic in the recipient document to update in real time. He demonstrates further changes by coloring one vice president tan and reorganizing the hierarchy when another vice president gets promoted. Jobs emphasizes the distributed network power of NeXT's architecture:

> “As you see, no matter where the source document is, if it's on another machine across the country, this document that the data is linked into will be updated instantaneously.”

- **Link Inspector capabilities**: Inspects linked components, allows opening source documents, breaking links, or toggling between manual and continuous background synchronization. - **Direct color manipulation**: Colors can be dragged directly out of the system color palette and dropped into shapes, text, or interface elements with instantaneous multi-document rendering.

---

[20:53](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=1253s) Integrated Faxing: Networked PostScript and Paperless Receiving

Jobs highlights that NeXT was the first operating environment to incorporate comprehensive fax capabilities directly into the system architecture. Rather than relying on third-party utilities or separate printer drivers, users can fax from any printable document. Instead of sending an output job to a standard printer, the user simply chooses "Fax" in the standard print panel, selects a recipient from an integrated address book—Jobs chooses the Colorado School of Mines—and clicks the fax button.

Under the hood, Display PostScript powers this workflow. The identical PostScript code responsible for drawing the page on screen and formatting it for physical laser printers is rendered in system memory at 200 dots per inch (the international standard for Group 3 faxes). The image is compressed per international telecommunication standards and routed through a fax modem. Because the rendering originates directly from vector PostScript rather than an optical scan of paper, the resulting transmissions achieve pristine WYSIWYG quality. Furthermore, NeXTSTEP’s built-in network spooling enables an entire facility of roughly 50 workers to share a single $500 fax modem. Inbound faxes are received completely paperless; they arrive over the NeXT mail system as attachments that launch the bundled Fax Reader application. Jobs opens an incoming fax from George Fisher, the CEO of Motorola, to show the clean digital output that can be archived, reviewed, or forwarded to multiple recipients without printing a single sheet.

```mermaid flowchart LR accTitle: NeXTSTEP Network Faxing Architecture accDescr: Diagram showing how a PostScript document is rendered into memory, compressed to Group 3 standard, and sent across a network modem. subgraph Client["Workstation"] A["NeXTSTEP Document"] -->|"Display PostScript"| B["In-Memory Imaging (200 DPI)"] B --> C["Group 3 Compression"] end subgraph Network["Shared Infrastructure"] C -->|"Network Spooler"| D["Shared Fax Modem ($500)"] D --> E["Telephone Network"] end subgraph Inbound["Paperless Receiving"] E --> D D -->|"NeXT Mail"| F["Bundled Fax Reader"] end ```

- **Built-in Group 3 standard**: Renders PostScript directly into memory at 200 dpi before compressing and queuing. - **Cost-effective hardware sharing**: One network-spooled $500 modem reliably handles incoming and outgoing fax traffic for approximately 50 networked users. - **Electronic distribution**: Incoming faxes are delivered through electronic mail and viewed in the native Fax Reader without generational scanning loss or paper waste.

---

[22:36](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=1356s) Interface Builder and the Object-Oriented Cake

Moving to application development, Jobs launches Interface Builder to demonstrate how software for NeXTSTEP is constructed. He addresses the broader industry's superficial attempts to replicate graphical application construction tools, framing the platform's visual environment as merely the topmost layer of a deep, integrated system architecture:

> “Think of NeXTSTEP, which is NeXT's object-oriented development environment, as an object-oriented cake; I'm about to show you just the frosting on the cake. Many people have tried to copy this frosting, but what they found out is without the object-oriented cake underneath, it just doesn't work.”

Jobs explains that all NeXT developers build their software starting within Interface Builder. Selecting "New Application" produces a default root menu and an empty application window. Developers assemble the visual interface by pulling pre-configured controls from extensible object palettes. Jobs drags new menu items, creates a custom menu entry typed as "Thank you," adjusts item orders by dragging the "Quit" command into the middle of a menu, and pulls in a color picker menu item.

To create controls, he drops panels and buttons directly onto the window canvas. He enlarges a button, labels it "Search," and formats the typography using his self-proclaimed favorite font, 24-point Stencil, through the system Font panel. This visual assembly prepares the user interface for integration with enterprise back-end relational SQL databases, such as Sybase or Oracle.

- **The "Cake" metaphor**: Interface Builder functions because of the foundational Objective-C runtime and AppKit class hierarchy operating underneath. - **Palettes of reusable objects**: Pre-built widgets—menus, panels, buttons, sliders, text fields, and custom inspectors—are dragged directly from palettes onto design surfaces. - **Dynamic menu editing**: Application menus can be restructured, reordered, and enriched with system services entirely via visual direct manipulation.

---

[25:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=1500s) Database Kit: Connecting to Sybase Without Writing Code

Jobs introduces Database Kit, a newly incorporated suite of objects in NeXTSTEP 3.0 designed to drastically accelerate the creation of client applications that interface with back-end SQL databases. The Database Kit relies on three fundamental components: a model object that encapsulates the database connection and schema, a visual table view object for displaying tabular data, and an image view object for handling multimedia records.

Jobs drops a Database Kit controller object into his project and opens its inspector, which queries the database engine and displays available relational tables. He selects a database called `departments` and navigates down to the `Department Name` column. To link the live SQL data to the user interface, he drags the column schema representation and drops it straight onto the table view widget, which automatically creates the binding and configures the table layout.

Connecting the user interface controls to back-end behavior requires zero programming. Jobs drags an action connection wire from the "Search" button to the Database Kit model object. The environment dynamically interrogates the database object and lists all target messages it understands; Jobs selects the `fetchAllRecords` action. Because Interface Builder establishes direct inter-object message connections rather than emitting intermediate C code, there is no need to compile or link the program. Jobs switches Interface Builder into Test Mode. Clicking the "Search" button brings up a Sybase credentials prompt, connects directly to an active Sybase server, queries the database, and renders live department records into the table view within seconds.

- **Three primary Database Kit abstractions**: 1. Data model object (manages schema queries, queries, and network SQL communication). 2. Table view object (handles row/column visualization and record navigation). 3. Image display object (renders binary graphics and photography tied to records). - **Code-free execution**: The visual tool configures live object messaging rather than generating source code, allowing live testing against real production databases without compiling.

---

[26:55](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=1615s) Building a Master-Detail Relational Database Application

Jobs expands the prototype into a complete master-detail database client. In relational architectures, selecting a "master" row—here, a department name—drives the query to surface related "detail" information about employees assigned to that division. Jobs drags a second table view onto the canvas and binds it to columns from the `employee` table: `last name`, `first name`, `manager`, `salary`, and `phone`.

He then adds individual detail fields to display specific employee attributes. Placing individual text labels on the canvas, he styles them in 18-point Stencil and binds them to the employee's title and assigned office location. Jobs points out that these connections automatically execute cross-table relational SQL joins under the hood, completely handled by the Database Kit without manual SQL query construction.

To conclude the interface, Jobs brings in the third component of the Database Kit: image display containers. He positions two image views on the canvas—one bound to a location facility photograph and another bound to the employee's individual portrait stored across another join in the database.

Testing the fully wired application live against the Sybase server, Jobs clicks "Search." The master table populates with department names. Selecting a department immediately loads its roster of employees into the secondary table view, accompanied by an architectural photograph of that department's building. Clicking an individual worker within that department dynamically loads their title, phone number, and portrait photo, while dynamically managing scroll bars as rosters shrink or expand. In only a few minutes and without writing a single line of procedural code, a fully functioning, enterprise-grade relational database viewer is constructed and operational.

- **Automated relational joins**: The Database Kit framework automatically manages joins across distinct tables (employees, departments, locations, photos) through simple GUI link associations. - **Dynamic UI layout**: Table views automatically incorporate and remove scroll bars depending on the volume of data returned by the SQL server. - **Rich media support**: Handles enterprise data beyond alphanumeric strings by binding relational binary photo data to native display components in real time.

[30:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=1800s) Database Kit Adapters and Legacy DOS Interoperability

Steve Jobs highlights a remarkable architectural feature of NeXTSTEP's Database Kit: its backend adapter system. NeXT designed the architecture with modular adapters that click directly into the back end of the Database Kit. At present, NeXT provides adapters for Oracle, Sybase, and Teradata, with additional adapters for DB2, Informix, and Ingres currently on the way. The primary benefit of this design is complete abstraction for the developer. As Jobs explains, “Once a developer writes their application to the database kit set of objects you can actually switch between Sybase or Oracle or any of the other databases without changing a line of code in the application.” In effect, the Database Kit fully insulates the application developer from whatever specific database engine the customer prefers.

Turning to legacy systems, Jobs addresses the reality faced by enterprise organizations where MIS departments have created DOS-based applications that must continue running and will never be rewritten. Using SoftPC by Insignia, NeXTSTEP enables users to run standard DOS programs inside a native NeXTSTEP window alongside modern software. Jobs playfully remarks on the legacy experience as he types in commands: “Now, I've learned just enough DOS to be able to demo this to you. It's quite intuitive, D-I-R here.” He launches Lotus 1-2-3 and dryly quips, “It's a wonderful user interface,” while navigating menus with slash keystrokes. Jobs points out that users get a true multitasking PC environment where they can spin up as many virtual PCs as needed, copy and paste seamlessly between DOS and NeXTSTEP applications, and achieve the exact same interoperability with X Window System applications.

```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: Database Kit Architecture accDescr: Diagram showing how a NeXTSTEP application communicates through DBKit objects to pluggable database adapters.

subgraph AppLayer["Application Layer"] App["NeXTSTEP Custom Application"] DBKit["Database Kit Objects"] App --> DBKit end

subgraph Adapters["Backend Adapters"] DBKit --> A1["Oracle"] DBKit --> A2["Sybase"] DBKit --> A3["Teradata"] DBKit -.-> A4["DB2 / Informix / Ingres (Upcoming)"] end ```

- Supported Database Kit adapters: Oracle, Sybase, and Teradata. - Upcoming Database Kit adapters: IBM DB2, Informix, and Ingres. - SoftPC by Insignia runs unmodified DOS applications inside NeXTSTEP windows with clipboard cut-and-paste integration. - Full multitasking support allows multiple concurrent DOS instances or X Window System sessions.

---

[31:38](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=1898s) Advanced 2D Compositing and Real-Time 3D RenderMan

To showcase NeXTSTEP's graphical horsepower, Jobs demonstrates a demonstration app built in just two days. The goal is to prove that developers can construct visually sophisticated software without having to write low-level graphics routines from scratch. Jobs opens a background image of a forest and places an image of a red Ferrari over it. Initially surrounded by a black bounding box, Jobs sets the surrounding area to transparent, makes the body of the car opaque, and renders the windows semi-transparent. He then brings in a graphic of Donald Duck, removes its black background, and slots Donald behind the car, demonstrating how Donald remains clearly visible through the Ferrari’s tinted window. Moving the sports car further back, he seamlessly layers it behind the foreground trees of the forest.

