Rhapsody is the code name given to Apple Computer's next-generation operating system, during the period of its development between Apple's purchase of NeXT in late 1996 and the release of Mac OS X Server in 2000.

The defining features of the operating system were a Mach microkernel, a BSD-Unix operating system layer, the Yellow Box object-oriented frameworks from NeXTSTEP, and the Blue Box compatibility environment for running "Classic" Macintosh applications.

Rhapsody was first demonstrated at the 1997 World Wide Developers Conference. There were two subsequent Developer Releases for computers with Intel x86 or PowerPC processors. The full version was intended for release in spring 1998; ultimately, it was released in the form of Mac OS X Server in 2000 and its code was forked into Darwin, the open source underpinnings of Mac OS X.

The name is both a reference to composer George Gershwin's "Rhapsody In Blue" and to Purdue University's oft-utilised NeXT shareware and source FTP repository which was located at an assortment of music-inspired domain names, among them symphony, sonata, and rhapsody.cc.purdue.edu.

External links

• From NeXT to X
• Screen shots of Rhapsody Developer Release 2