"Rhapsody" is the name for the early Mac OS X development releases. Rhapsody is based on OPENSTEP, itself based on NeXTSTEP.
Rhapsody, and the initial release of Mac OS X (OS X Server) did not have the new Aqua GUI. The first releases of consumer Mac OS X 10.0 introduced the Aqua GUI.
For whatever reason I could only get Rhapsody to work in monochrome mode (like Corel Linux), but whatever.

The Rhapsody DR1 splash screen.

The Rhapsody setup program. Note that it is done completely in the command line: Rhapsody is based off the new Mach kernel, aka BSD Unix.

The default Rhapsody DR1 desktop.
No, that processor type is not an error, this is really running on an Intel processor. NeXTSTEP was ported over to x86 when NeXT decided to drop their proprietary hardware and focus on software. OPENSTEP followed this with an x86 version. For whatever reason, when Apple began using OPENSTEP as the basis for Mac OS X they maintained an x86 PC version. After DR2, however, PC support was dropped, likely because Apple didn't want to have to try and maintain the hundreds of potential configurations and drivers needed to support a traditional PC.
On the desktop we can see that icons are now located on the left side of the screen like most other operating systems of the time. Icons are also larger. At the bottom is the "dock" from OPENSTEP. There is also a permanently open File Manager window. Note that the ability to minimize windows still does not exist.

The file manager can display things in either icon mode or details mode.

There is also a "browser" mode that later became the default in the final Mac OS X 10.0 release. |