Jobs then reveals that NeXTSTEP Release 3.0 integrates 3D graphics directly into the operating system. NeXT embedded Pixar's RenderMan photorealistic rendering software for generating still images from 3D models, along with an interactive, real-time rendering engine. To demonstrate, Jobs creates a 3D cube, places it directly behind the 2D forest layers and the Ferrari, and rotates it in real time while the system continuously composites the rendered 3D object behind the foreground tree and car. Looking ahead, Jobs observes: “Now we believe that over the coming years three-dimensional graphics may play a very important role in business as we try to visualize more and more complex data in ways that we can assimilate very rapidly but in any event the purpose of this last thing was to show you that to build very rich graphical apps in Next Step is no different than anything else.”

- Alpha-channel compositing natively handles opaque, fully transparent, and semi-transparent visual elements without manual pixel manipulation. - Built-in Pixar RenderMan engine handles photorealistic 3D generation. - Interactive RenderMan allows real-time rendering, manipulation, and compositing of 3D geometry alongside standard 2D bitmaps.

---

[34:25](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=2065s) Conclusion: Power for Mere Mortals and Rapid Deployment

Concluding the demonstration, Jobs emphasizes the central mission of NeXTSTEP Release 3.0. The platform's objective is to combine unmatched technical depth with an interface so intuitive that ordinary users—or as Jobs phrases it, “so that mere mortals can use this very very powerful piece of software”—can harness it every day. Crucially, it empowers enterprises and developers to create, customize, and deploy mission-critical custom applications in a fraction of the time previously required by traditional software engineering, accomplishing power, ease of use, and rapid development all at the same time.

## Notable quotes > [30:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=1800s) Once a developer writes their application to the database kit set of objects you can actually switch between Sybase or Oracle or any of the other databases without changing a line of code in the application. — Steve Jobs

## Mentioned Steve Jobs, NeXT, NeXTSTEP, Macintosh, Apple, AppleShare, PC, DOS, Intel 486, Unix, Display PostScript, Adobe, Adobe TouchType, NeXT Mail, Lip Service, Lotus Improv, Lotus 1-2-3, WordPerfect, Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary and Thesaurus, Digital Librarian, Ross Perot, Wall Street Journal, George H. W. Bush, General Motors, Sun Microsystems, DEC, Novell, Novell NetWare, FrameMaker, Colorado School of Mines, Motorola, George Fisher, Fax Reader, Interface Builder, AppKit, Objective-C, Database Kit, Sybase, Oracle, Teradata, IBM DB2, Informix, Ingres, SoftPC, Insignia Solutions, X Window System, Pixar, RenderMan

[Source](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA)

中文简报

乔布斯推介NeXTSTEP 3，旨在统一PC、Mac与Unix企业桌面 NeXT主张，集成的面向对象架构使企业无需编写代码即可部署定制SQL应用程序，并跨竞品网络共享实时文档。史蒂夫·乔布斯展示了NeXTSTEP Release 3的核心功能，重点介绍了其先进的图形用户界面、Display PostScript渲染、多媒体NeXT Mail以及通用Services架构。他演示了跨异构平台（包括Sun工作站、Novell NetWare和AppleShare）的可视化企业网络互联，并将其与动态对象链接和无纸化PostScript传真一同无缝整合到实时的FrameMaker文档中。随后，乔布斯转向应用程序开发，展示了Interface Builder与新增的Database Kit如何在无需编写代码的情况下构建实用的主从SQL数据库客户端，最后介绍了传统DOS仿真以及原生3D RenderMan合成功能。 NeXTSTEP Release 3在其图形化File Viewer中集成了深度多网络互操作性，无需手动配置协议即可开箱即用支持Unix NFS、Novell NetWare和AppleShare。 (13:48) 全新的Database Kit框架允许开发人员完全在Interface Builder中以可视化方式构建功能齐备的SQL数据库客户端应用程序（包括关系联接和二进制图像显示），无需编写过程代码。 (25:00) Display PostScript支持集成传真与文档渲染，使50台联网工作站能够共享一台价值500美元的调制解调器，实现清晰的200 dpi外发传真以及完全无纸化的接收投递。 (20:53) NeXTSTEP 3将皮克斯的RenderMan与交互式实时3D引擎，以及先进的2D Alpha通道合成技术直接嵌入到操作系统架构中。 (31:38)

Detailed notes — zh

## Background 该视频由 Joseph Spiros 于 2020 年 4 月 7 日发布在 YouTube 平台上。视频记录了史蒂夫·乔布斯对 NeXTSTEP Release 3 操作系统所进行的一场全面产品演示，视频页面未提供额外的简介说明。 ## TL;DR 在演示中，史蒂夫·乔布斯系统展现了 NeXTSTEP 3.0 的生产力环境、跨平台互联与面向对象开发架构。他首先展示了全真彩实时拖拽、多媒体 NeXT Mail、系统级 Services 服务总线以及异构网络协同（无缝串联 Sun、PC 与 Mac 等不同环境），并介绍了全新的跨网络对象链接与全系统内置传真架构。随后，乔布斯着重演示了 Interface Builder 与 Database Kit，证明开发者如何在完全不写代码的前提下秒级构建出直连 Sybase/Oracle 的多媒体主从数据库应用，并以 SoftPC 兼容 DOS 遗留系统及内置 Pixar RenderMan 的实时 3D 渲染收尾，展现了整套平台在构建关键业务应用上的革命性效率。 ## Atmosphere & style 整场演示充满典型的“乔布斯式”魅力——自信从容、言辞犀利且极富感染力。乔布斯以行云流水的实机操作配合恰到好处的幽默调侃，既嘲讽了传统 PC 与 Mac 的笨拙迟钝，又形象地将复杂的面向对象体系比喻为“蛋糕与糖霜”。观众观看时能深切体会到一种超越时代的震撼感与科技纯粹美，看着三十多年前的屏幕上顺畅流动着现代操作系统的雏形，令人惊叹且心潮澎湃。 ## Bulletin - [00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=0s) NeXTSTEP 3.0 深度融合 Display PostScript 与面向对象架构，通过 Dock、复合文档与系统级 Services 菜单，打破了传统 PC 与 Mac 的界面响应和跨应用协作壁垒。 - [13:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=810s) 系统内核原生整合 TCP/IP、NFS、Novell NetWare 和 AppleShare，实现了跨 Sun、NeXT、PC 与 Mac 四大平台的异构网络文件直拖协作与跨网络动态对象链接（Object Linking）。 - [25:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=1500s) 全新的 Database Kit 组件通过解耦的可插拔适配器，支持在 Interface Builder 中以零编译、拖拽连线方式秒级构建复杂的企业级主从 SQL 数据库前端。 - [30:45](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=1845s) NeXTSTEP 集成了皮克斯（Pixar）的 Interactive RenderMan 实时 3D 渲染引擎，并借由 SoftPC 实现了对遗留 DOS 业务程序与 X Window 的多任务无缝兼容。 ## Key takeaways - [00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=0s) 基于 Display PostScript 技术，NeXTSTEP 实现了窗口拖动时的全彩高精实时重绘与真 Unix 级一键隐藏（Hide）多任务机制。 - [01:54](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=114s) NeXT Mail 支持富文本混排、Lip Service 语音批注与 CD 级音质，展示了高管无需阅读说明书即可上手的极致易用性。 - [04:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=270s) 复合文档理念允许将 Lotus Improv 等模型直接嵌入正文流，结合全局 Services 菜单让全系统任意程序均可无缝调用拼写、词典等公共服务。 - [06:48](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=408s) 文件浏览器以直观的“地球”图标和书架导航（Shelf）大幅降低 Unix 网络使用门槛，并配合 Digital Librarian 实现毫秒级全文布尔检索。 - [13:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=810s) 系统内核重写了 AppleShare 并深度集成 Novell NetWare，在单一排版应用中无缝拉取并合成来自 Sun、PC 与 Mac 的异构数据源。 - [18:50](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=1130s) 跨网络的对象链接（Object Linking）打破了传统静态剪贴板机制，使远程机器上的源数据变更能够瞬时同步回目标文档中。 - [21:05](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=1265s) 系统底层首创将 Display PostScript 直接光栅化压缩为 200 DPI 国际三类传真，使一台 500 美元的传真 Modem 即可在局域网内无纸化服务 50 名员工。 - [23:05](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=1385s) Interface Builder 的可视化开发并非单纯的界面画板，而是以 Objective-C 强面向对象框架为底层的“糖霜与蛋糕”设计哲学体现。 - [25:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=1500s) Database Kit 提炼出模型、表格视图与图像三类对象，支持零代码生成 SQL 查询、主从多表自动 JOIN 关联以及多媒体数据绑定。 - [30:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=1800s) Database Kit 适配器架构将前端应用与底层 Oracle、Sybase、Teradata 等具体企业数据库实现解耦，更换后端无需修改业务逻辑。 - [30:45](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=1845s) 通过 SoftPC 虚拟机与 X Window 兼容支持，NeXTSTEP 在保留现代面向对象特性的同时兼顾了企业历史 DOS 业务应用的多任务并存。 - [32:15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=1935s) 系统级内置皮克斯 Interactive RenderMan，支持 2D 图层透明通道与交互式 3D 几何体的实时光影渲染混合合成。 - [34:20](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=2060s) 乔布斯总结 NeXTSTEP 的终极愿景在于降低开发壁垒，使普通人能够以以往仅几分之一的时间构建并部署关键业务定制应用。 ## Detailed walkthrough ### [00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=0s) NeXTSTEP 图形界面、Dock 与真正的 Unix 多任务乔布斯站在一台 NeXT 电脑前开启了演示。他开门见山地指出，今天的展示分为两部分：首先是展示 NeXTSTEP 如何构建关键业务应用（mission-critical app），但在此之前，必须先领略 NeXT 独特的日常生产力办公环境。在乔布斯看来，这套系统不仅提供了远优于传统 PC 和 Mac 的网络能力，更带来了前所未有的群组协同办公与现成生产力软件的互操作体验。对于初次接触 NeXTSTEP 的用户，乔布斯介绍了屏幕上清晰直观的菜单、窗口以及屏幕一侧的“Dock”（停靠栏）。Dock 可以随时拖动避让，也可以将最常用的程序（例如 X Terminal 仿真终端）直接拖入并吸附在上面，始终保持在最顶层以便随时调用。在展示窗口拖拽时，乔布斯特别强调了一个颠覆性的视觉体验：当拖动 NeXTSTEP 窗口时，整个窗口内的全彩高精图像会实时跟随移动，而不是像传统图形界面那样只显示虚线框。乔布斯借此风趣地揶揄了竞争对手：“If this was a Macintosh or a PC, moving around these full-color images would take until next week for them to all repaint.”（如果这是在 Macintosh 或 PC 上，拖动这些全彩图像得等到下周才能全部重绘完毕）。这种基于 Display PostScript 技术的即时重绘，为出版印刷等重度依赖彩色图像的专业行业带来了巨大优势。更重要的是，NeXTSTEP 底层构建在真正的 Unix 多任务系统之上。用户面对不需要的窗口时无需彻底退出程序，只需点击“Hide”（隐藏），所有窗口便会优雅地隐藏到 Dock 图标背后；再次点击 Dock，整套界面就会以极快的图形响应速度瞬间唤出。 - **Dock 功能特性**：支持任意常用软件（如 X Terminal 终端仿真器）吸附驻留，始终置顶，点击即可快速启动或切换。 - **真彩色实时拖拽**：移动窗口时完整渲染所有色彩图像与矢量内容，摒弃传统 PC/Mac 的虚线线框占位符模式。 - **Unix 级多任务隐藏机制**：支持将正在运行的应用一键隐藏（Hide）至 Dock，极大优化了屏幕空间与后台任务保持。 --- ### [01:54](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=114s) NeXT Mail：多媒体邮件、“唇语”语音批注与 CD 级音质乔布斯选用 NeXTSTEP 自带的 NeXT Mail 作为贯穿整个演示的主线。邮件客户端内建全系统的平滑滚动（smooth scrolling），信件正文支持任意字体与字号的 PostScript 排版、图文混排、发件人个性化头像以及电子签名。除了常规的转发、回复与网络全局地址簿查找（例如一键抄送给整个市场部），NeXT Mail 还引入了极具创意的多媒体特性——“Lip Service”（嘴唇语音服务）。用户只要点击该功能录下一段音频，正文中便会插入一个红唇图标，收件人点击嘴唇即可播放语音批注。乔布斯现场录制了一句轻快的留言：“Hey, can you check this out and let me know what you think? Thanks. Bye.”（嘿，能帮我瞧瞧这个并告诉我你的想法吗？多谢，再见。）面对如此先进的多媒体通信体验，乔布斯对 NeXT Mail 的易用性给出了极具个人风格的评价：“And we found that this mail system is so easy to use that executives can use it without reading manuals, which is sort of our test of ease of use.”（我们发现这个邮件系统简便到高管们不用读说明书就能上手，这也是我们衡量易用性的测试标准）。除了录音批注，NeXTSTEP 还全面支持系统级拖放（Drag and Drop）与 CD 级高质量音频。发件人若想在邮件中分享照片，直接用扫描仪录入后拖入信件即可；收件人也能随意将图片直接拖曳到其他软件中。随后，乔布斯展示了一张自己小儿子的彩色照片，并当场从邮件中播放了一段纯净动听的 CD 级立体声音乐，证明系统内置的音频处理能力不仅限于粗糙的人声电话音质。 - **全格式富文本支持**：任意尺寸与字号的 PostScript 字体渲染，无缝混排高分辨率静态图片。 - **Lip Service 语音批注**：录制的人声直接内嵌为正文中的嘴唇交互图标，收件人单次点击即可回放。 - **全局拖拽与高保真音频**：所有图形均支持跨软件拖拽导出，系统标配支持 CD 级高质量音频播放。 --- ### [04:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=270s) 复合文档嵌入、Lotus Improv 与系统级 Services 机制在演示发送应用附件时，乔布斯向观众展示了 NeXTSTEP 超前的复合文档（Compound Document）理念。为了引起收件人注意，他调出系统的全局“字体对象”（Font Object）面板，将文字切换成 36 磅粗体 Stencil 字体，写下醒目的“Check this out”。接着，他打开文件浏览器（File Viewer），随手将一个电子表格文件直接拖进邮件文本行之间。附件不仅能精确定位在光标停留的字里行间，还能在正文中自由混合多个文档与多段语音批注。收件人收到信件后，看到的不是孤立的附件列表，而是一个内嵌在正文词句与法拉利跑车图片之间的电子表格图标。双击该图标，系统会自动唤醒其原生程序——Lotus Improv。乔布斯感叹道，虽然没有足够时间细致演示 Lotus Improv 的全部强大功能，但它确实是一款极具革命性的动态多维电子表格软件，最关键的是“We got our improv model right through the mail without any real headaches.”（我们直接通过邮件拿到了 Improv 业务模型，中途毫无折腾与头疼）。随后乔布斯又展示了 NeXT 上的 WordPerfect。这是当时该软件最为先进、也是真正实现“所见即所得”（WYSIWYG）的版本。用户不仅能排布三栏复杂版式，还能自由拖动图片跨栏放置，周围文字即时完成动态环绕排版。此时，乔布斯演示了 NeXT 架构中最具突破性的特性之一——**Services（系统服务）菜单**。该菜单驻留在每个软件中，但其菜单项所有权不归属于任何单个程序，而是由 NeXTSTEP 统一调度管理。任何应用程序只要向系统注册为服务提供方，其功能就会自动跨软件出现在其他程序的 Services 菜单中。乔布斯在 WordPerfect 中随手划选了“preserve”一词，点击 Services 菜单下的《韦氏第九大学词典》（Webster's Ninth Collegiate Dictionary and Thesaurus，NeXTSTEP 免费预装套件），系统便自动启动后台词典，两秒之内便在屏幕上弹出了该词的完整释义与近义词库。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: NeXTSTEP Services 架构流程 accDescr: 展示选中文本如何通过系统级 Services 菜单路由至注册的服务应用并返回结果 subgraph App1["发起端应用程序（如 WordPerfect）"] A["选中文本词条\n（例如 'preserve'）"] --> B["展开 Services 系统服务菜单"] end subgraph OS["NeXTSTEP 操作系统底层"] B --> C["系统级 Services 服务总线\n（动态聚合已注册服务）"] end subgraph App2["服务提供方（如 Webster's 词典）"] C --> D["唤醒《韦氏第九大学词典》后台"] D --> E["自动检索并弹出释义与近义词库窗口"] end ``` - **内嵌式文档流（Compound Documents）**：电子表格、图形或文本对象可作为普通字符随处插入正文，点击直接唤醒对应父程序。 - **Lotus Improv 与高级版 WordPerfect**：支持多维建模与动态版面即时重排（三栏排版、图文动态环绕）。 - **统一系统服务总线（Services Menu）**：应用无需点对点集成插件，只需面向 NeXTSTEP 注册，即可在全系统任意程序中提供诸如拼写检查、词典查询、数据转换等公共能力。 --- ### [06:48](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=408s) 革命性的工作站网络：File Viewer、全景地球与 Digital Librarian 谈到网络架构时，乔布斯直言，在开发 NeXTSTEP 时团队就注意到传统 Unix 工作站的网络能力远比 PC 和 Mac 强大得多：“However, you had to be a rocket scientist to figure out how to use it.”（然而，过去你必须得是个火箭科学家才能弄明白怎么去用它）。NeXT 的目标正是把这种顶尖的工作站网络能力包装得比 Macintosh 还要简便优雅。乔布斯以一封来自同事 Gary 的邮件作为引子：Gary 提到上周《华尔街日报》刊登了一篇关于罗斯·佩罗（Ross Perot）的报道，并让乔布斯直接跨网络访问市场部服务器上 Gary 的用户目录，查看内含上周报纸内容的 Digital Librarian（数字图书管理员）书架。Digital Librarian 同样是 NeXTSTEP 预装的核心软件之一，用户可以将写过的任何文档——不管是公司规章制度还是私人情书——随意丢入其中，系统都会自动构建底层全文关键词倒排索引，实现毫秒级快速全文检索。为了跨网获取数据，乔布斯切换回文件浏览器（File Viewer）。在 NeXT 体系中，每个用户拥有独立的 Home Directory（个人主目录）。要浏览网络，用户只需点击代表整个网络的“小地球”图标，屏幕上方就会展开网络层级：点击演示服务器（Demo Server），选择市场部（Marketing），便能直接看到 Gary 的目录。为了防止与本地文件混淆，网络上其他用户的个人目录均贴心地显示为“小社区邻里”（neighborhoods）图标。在 Gary 的目录下，整齐摆放着今年一月份的《华尔街日报》数据书架。乔布斯特别向观众指出了文件浏览器顶部的水平滚动货架设计（Shelf/Path Tracker），随着鼠标在网络层级中穿梭，系统自动记录并直观呈现出完整的访问路径——从本地计算机出发、穿过网络、进入演示服务器、定位市场部、最终深入 Gary 的个人主目录。 - **极简网络拓扑导航**：以“地球”图标统领全网，告别 Unix 复杂的挂载命令与命令行路径。 - **视觉化层级标识**：本地目录与网络共享目录通过独立图标区分，网络端用户目录形象呈现为小社区。 - **水平路径追踪栏（Browser Shelf）**：动态记录跨服务器文件穿梭的历史足迹与物理拓扑，支持用户直观回溯。 - **Digital Librarian 全文检索**：系统级桌面搜索引擎，支持无差别导入多源文本并实时生成关键词索引数据库。 ### [10:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=600s) 书架导航、数字图书馆与跨应用服务集成史蒂夫·乔布斯（Steve Jobs）展示了在 NeXTSTEP 网络中穿梭的高效体验。通过文件查看器（File Viewer），用户只需像按按钮一样点击路径层级即可快速返回上级目录（如市场部）。为了形象化这一体验，乔布斯打了个比方：“这有点像在我的收音机上调台。我刚刚调好了电台，也就是找到了加里（Gary）。如果我经常听这个电台，我希望能像在车载收音机上一样预设一个按钮。”用户只需将 Gary 的个人主目录图标拖拽到顶部的“书架”（Shelf）上，系统便会自动将其固化为一个快捷按钮。用户自己的主目录早已预设在上方，迷路时点击便能瞬间返回；若想再次访问 Gary 的电脑，点击该书架按钮即可无缝连接——无论 Gary 的设备是在隔壁办公室还是远在东京，速度都快如闪电。 ```mermaid flowchart LR accTitle: 书架快捷方式与多应用协作流程 accDescr: 展示用户将远程目录拖至书架后，调用数字图书馆筛选文章并通过系统服务查询词典的全过程。 subgraph ShelfNav["书架快速导航"] A["远程主目录 (Gary)"] -->|"拖拽至书架"| B["生成快速访问按钮"] B -->|"一键触达"| C["访问远端数据文件"] end subgraph SearchFlow["数字图书馆检索"] C -->|"双击数据文件"| D["启动 Digital Librarian"] D -->|"布尔组合过滤 (1,300 -> 6篇)"| E["选中目标文章"] end subgraph ServiceIntegration["系统级服务联动"] E -->|"高亮选中文本 'debacle'"| F["Services 菜单"] F -->|"调用系统字典服务"| G["Webster's 词典秒级释义"] end ``` 进入 Gary 的系统后，乔布斯双击了一份《华尔街日报》（The Wall Street Journal）数据文件，系统随即自动唤醒其父级应用程序——数字图书馆（Digital Librarian）。此时资料库中收录了大约 1,300 篇各类文章。乔布斯展示了实时布尔检索的威力： - 搜索“Perot”（佩罗），在 1,300 篇文章中精准命中 1 篇； - 换用美国前总统“Bush”（布什）检索，返回 106 篇结果； - 进一步增加关键词收窄为“Bush”与“Japan”（日本），结果减少到 45 篇； - 再追加“GM”（通用汽车），最终精准筛选出 6 篇文章。乔布斯打开其中一篇题为《汽车制造商蹒跚步入新年》（*Automakers Hobble into the New Year*）的文章，随后又翻看另一篇《亚洲之行或将赢得新评判：成功的溃败》（*Asia trip may yet win new verdicts: successful debacle*）。遇到文中的生僻词“debacle”（溃败、大败）时，乔布斯直接利用 NeXT 强大的系统级服务（Services），一键调用内置的韦氏大词典（Webster's），两秒内就调出了该词的完整释义。乔布斯借此复盘了刚刚完成的一整套复杂任务：从一封邮件出发，跨网找到远程机器、将目录设在书架、启动检索应用、多关键词交叉过滤、实时阅读排版文档并联动字典服务，这一切均由多个同时运行的应用程序无缝协作完成。乔布斯总结道：“所有这些应用程序都在同时运行，正如你们所见，它们天衣无缝地协同工作，完全不需要用户去扮演系统集成商的角色。”他更进一步强调：“这就是 NeXT 环境的精髓所在；这就是美国企业桌面目前极度渴望、却根本不存在的强大威力。”同时他透露，NeXTSTEP 将于明年初正式登陆 Intel 486 处理器平台，且体验完全一致。 ### [13:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=810s) 跨平台异构网络无缝整合：Sun、NeXT、PC 与 Mac 协同协作乔布斯接下来展示了团队跨平台协作排版秋季通讯期刊（Autumn Newsletter）的真实场景。现实办公环境中充斥着不同厂商品牌的计算机，团队成员各司其职且文件分散在各自机器中： - 拉尔夫（Ralph）在 Sun 工作站上保存着版面模板（Template）； - 维姬（Vicki）在 NeXT 电脑上设计了艺术大标题（Headline）； - 凯文（Kevin）在 PC 上撰写了正文文稿（Text）； - 辛西娅（Cynthia）在 Macintosh 上绘制了配图（Picture）。为了实现这种跨系统、跨平台的团队合作，乔布斯介绍了 NeXTSTEP 3.0 全新内置的底层通讯能力。NeXT 机器出厂就自带工作站级的网络功能（TCP/IP、NFS 等），天然能与 Sun 或 DEC 的网络环境即插即用。然而，面对企业客户已大量部署 Novell PC 局域网和 AppleShare 苹果局域网的现实诉求，NeXT 与 Novell 紧密合作将 NetWare 完全整合到了 NeXTSTEP 中，并自主重写了 AppleShare 协议栈，将其完整融入系统内核。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: 跨四大操作系统的多媒体排版整合 accDescr: 展现从 Sun、NeXT、PC (Novell) 与 Mac (AppleShare) 四个平台聚合排版资源的架构。 subgraph WorkstationLAN["工作站原生网络 (NFS / TCP/IP)"] SunHost["Sun 工作站 (Ralph)"] -->|"FrameMaker 模板文件"| FrameApp NextHost["NeXT 电脑 (Vicki)"] -->|"TouchType PostScript 标题"| FrameApp end subgraph PCLAN["PC 局域网 (Novell NetWare)"] PCHost["PC 电脑 (Kevin)"] -->|"纯文本 Text (拖拽拉取)"| FrameApp end subgraph MacLAN["Mac 局域网 (AppleShare)"] MacHost["Macintosh 电脑 (Cynthia)"] -->|"EPS 矢量图片文件"| FrameApp end subgraph NeXTDesktop["NeXTSTEP 3.0 排版主应用"] FrameApp["FrameMaker 排版引擎"] --> FinalDoc["最终排印输出文档"] end ``` 乔布斯依次在屏幕上完成了震撼的现场拉取与拼版操作： 1. **拉取 Sun 工作站模板**：在网络浏览器中浏览 Sun 网络 creative（创意）部门，找到 Ralph，双击打开其托管的 FrameMaker 模板文件，屏幕立即呈现包含标题、正文和配图预留位的排版样式；乔布斯顺手将 Ralph 的目录图标拽上书架备用。 2. **拉取 NeXT 标题设计**：进入营销部门的 Vicki 机器，找到由 Adobe 专为 NeXT 开发的排版字距微调工具 TouchType 所生成的标题文档。将其拖上书架后，直接拖拽该文档丢入 FrameMaker 模板的标题框。两个从未针对彼此编写过适配代码的第三方应用，依靠系统级 PostScript 图像交换能力自动完成了排版渲染。乔布斯盛赞：“这些应用程序的开发者之间从未沟通过，但在 NeXT 环境里，它就是能够以应有的方式自然工作。” 3. **拉取 PC 机 NetWare 文本**：点击 Novell 网络标志，利用一模一样的 NeXT 统一界面进入市场部的 Kevin 电脑（NetWare 虽然不支持 NeXT 的立体小房子图标，但映射为了文件夹图标）。乔布斯直接将 Kevin 的文稿文件拖进排版窗口，FrameMaker 弹出换行符处理提示，点击确认后，文本直接跨 Novell 协议飞入画框。 4. **拉取 Mac 机 AppleShare 配图**：切换至全局网络，通过 AppleShare 协议逐级展开楼层与市场部，进入 Cynthia 的 Macintosh。找到一份 EPS（Encapsulated PostScript）图片文件，顺手将 Cynthia 放入书架，并将 EPS 文件拖入图片预留位。乔布斯解释中间稍微顿了一两秒的原因：“顺便提一下，这是现场实机演示。文本确实是从 PC 机拉来的，EPS 文件也确实是从 Mac 机拉来的，这也是为什么会花上一两秒，因为 Mac 在传输数据时稍微有点慢。” 去除版面边框后，一份汇聚 Sun 模板、NeXT 标题、PC 文本与 Mac 图片的精美版面彻底完成。乔布斯底气十足地断言：“我们不知道还有哪台电脑能做到这一点，能够无缝融合来自三个不同网络世界的力量——NeXT 和 Sun 的工作站世界、Novell 的 PC 世界，以及 AppleShare 的苹果世界。” ### [18:50](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=1130s) NeXTSTEP 3.0 全新特性：跨网络的对象链接（Object Linking）在完成排版演示后，乔布斯引出了 NeXTSTEP 3.0 的另一项重磅功能——“对象链接”（Object Linking）。该机制不仅支持同台设备不同应用程序之间的数据关联，还能穿透局域网络建立跨机动态链接。乔布斯以制作新版《员工手册》（Employee Handbook）为例展开演示。此时手册各部分已经齐备，唯独缺少最新的组织架构图（Org Chart），邮件要求将网络上动态维护的组织图链接进手册，以保证未来架构图更新时，手册内容能够自动同步。乔布斯从网络上打开了一款绘图程序（Drawing Package）中存储的架构图，准备将其合并进手册。他直言传统系统的局限性：“如果是目前在任何其他系统上操作，我会选‘粘贴’（Paste），但那样贴进来的只是死数据（Dead Data）。”为了确保数据具备动态生命力，乔布斯全选图形并复制后，并未选择常规的粘贴，而是在 Link（链接）菜单下点击了“粘贴并链接”（Paste and Link）。随着动态链接建立，被粘贴的内容便与网络上的源文件绑定，只要源文件作者对组织架构图进行保存修改，手册中的图表便会自动实时更新。 ### [20:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=1200s) 实时链接与动态跨文档更新在展示 NeXTSTEP 的跨应用协作能力时，演示者调出了“链接检查器”（Link Inspector）。该面板赋予用户直接打开数据源、从源文件手动更新或彻底断开链接的能力，同时还支持将更新机制切换为“持续更新”（Update continually）。演示者在文档中选中链接后开启了该选项，并返回作为数据源的原始组织架构图展开修改。例如，选中“总裁”（President）节点后，通过颜色面板选取蓝色直接拖拽着色——演示者特别强调系统原生支持“拖放颜色”（drag and drop color）功能，只需轻轻一拖，源文档与目标文档中的对应模块便同时变成了蓝色。随后，演示者继续调整不同副总裁的颜色（如将某位副总裁设为棕黄色），并戏称某位副总裁“没能熬出头”，而另一位副总裁则获得了晋升。随着源文档的层级与外观变动，链接文档的内容立即保持同步。针对这种跨设备、跨网络的动态交互，史蒂夫·乔布斯指出：“正如你所见，无论源文档位于何处，即便它在全国另一端的另一台机器上，链接了该数据的文档也会瞬间完成更新。”（“As you see, no matter where the source document is, if it's on another machine across the country, this document that the data is linked into will be updated instantaneously.”） - **Link Inspector 核心控制项**：提供打开源文件（Open Source）、从源更新（Update from Source）、断开链接（Break Link）以及设置“持续更新”（Update Continually）。 - **拖放式取色交互**：系统支持将调色板中的颜色直接拖拽并释放在指定图形对象上，实现直观的属性变更。 - **跨网络分布式更新**：底层通信机制支持跨越远程网络节点同步数据变化，对用户完全透明。 --- ### [21:05](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=1265s) NeXTSTEP 的全系统内置传真架构接下来展示的是 NeXT 率先引入操作系统的深度传真集成。NeXTSTEP 是业界首个将全功能传真直接内置到系统底层的软件环境，允许用户直接从任意可打印文档中发送传真。通常用户发送传真需要走打印流程并挑选实体打印机，但在 NeXTSTEP 中，用户只需在打印对话框中勾选“传真”（Fax），直接调出内置地址簿（如现场选取的“科罗拉多矿业学院”记录），点击发送即可完成投递。该架构的优雅之处在于完全复用了 Display PostScript 引擎。原本负责在屏幕上渲染图像或生成打印输出的 PostScript 代码，此时会直接在内存中将文档光栅化为 200 DPI（每英寸点数）的点阵图像——这正是国际三类传真（Group 3 Fax）的通用标准。随后，系统依照国际传真压缩标准完成编码，并通过传真调制解调器向外发出，在接收端呈现出极致细腻的“所见即所得”（WYSIWYG）版面。更重要的是，系统通过内置的网络与打印假脱机（spooling）机制支持硬件共享：单台售价约 500 美元的传真调制解调器足以服务全楼约 50 名员工。在接收环节，系统预装了小巧的 Fax Reader 查看器，传真件可作为普通附件在 NeXT 邮件系统内分发流转。现场展示了一封来自摩托罗拉公司当时的 CEO 乔治·费舍尔（George Fisher）发来的电子传真，不仅画质清晰锐利，更彻底省去了接收端的纸张消耗。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: NeXTSTEP 传真子系统工作流 accDescr: 展示从应用程序文档到 PostScript 光栅化、内存压缩并通过单台共享调制解调器发往网络的完整路径。 subgraph AppStage["应用层与输出选择"] Doc["任意 NeXTSTEP 文档"] --> PrintDlg["打印 / 传真对话框"] AddressBook["系统内置地址簿"] --> PrintDlg end subgraph RenderStage["Display PostScript 渲染引擎"] PrintDlg -->|"选择传真"| DPS["PostScript 内存成像 (200 DPI / Group 3 标准)"] DPS --> Compress["国际传真格式压缩"] end subgraph DeliveryStage["网络共享与收发网络"] Compress --> Spooler["系统网络假脱机池"] Spooler --> SharedModem["共享传真 Modem ($500 / 约50人共享)"] SharedModem --> ExternalFax["外部接收端 (完全 WYSIWYG)"] SharedModem -->|"进站传真"| FaxReader["Fax Reader 应用 (邮件无纸化流转)"] end ``` --- ### [23:05](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=1385s) Interface Builder：面向对象架构的“蛋糕与糖霜” 在展示定制软件开发时，演示者启动了著名的开发工具 Interface Builder。乔布斯借此深入阐述了 NeXTSTEP 的软件设计哲学，并将 NeXT 的面向对象开发环境比喻为一块精心烘焙的蛋糕。乔布斯形象地谈到：“把 NeXTSTEP——也就是 NeXT 的面向对象开发环境——想象成一块面向对象的蛋糕，而我正要展示的仅仅是这块蛋糕上的糖霜；许多人曾试图照抄这层糖霜，但他们最终发现，如果底下没有这块面向对象的蛋糕支撑，它根本运转不起来。”（“many people have tried to copy this frosting but what they found out is without the object-oriented cake underneath it just doesn't work”）在 Interface Builder 中，开发流程彻底告别了传统写代码画界面的繁琐模式。开发者点击新建应用后，系统自动赋予基础菜单与主窗口。随后，开发者只需从现成的对象面板（Palettes of objects）中拖出控件。演示者演示了菜单的快速定制：拖出菜单项、输入文本“Thank you. This is a custom menu”、将菜单项拖至顶层或将退出项移至中间，甚至直接拖入预制的颜色菜单。随后，演示者拖入窗口面板，并在其上布置按钮与滑动条等控件。为了构建后续的数据库应用，演示者保留了一个按钮并将其重命名为“Search”，调出字体面板，将其设置为演示者最钟爱的 Stencil 字体、24 磅字号，并拉大按钮尺寸，为对接后端 SQL 数据库做好准备。 - **蛋糕与糖霜隐喻**：Interface Builder 的可视化拖放仅为表层表现（糖霜），其背后的核心支柱是 NeXTSTEP 极其严密的 Objective-C 面向对象运行库与框架体系（蛋糕）。 - **对象面板化组件**：菜单、面板、按钮、滑动条、颜色选择器均封装为独立对象，开箱即用。 - **所见即所得布局**：字号、字体风格（如 24 pt Stencil）与控件排版均在设计期实时呈现，无需预编译。 --- ### [25:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=1500s) Database Kit 与免编译实时 SQL 数据库连接随着 NeXTSTEP 3.0 的发布，系统新增了一套专用于加速企业级数据库客户端开发的组件——Database Kit。该工具包专门用于连接 Sybase、Oracle 等后端 SQL 数据库，并核心提炼出三类对象： 1. 封装数据库本身及其底层数据模型的“数据库对象”； 2. 用于直观呈现结构化数据的“表格视图对象”（Table View）； 3. 负责解析并渲染数据库多媒体字段的“图像显示对象”。演示者从面板中拖出 Table View 控件放置在窗口中，随后在 Database Kit 架构内浏览当前可用的数据库，定位至名为“departments”（部门）的数据库及其内部的“Department Name”（部门名称）表。接下来，演示者只需通过简单的拖拽操作，将数据字段拖放覆盖到界面中的 Table View 控件上，系统便自动在后台建立起数据模型与前端视图的映射，无需人工干预映射关系。紧接着，演示者配置了“Search”按钮的触发行为：按住鼠标从按钮向数据库对象拉出一条连接线，Interface Builder 随即动态内省（interrogate）该数据库对象，并列出该对象能够响应的所有消息方法列表。演示者在方法列表中勾选了 `fetchAllRecords`（获取全部记录），完成了动作与目标的绑定。乔布斯在此强调，Interface Builder 在连接组件时纯粹是在对象实例之间建立通信契约，根本不会像竞品那样在后台生成混乱的 C 语言胶水代码，因此甚至无需经过编译环节。演示者当场切入“测试界面”（Test Interface）模式，点击刚刚做好的“Search”按钮，系统立即弹出真实的 Sybase 数据库登录窗口。登录成功后，部门名称瞬间全部加载至表格视图中——整个过程没有编写哪怕一行底层代码。 ```mermaid flowchart LR accTitle: Database Kit 零代码绑定与消息触发架构 accDescr: 展示从界面 Search 按钮到数据库对象的 fetchAllRecords 消息派发，以及后端 Sybase 数据到 Table View 的流转过程。 subgraph UI["界面呈现层 (Interface Builder)"] Btn["Search 按钮"] TV["Table View 视图控件"] end subgraph DK["Database Kit 运行层"] DBObj["Database Model 代理对象"] end subgraph Backend["后端数据源"] Sybase[("Sybase SQL 实时数据库")] end Btn -->|"拖线绑定: 派发 fetchAllRecords 消息"| DBObj DBObj <--->|"动态查询与数据回传"| Sybase DBObj -->|"字段映射: Department Name"| TV ``` --- ### [27:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=1620s) 主从数据联动、跨表自动关联与多媒体呈现在初步查询成功后，演示者退出测试模式，着手构建更为复杂的企业级“主从细节”（Master-Detail）关联架构。其设计逻辑在于：选中主表（Master）中的某个部门名称后，界面应联动调出归属于该部门的详细员工数据（Detail）。为此，演示者在窗口右侧拖出第二个 Table View，重新打开数据库浏览器展开“employee”（员工）表，依次将 `last name`（姓氏）、`first name`（名）、`manager`（主管）、`salary`（薪水）及 `phone`（电话）字段依次拖入新表格的不同列中，并随手拉宽各列以便完整展现文字。随后，为了在选中单个员工时展示更立体的档案信息，演示者在界面下方拖入若干文本标签字段，设置为 18 磅 Stencil 字体，并分别绑定至员工的 `title`（职位）与 `location`（工作地点）。演示者特别向台下熟悉数据库技术的观众指出，这些数据实际上跨越了数据库的多个不同实体表，但界面的开发者完全无需手工编写繁重的 SQL JOIN 语句，所有的多表关联操作全部由 Database Kit 在底层全自动完成。最后，演示者引入了 Database Kit 的第三个核心组件——图像显示对象。通过拉出两个图像展示框，一个绑定至部门所属地点表（location）中的建筑照片（photo），另一个跨表连接至员工实体名下存储的个人免冠照片。排版居中微调后，演示者再次启动交互测试。点击“Search”后，左侧表格瞬间列出各部门；当选中任意部门时，该部门对应的办公大楼照片立刻刷新，员工列表中实时展示全员名单，界面右侧的滚动条也会根据数据量自适应显隐；当进一步点击列表中的具体员工时，其个人照片与职位立即动态浮现，而办公地点则精准锁定在该部门所属的大厦。乔布斯总结道，通过 NeXTSTEP 3.0 的这一套组件体系，构建这样一个高度复杂、联动多张关联表且集成图像的大型数据库企业前端，仅仅耗费了短短数分钟时间。 ### [30:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=1800s) Database Kit 适配器架构与数据库隔离史蒂夫·乔布斯（Steve Jobs）继续介绍 NeXTSTEP 中用于数据处理的底层工具，并着重阐述了 Database Kit 的一项卓越特性。为了让应用能够无缝连接企业级数据库，NeXT 在 Database Kit 架构的后端设计了可即插即用的适配器（adapters）。当时 NeXTSTEP 已经提供了针对 Oracle、Sybase 以及 Teradata 的适配器，并且支持 IBM DB2、Informix 和 Ingres 的适配器也正在开发中。这种架构设计的核心优势在于解耦。开发者只需面向 Database Kit 的对象集合编写应用程序代码，后续如果客户或企业想要从 Sybase 切换到 Oracle 或其他任何支持的数据库，业务代码完全不需要修改哪怕一行。乔布斯总结了这一抽象层的价值，明确指出：“the database kit insulates the application developer from whatever back end the customer may prefer to use”（Database Kit 将应用程序开发者与客户可能偏好使用的任何后端数据库彻底隔离开来）。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: Database Kit 适配器架构示意图 accDescr: 展示上层应用程序通过 Database Kit 对象层与多种后端数据库适配器解耦的架构关系。 subgraph AppLayer["应用层"] App["NeXTSTEP 应用程序"] end subgraph KitLayer["对象层"] DBKit["Database Kit 对象"] end subgraph Adapters["适配器层 (可插拔)"] AdOracle["Oracle 适配器"] AdSybase["Sybase 适配器"] AdTera["Teradata 适配器"] AdUpcoming["DB2 / Informix / Ingres 适配器"] end subgraph DBs["底层数据库"] DBOracle[("Oracle")] DBSybase[("Sybase")] DBTera[("Teradata")] DBOthers[("其他企业数据库")] end App --> DBKit DBKit --> AdOracle DBKit --> AdSybase DBKit --> AdTera DBKit --> AdUpcoming AdOracle --> DBOracle AdSybase --> DBSybase AdTera --> DBTera AdUpcoming --> DBOthers ``` - **现已支持的后端适配器**：Oracle、Sybase、Teradata。 - **正在开发的后端适配器**：IBM DB2、Informix、Ingres。 - **核心开发效益**：更换底层数据库时，开发者无需重写或修改业务逻辑代码。 --- ### [30:45](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=1845s) 运行传统 DOS 应用：SoftPC 与多任务兼容在展示完面向未来的开发工具后，乔布斯转向了许多企业面临的现实包袱——遗留系统。许多公司的 MIS 部门在多年前基于 DOS 开发了关键业务程序，而这些程序可能永远都不会被重新编写。乔布斯展示了 NeXTSTEP 如何通过 Insignia 公司的 SoftPC 产品，在窗口中直接原生运行 DOS 应用程序。乔布斯带着一贯幽默的口吻调侃道，自己为了这次演示特意学了“刚刚够用”的 DOS 命令。他在终端窗口中键入了 `DIR` 命令，打趣说这界面“非常直观”，随后启动了经典的 Lotus 1-2-3 电子表格程序。在输入盘符和命令后，他调出了一个工作表文件，并展示了 1-2-3 窗口与 NeXTSTEP 原生优秀应用并排运行的画面。乔布斯指出，用户不仅可以在 DOS 程序和 NeXT 应用程序之间自由剪切和粘贴数据，还可以同时打开任意多个 PC 窗口；这是一个真正的多任务 PC 环境，并且该平台对 X Window 系统（X Windows）同样提供了此类支持。 - **运行机制**：借助 Insignia 开发的 SoftPC，在 NeXTSTEP 的独立图形窗口中模拟运行 DOS 环境。 - **多任务能力**：支持同时运行多个独立的 PC 实例，各窗口间以及与 NeXTSTEP 原生应用间均支持剪贴板复制粘贴。 - **广泛兼容性**：不仅支持 DOS，NeXTSTEP 还可以并排运行 X Window 应用程序。 --- ### [32:15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=1935s) NeXTSTEP 的图形图像与 RenderMan 3D 渲染乔布斯演示的最后一项核心内容是 NeXTSTEP 内置的强大图形能力。为了证明开发的高效性，他展示了一个仅耗时两天就制作完成的演示程序。该程序旨在向开发者说明，NeXTSTEP 已经将复杂的图形与图像处理机制下沉到系统底层，开发者即便想构建视觉表现极为丰富的软件，也无需亲手编写海量图形代码。在演示中，乔布斯首先在一张森林背景图上叠加了一辆法拉利跑车的图片。原始图像周围带有黑色矩形边框，乔布斯通过系统内置的透明通道控制，轻松将黑色背景设为全透明，同时法拉利车身保持不透明，而车窗部分则呈现出细腻的半透明效果。随后，他又加入了一张唐老鸭的图片，消除了黑边，并将唐老鸭移到了法拉利后方——透过法拉利半透明的车窗，依然可以清晰看到被遮挡的唐老鸭。乔布斯接着将整辆法拉利拖动到森林中一棵大树的后面，图层遮挡和透明度合成依然完美无瑕。更进一步的是 NeXTSTEP Release 3.0 中整合的 3D 图形技术。系统内置了来自皮克斯（Pixar）的 RenderMan 照片级真实感渲染引擎，能够将 3D 模型渲染出最逼真的光影效果。不仅如此，NeXT 还将其改造为可在屏幕上交互运行的“Interactive RenderMan”（交互式实时 RenderMan）。乔布斯在同一个画面中调出了一个 3D 立方体，并将其直接置于 2D 图像图层之间；当他在屏幕上实时旋转这个立方体时，3D 几何体一边接受实时光照计算与渲染，一边实时合成了车体后方、树木下方的图层关系中。乔布斯强调，未来三维图形在商业领域将扮演不可或缺的角色，能够帮助企业将日益庞大复杂的数据以直观方式呈现并被人脑迅速理解；而在 NeXTSTEP 中，“To build very rich graphical apps in Next Step is no different than anything else. Most of the work is already done for you.”（在 NeXTSTEP 中构建极其丰富的图形应用与做其他事情并无二致，绝大多数繁重工作系统早为你做好了）。 - **图层与透明度合成**：底层原生支持 Alpha 通道半透明、不透明度混合及复杂多图层遮挡渲染。 - **内置皮克斯 RenderMan**：包含用于生成照片级真实图像的 RenderMan，以及可在屏幕上实时交互渲染 3D 模型的 Interactive RenderMan。 - **2D/3D 混合合成**：支持将正在实时旋转渲染的 3D 几何实体实时合成到多个 2D 图层（如树木与半透明车窗）之间。 --- ### [34:20](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=2060s) 总结：为凡人打造的强大开发与应用环境在全场演示的结尾，乔布斯对 NeXTSTEP 的愿景进行了提炼与升华。他表示，希望通过这次全方位的演示，大家能够真切体会到 NeXTSTEP 环境的丰富程度，以及它是如何做到既无比强大又足够易用，让“凡人”（mere mortals）也能够轻松驾驭这套先进的软件资产。乔布斯重申了 NeXTSTEP 赋予企业的核心竞争力：企业不仅能够获得前所未有的用户界面体验，更能够以极高的效率打造专有系统。正如乔布斯在结语中所概括的那样，NeXTSTEP 让企业能够“create and deploy mission critical custom apps in a fraction of the time, than ever before possible, and to do all three simultaneously”（以比以往任何时候都快得多的速度，创造并部署关键业务定制应用，并将这三大优势同时集于一身）。演示在伴奏音乐中圆满落幕。 ## Notable quotes > [23:05](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=1385s) many people have tried to copy this frosting but what they found out is without the object-oriented cake underneath it just doesn't work — Steve Jobs > [18:50](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=1130s) 如果是目前在任何其他系统上操作，我会选‘粘贴’（Paste），但那样贴进来的只是死数据（Dead Data）。 — Steve Jobs > [10:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=600s) 所有这些应用程序都在同时运行，正如你们所见，它们天衣无缝地协同工作，完全不需要用户去扮演系统集成商的角色。 — Steve Jobs > [13:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA&t=810s) 我们不知道还有哪台电脑能做到这一点，能够无缝融合来自三个不同网络世界的力量——NeXT 和 Sun 的工作站世界、Novell 的 PC 世界，以及 AppleShare 的苹果世界。 — Steve Jobs ## Mentioned Steve Jobs, NeXT, NeXTSTEP, Display PostScript, NeXT Mail, Lotus Improv, WordPerfect, Webster's Ninth Collegiate Dictionary and Thesaurus, Digital Librarian, Sun Microsystems, Novell, NetWare, AppleShare, Apple Macintosh, FrameMaker, TouchType, Adobe, Link Inspector, Interface Builder, Database Kit, Sybase, Oracle, Teradata, IBM DB2, Informix, Ingres, Insignia, SoftPC, Lotus 1-2-3, X Window System, Pixar, RenderMan, Interactive RenderMan, George Fisher, Motorola, Ross Perot [Source](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5o5liZxnA)

Source quotes

[23:05] Steve Jobs: many people have tried to copy this frosting but what they found out is without the object-oriented cake underneath it just doesn't work [18:50] Steve Jobs: 如果是目前在任何其他系统上操作，我会选‘粘贴’（Paste），但那样贴进来的只是死数据（Dead Data）。 [10:00] Steve Jobs: 所有这些应用程序都在同时运行，正如你们所见，它们天衣无缝地协同工作，完全不需要用户去扮演系统集成商的角色。 [13:30] Steve Jobs: 我们不知道还有哪台电脑能做到这一点，能够无缝融合来自三个不同网络世界的力量——NeXT 和 Sun 的工作站世界、Novell 的 PC 世界，以及 AppleShare 的苹果世界。

Source quotes

[30:00] Steve Jobs: Once a developer writes their application to the database kit set of objects you can actually switch between Sybase or Oracle or any of the other databases without changing a line of code in the application.

Original transcript

[0:00] . Here we are at the next computer and we want to look at two things. The first, of course, is what it's like to actually build a mission critical app. We're going to do that here. But before we do that, I want to show you what it's like to work in the next computer's productivity environment, an environment that has much, much better networking than PCs and Macs and much, much better productivity apps that let people work together as groups and really increases their group productivity and collaboration. that can interoperate with these off-the-shelf productivity apps. So let's take a look. For those of you that have never seen Next Step before, Next Step has your menus, your windows. And a thing over here called the dock. which you can move out of the way if you want to. And the doc is really useful for keeping the applications you use most... often in constant view, always on the top. So I can grab an application like this X Terminal Emulator and just click it into the dock here. whichever ones I find the most useful to me. and the dock will always stay on the top so I can find them very quickly. also please note that when I move around these next step windows the entire contents of the window comes with me this gets extremely important when we have color images. All right. If this was a Macintosh or a PC, moving around these full-color images would take until next week for them to all repaint. And so rather than just moving the outlines, moving the entire images along with us really is fantastic information. benefit if you're working in publishing or some other area that demands that you use color imagery. in addition Rather than just having the option to quit things, because we're a full multitasking system on top of Unix, we can hide things. And I push hide here, and those pictures all hide behind their icon, which happens to be over here in the dock. And I can click, and you can see how fast... the graphics in Next Step R. Now, this is the application where I find all of my files and other things. I'm going to hide that for now. And we're going to use the mail as the spine of our demo here. this is standard next mail which is bundled with next step and now these are all the mail messages that have come in and when I click on one as you see, it's contents is put in this window down here. We have smooth scrolling throughout the system, you'll see that a lot as well. In this mail message, I have postscript of any font or size. I have graphics, I have a signature. above here I have a picture of of the person that sent this mail message in this case myself the date the time it was sent and a bunch of buttons. As an example, if I want to forward this mail message to somebody, I can hit compose. and I can just push forward and it'll put the contents of this mail message in here as you can see um I can reply in which case it will reply to me I can look up addresses on the network I can go back here and I can look up let's say a group of people, the whole marketing department I can send this to, I can CC the marketing department. And I can even add voice annotation by clicking on what we call lip service. and I can record something. Hey, can you check this out and let me know what you think? Thanks. Bye. and I can insert it you'll see the lips are inserted here the recipient just simply clicks on these lips and plays the message. "Hey, can you check this out and let me know what you think?" Thanks. Bye. And almost all of the next step applications can be voice annotated just this easily. You deliver the mail by just pushing this button right here. And we found that this mail system is so easy to use that executives can use it without reading manuals, which is sort of our test of ease of use. Thank you. Ah... This person wanted to include a color photograph in their mail message, so they just scanned it in on any one of the several scanners available and dropped it in mail. Next is fully drag and drop, so if I click on this, I can just drag out this image and drag it into another application if that's what I wanted to do. now in addition to just speech next step supports full CD quality sound this happens to be a picture my my young son. And we can actually play music here. . *music* *music* And it's nice to know that your system is capable of it. Now what about applications? Well, when we want to send an attachment, what we do is as follows. Let's go ahead and send a spreadsheet. Let's say, check this out. and so we can read this more clearly we'll bring up our font object. And this is an object for controlling all the fonts in the system. I happen to have a lot of fonts in here. I can simply set Helvetica to a bigger font by pushing this. or I go down and get a font that I really like which is stencil only comes in bold but I'll They stand. [5:00] 36 point. Check this out. That'll make sure it gets red at the other end. And now I'll go to my file viewer, which is where I have all of my files AND I'll click on spreadsheets and I'll just go grab a spreadsheet and drag it down into the mail window. That's all I have to do and it puts it wherever the cursor was. So if I want to put another one between the words check and this, I just put my cursor there, go grab another spreadsheet and drag it down, and it just sticks it in there. And I can have as many different documents of any type that I want, as many lips with voice annotations as I want in any mail message. and I can put another space here if I want to, whatever, and just deliver it. and the recipient ends up with something that looks like this. where the spreadsheet in this document in this case is just embedded right to between some words and above a picture of a Ferrari and they just double click on it which launches the parent application in this case Lotus Improv and brings up the spreadsheet We don't have time to demo all of Lotus Improv, but it's a pretty remarkable spreadsheet. okay so that's improv but more importantly We got our improv model right through the mail without any real headaches. Now, We have the same for WordPerfect. Here's a WordPerfect document that I just got in the mail. As you know, our version of WordPerfect on the next computer is the most advanced version of WordPerfect. And in addition to that is Total WYSIWYG. what you see is what you get. So, here's our documents that is totally compatible with the other versions of WordPerfect and yet I can see everything I can take the picture, I can move it around and we'll see the text instantly reformat. I can ask to make the text three columns... now my pictures a little too big so I can resize the picture here to make a little bit smaller and I can move it from this column over to this column. or I can put it between these two columns if I want. and people that see this after using WordPerfect on other platforms are amazed that your documents can really look like this. I want to show you another feature of the next environment. I'm going to pick a word like preserve and I'm going to go over here to this menu called services. Now the services menu is rather unique in that it appears in every application but the contents of the services menu is not owned by any one application, it's owned by Next Step. And any other application can register themselves as a service, and the appropriate ones will pop up in the services menu of all the other applications. So as an example, I pick the word preserve in WordPerfect, and I go up, and one of the services is Webster's Ninth Collegiate Dictionary in Thesaurus, which we bundle with NextEdit. So I say define in Webster's. It'll launch Webster's, throw that word in, and in a second or two, the definition and the thesaurus for preserve will pop up on my screen. And here's the definition There's the thesaurus entries. And we'll come back to this again. in a little while. okay now what I want to show you a little bit of the networking when we design next step We looked at the networking that workstations had, and it was substantially better than was available on PCs or Macintoshes. However, you had to be a rocket scientist to figure out how to use it. So we asked ourselves, could we use this much more powerful workstation networking and yet make it even easier than a Macintosh to use. And we think we accomplished this, and let me show it to you and you can tell me what you think. Now, this is some... a message that I've gotten from Gary hey Ross Pro is in the Wall Street Journal last week Just go over the network to my home directory, I'm on the marketing server, to see the Digital Librarian bookshelf with last week's Wall Street Journal issues. Now, the Digital Librarian is an application that we also bundle with Next Step, where you can drop any text you've ever written into it, your policy manual, your love letters, what have you, and it will build a keyword index to let you find stuff very quickly. And what we've done is we put some Wall Street Journal data into the Digital Librarian from January. And Gary is asking me to go over the network to find his home directory and to take a look at it. Well, how do I do that? I go back here to my file viewer. Now, everyone on the next system... has a home directory. This is my home directory. It's where I put all my stuff. and Gary's asking me to go find his he's on the marketing server well to go out over the network I go back my computer and I have this globe right here And I click on this globe, and it shows me everything on the network. And so I go into the demo server here. and it'll show me the different departments and I go into the marketing department And sure enough, there's Gary. Now, everyone else's home directory shows up as these little neighborhoods, so I don't get them confused with my own. and sure enough in Gary's home directory there's the Wall Street Journal bookshelf now notice that every time I clicked on something It put a copy of it in this little horizontal scrolling window up here. So I can see the entire process trail or history or path that I've traversed to get there. Out of my computer, over the network, over the demo server, in the marketing, into Gary's home director [10:00] and to the Digital Librarian Bookshelf. Now, if I want to go back to marketing, I just go click on this like a button and boom, I'm back there. And it's incredibly fast to navigate around the network this way. In addition to that... It's kind of like tuning a radio station on my radio. I've just finished tuning the radio station, i.e., finding Gary. If I'm going to listen to this radio station a lot, I'd kind of like to program a button just like I do on my car radio. Well, I can do that. What I do is I just take Gary's home directory and drag a copy of it anywhere up here on what we call the shelf. and it programs a button for me. Now my home directories put up here automatically before me so if I get lost or if I want to go home quickly I just go push on it and blammo I'm home. But now if I want to go back to Gary, I just push this. And whether Gary's next door or in Tokyo, I'm back to Gary's system. And you can see how fast it is. Okay, well now we're on Gary's system. and we click on the Wall Street Journal and it launches the digital librarian the parent app that created this data and up pops the digital librarian and I have to know there's about 1300 different articles in here And I can find the ones that have the word Perot in them. and it'll find just one. out of 1,300, I click on it, and I can view it right here. and I can click up to the title. and this is executives divided on Bush's trade trip this is when Bush went to Japan Let me go look up Bush here. Out of these 1,300 articles, how many have to do with Bush? 106, I don't really want to look through 106 articles. How about Bush and Japan? 45. How about Bush Japan and GM? six. Well I can look through six articles And-- you know I can click on one Here's Bush and The title of the article is Automakers Hobble into the New Year. So as you can see, I can find things very quickly. I can take a look at another one here. Asia trip may yet win new verdicts successful debacle. Okay, so here Again, let's take a look. Let's look at the word debacle. what does it mean again I can go to services and just define it in Webster's. and in a second or two I have the word debacle defined. Now take a look at this I got a mail message which said go over the network to Gary's home directory and find this document created by the digital librarian. I went and got my file viewer traversed the network, found Gary, program Gary's home directory up here on the shelf so I get back to it found the digital librarian, launched it, Found the little window which had all the articles in it. traversed or a search over 1300 articles to find the ones with Bush, Japan and General Motors looked at one in a viewer, picked the word debacle, and defined it in Webster's. All these applications are running simultaneously and as you see they work seamlessly together. without the user having to play system integrator. this is what the next environment is all about this is the power just doesn't exist on the desktops in corporate America today that people are longing for. As you know, we'll be bringing Next Step out for the Intel 486 family of processors early next year, and it's exactly the same stuff you're seeing here. Okay. Now, let's put this all together even more. Steve our autumn newsletter has been a truly collaborative effort each person has the files in their home directory Ralph has the template on his son. Vicky has the headline on her next. Kevin has the text file on his PC. And Cynthia has the picture on her Mac. We want to do some truly collaborative work on this newsletter. There are some new communications features we've recently built in the next step. Thank you. The two that we're going to highlight here are networking to connect Next Step automatically to PC networks running on Novell and Macintosh networks running on Apple Share. as you know next step ships out of the box with full workstation class networking TCP/IP, NFS, etc. And so you can take next step computers and just hook them into sun networks, deck networks, etc. and they work seamlessly. we got requests from our customers to make the same thing be true for Novell networks for their PC existing PC lands and Apple share networks for their existing Macintosh lands and so we did the work working with Novell to get their netware fully integrated into NextStep and we wrote our own Apple share to get it fully integrated again into next step. So let's take a look at how this works. Ralph has the template on his son. I go back to my network And I look at my sons. And I go into the creative department. And sure enough, there's Ralph. And here is that frame template. frame is a high-end document processor that runs on next really good product And I click on it. [15:00] and up will pop a template. which has a place for headline some body copy in a picture so I'm gonna click where the headline supposed to go and in addition to that I think I'm gonna put Ralph up here on my shelf just in case I want to get back there in the future. Okay. Vicki has the headline on her next. Let's go back here. into the marketing department sure enough there's Vicki And Vicky has an application in here called TouchType. TouchType is sold by Adobe. only runs on next and allows you to beautifully current headlines Well, First of all, I'll put Vicki up here on the shelf. Now how do I get that touch type document over into the frame document. On the next computer, all I do is I drag it and drop it. and these two applications will communicate with each other and decide that they want to image touch types postscript into this area of the frame document all automatically these application writers never talk to each other it just works the way it ought to in the next environment. Now I'm going to click on where the text should go here. I'm going to go back over to my mail window. It says, Kevin has the text file on his PC. Now we start to get into some amazing stuff. We go back to the network, and we just click on this Novell network logo here. And automatically... I am working in Novell network through the same seamless user interface that I've grown accustomed to in Next Step. And I click on Novell here. and I click in the marketing department, And sure enough, there's Kevin. Now, NetWear doesn't let me give Kevin a nice fancy little house, but it does let me give him a folder. sure enough here's that text so let's let's put Kevin's folder up here on the shelf And let's just take that text and drag it right over to frame and drop it in. and frame asks me how I want to treat line endings and I don't really care and it'll take that text and it just grabbed it over the Novell network and dropped it right into frame here. And now I click on where the picture is supposed to go, And I go back here and it says, Cynthia has the picture on her Mac. So I go back to the globe here. and I click on it and I go into Apple Share, And I... I think they're in building one upper. Nope. building one lower. there we go and here's the Macintosh server Here's the marketing department. here's Cynthia why don't we put Cynthia up there on the shelf here and sure enough here's an EPS file an encapsulated postscript file and I simply drag it over here. And by the way, this is a live demonstration. The text is really coming off a PC. This EPS file is really coming off a Mac, which is why it takes a second because the Mac is a little slow to give it up. But there it is. all over native Apple share protocols and so now we've created our frame document we go ahead and get rid of the borders here with the collaborative effort from Someone who had the template on their son someone who had the headline on their next page, a third person that had the text on their PC and a fourth person who had the picture on their Macintosh. and if I want to go back and review all those files here's Ralph with the template on their son Here is Vicky. with the touch type document on their next here's Kevin with the text. on their PC over net where and here is Cynthia with the picture on their Macintosh over Apple share. We're not aware of any other computer that can do this and create the seamless integration from three different worlds of networking the workstation world with next and son the PC world with Novell and the Apple world with Apple share Now I want to show you something that's also new for our 3.0 release of Next Step, object-linking. Object linking works between applications and over networks. So... Let's take a look. Here's our new employee handbook except for the org chart. Please object link the current chart in so it will always be updated. So here's my employee handbook right here. And I'm going to now run another application. which I will get from another part of the network here. which is a simple drawing package. which has a chart on it. And what I want to do... is I want to cut and paste this chart into my employee handbook here But in a way that it will always be updated whenever the author of this chart changes the org chart. Sounds pretty simple, right? So what I'll do is I will select all in my drawing package and I will make a copy. And then what I do today on every other system is I come over here and I would say paste except that paste will paste dead data in So rather than do that, I will go down to my link menu and say simply paste and link. which we'll paste in linked data. Very, very simple. now this data is normally updated every time the source is saved But since I will [20:00] To update continually for this demo, I'll bring up the Link Inspector, which allows me to open the source or update from the source or break links. And I'll also be able to set it. after I select the link over here, I'll be able to set it to-- Update it continually. And now that means when I go back to my source here, Let's say I pick the president, and I go get my color object here which lets me select colors let's say presidents like to be blue Notice I have drag and drop color, by the way. I just drag up and drop the color in here, and notice that it's updated on both documents. let's say this vice president wants to be Over here, this color. This vice president wants to be a tan color. let's say this vice president Doesn't make it maybe this vice president here gets promoted As you see, no matter where the source document is, if it's on another machine across the country, this document that the data is linked into will be updated instantaneously. Okay. One or two more things. As you know, Next was the first environment to incorporate facts. into it we have full faxing built into the entire next environment you can fax from any documents Normally when you'd fax, if I want to fax this document here I'd go to print it And, uh... I would simply pick a printer here. and say print. but instead I can select facts here. and I can pick one of my address books And in this case, I'll pick the Colorado School of Mines. and I can just push facts and when I push facts now The same exact postscript that put this image on the screen or would have created it for the printer We'll image this document at 200 dots per inch into memory, which is the international standard for group three facts. compress it to the International Facts Standard, and send it out through one fact modem. and the faxes that you get at the other end are total whizzy wing what you see is what you get they're gorgeous And in addition to that, I can share one fax modem for everybody in the building. And one fax modem will work for about 50 people. so I can use the built-in networking and built-in spooling to have one $500 fax modem enable an entire building full of people to send and receive faxes. Now what about receiving faxes then? Well, when I get a fax... we have a little fax reader program that's bundled with next step and this is what they look like. I can send them around the mail system and I just double click on them My little facts reader program is launched. And up will pop the facts. This fax is from George Fisher. He's the CEO of Motorola. and Here's a... facts like this, and they're beautiful as you can see. This was taken right off the facts modem. so it saved a paper at the receiving end and and was sent around the mail system, to one or many people. Now, what I'd like to do is show you how we build these custom apps. and I'm going to run an application called Interface Builder. Now, think of the next... Think of next step. which is NEXT's object-oriented development environment. as an object oriented cake I'm about to show you just the frosting on the cake many people have tried to copy this frosting but what they found out is without the object-oriented cake underneath it just doesn't work And this is the way all of our developers build their applications. they first say I want to make a new application interface builder gives them a new menu and a new window and then they go over here to these pallets of objects and we have pallets of objects starting off with menus so I can just drag things down into my document or into my menus here. and it adds them I can add custom menus here and I can type. Thank you. Thank you. This is a custom menu. I can move that to the top if I want. I can move quit in the middle. whatever I care to do I can bring down a color menu et cetera. This is how we build menus. I can simply drag panels and pull them off to gain additional panels or windows I have a bunch of controls here buttons sliders etc I can drag buttons over here I can make buttons bigger, I can make lots more buttons if I want to, etc. etc. but I just want one for this. And I want to label this button search. And I want to bring up my... Font object, and I'm going to use again my favorite font, stencil, maybe 24 point. and I think I'll make my button a little bit bigger here. So now I have a search button. And we're going to build an application that uses a back-end database. a back-end SQL database like Sybase or Oracle. and we're going to use [25:00] There's a new collection of objects which we have added to Next Step 3.0 that make writing applications that use back-end databases even faster. And it's called our database kit. and the database kit It has three objects in it. One that represents... the database and the model of data in it The second... which is a table view that allows me to view that data. And so-- and we'll get to the third in a minute. So I've got a table view here. And now I'm going to go look inside my database. and this queries the database and shows me all of the different databases that I've got. I'm going to pick one called departments. and here's all the different tables in the database and I'm going to pick one called Department Name. Now I want to make a connection between the Department Name table and my table view object to view it. And all I do is I drag it and drop it on and it automatically makes that connection for me. And I'll get inside this and just stretch this a little wider here. So I only have the one column. Now, I want to connect this button to the database object. So that... Now Thank you. it searches for data and all I do is drag a line down to the database object and the database object is dynamically interrogated and these are all the messages that it can understand from a button. I'm going to pick fetch all records and make the connection. And now, since Interface Builder is only making connections between objects, it is not generating any C code or anything else, I don't even have to compile this. And I can just say, Test this interface out. and here's my Wacko menu, And here's my window. And now when I say search... I will be asked to log into Sybase because I'm using a real live Sybase database for this demo So let me log in here. and instantly All of the data in the department name is queried and put inside my little viewer here. without writing any code. So let me go ahead and quit this. Let's go make this more interesting. You're all familiar with what's master detail is in the database world it's where I have a master we in this case the department name and once I pick a master I want to learn more about it which is the detail So let me stretch to another point. table view out here. And now I want to learn more about the people inside that department so I'm gonna go back to my database here And I'm going to pick employee. And I'm going to pick last name here. And let me drag last name up into this. And one I drag first name up here. And I'll put first name onto the second column there. and maybe manager here. Let's drag the manager up. and maybe salary and maybe their phone. Okay, let's get inside here. and let's make a few of these wider Alrighty. Now, let's go... grab some additional information about the people that we're going to select in that department. maybe let's grab a few fields here And let's stretch them out. And let's go back and them maybe stencil 18 point. And I don't need them to be quite so tall here. okay let's go back to employee and maybe let's put their title in now by the way for those of you that are a fluent in databases you'll notice that I'm actually doing joins across multiple parts of the database here all automatically done buy the database kit. And let's go back and let's go back to location. and let's pick the employees location and let's put that in the second field here now I also have a way to display images that's the third object in the database kit And... We'll go grab this and stretch it out a little bit. And we'll go back to location here. We notice we have a photo. So let's go ahead and drag up the photo in here. And I also have another photo of the employee. which we'll put right here. And let's go back to department. We'll pick employee. and we'll go to a join to another part of the database where the photo is and we'll just drop the photo in here So now, hopefully, if I've done everything right, I can space these things out a little bit. center them. We've done everything right, I should be able to go test this. and when I say search in addition to fetching the department name I should also fetch all the people in that department the picture of the department, And when I select a person, their photo will come up their title will come up but their location will remain the same because their departments in the same location in this database office of the president He's in another building here. many more people so scroll bars come and go as necessary And as you can see, We've built a very simple but... important database application here in just a few minutes. [30:00] so these are the kinds of things that we tried to make very very easy In addition, The database kit does something else remarkable. We've written it so that there are adapters that click into the back end of the database kit architecture. and today we have adapters for Oracle and Sybase and Teradata with adapters for DB2, Informix and Ingress on the way. Once a developer writes their application to the database kit set of objects you can actually switch between Sybase or Oracle or any of the other databases without changing a line of code in the application. the database kit insulates the application developer from whatever back end the customer may prefer to use Okay. The last thing I want to show you today Actually, second to last thing. is... the fact that some companies have legacy applications built in DOS as an example. that they have to run that were built by their MIS department let's say that will never be rewritten It turns out you can run DOS applications in a window on Next Step. because of a product called SoftPC by Insignia. Now, I've learned just enough DOS to be able to demo this to you. It's quite intuitive, D-I-R here. There we go. One, two, three. And here's 123 running in a window. and I may find out, I may be able to bring up a file here. slash... F It's a wonderful user interface. One, two, three. There we go. So here's an example of a 1-2-3 worksheet running inside a PC window right alongside your good applications here. and again you can cut and paste between these things and have as many PCs as you like. It's a true multitasking PC. You can do the same thing with X Windows as well. So The last thing I want to show you today is a little bit of the graphics power that's built into Next Steps. this is a simple application that was built in two days just for demonstration and the reason I'm showing you this is just to show you some of the built-in graphics power in the next step environment so that developers that want to create graphically rich applications can do so without writing a lot of code themselves. Thank you. So I have an image of a forest. I'm going to put a Ferrari on the forest here. and as you can see I move it around what I really want to do those get rid of that black rectangle I want to say that everything around the Ferrari is opaque or sorry, is transparent, The Ferrari itself is opaque except for its window, which is semi-transparent. And in the next step environment I can do that. And as you can see, you can see a little semi-transparency there on the window. I can put Donald Duck here. on, uh, and also eliminate Donald's black. And I can even put Donald behind the Ferrari here. And you'll notice again that semi-transparency behind the Ferrari's window. All that's just built in. I can take the Ferrari and move it behind one of the trees here And as you see... again all of this just works One of the other things that we've done with Next Step Release 3.0 is we've actually built in some three-dimensional graphics. We have built in Pixar's RenderMan photorealistic rendering software, which can produce the most photorealistic rendered images. from 3D models. In addition to that, we've built in some real-time 3D graphics interactive render man. We've taken photo realistic render man and made a version that will run interactively on the screen. and so I can bring up a cube here which will I can take and actually put behind... these 2D images. and I can actually then rotate it. And this cube is being rendered... in real time as we watch it and being composited onto a 2D image behind the car and behind that last tree. Now we believe that over the coming years three-dimensional graphics may play a very important role in business as we try to visualize more and more complex data in ways that we can assimilate very rapidly but in any event The purpose of this last thing was to show you that To build very rich graphical apps in Next Step is no different than anything else. Most of the work is already done for you. So that concludes the demo I wanted to do. And I hope you get a feeling of how rich the next step environment is how easy to use it is so that mere mortals can use this very very powerful piece of software and how it's possible to create and deploy mission critical custom apps in a fraction of the time, than ever before possible. and to do all three simultaneously. Music.