Editing Copland (operating system)

{{Short description|Operating system by Apple}}
{{More citations needed|date=December 2023}}
{{Infobox OS
| name = Copland
| logo = <!-- Filename only, no wikilink, Image:, File: -->
| logo caption = 
| logo alt = 
| screenshot = <!-- Filename only, no wikilink, Image:, File: -->
| caption = 
| screenshot_alt = 
| developer = [[Apple Inc.|Apple Computer, Inc.]]
| family = [[Macintosh operating systems|Macintosh]]
| working state = Discontinued
| source model = [[Closed source]]
| released = <!-- {{Start date and age|YYYY|MM|DD/no}} -->
| discontinued = August 1996
| latest release version = 
| latest release date = <!-- {{Start date and age|19YY|MM|DD}} -->
| marketing target = Macintosh users
| programmed in = 
| language = English
| update model = <!-- APT, Windows Update, etc. -->
| package manager = <!-- dpkg, rpm, Windows installer, etc. -->
| supported platforms = [[Power Macintosh]]
| kernel type = [[Microkernel]]
| userland = 
| ui = 
| license = 
| preceded by = [[System 7]]
| succeeded by = [[Mac OS 8]]
| website = <!-- {{URL|www.example.org}} -->
| other articles = [[Taligent]], [[A/UX]]
}}
{{macOS sidebar}}
'''Copland''' is an [[operating system]] developed by [[Apple Inc.|Apple]] for [[Macintosh]] computers between 1994 and 1996 but never commercially released. It was intended to be released with the name '''System 8''', and later after changing their naming style, '''Mac OS 8'''.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Tracy |first=Phillip |date=2023-12-27 |title=Apple's 12 worst product failures of all time |url=https://qz.com/apples-12-worst-product-failures-of-all-time-1851112540 |access-date=2024-03-07 |website=Quartz |language=en}}</ref> Planned as a modern successor to the aging [[System 7]], Copland introduced [[memory protection|protected memory]], [[Computer multitasking|preemptive multitasking]], and several new underlying operating system features, while retaining compatibility with existing Mac applications. Copland's tentatively planned successor, codenamed Gershwin, was intended to add more advanced features such as application-level [[multithreading (computer architecture)|multithreading]].

Development officially began in March 1994. Over the next several years, previews of Copland garnered much press, introducing the Mac audience to operating system concepts such as object orientation, crash-proofing, and multitasking. In August 1995, [[David Nagel]], a senior vice president, announced at [[Macworld Expo]] that Copland would be released in mid-1996.  The following May, [[Gil Amelio]] stated that Copland was the primary focus of the company, aiming for a late-year release. Internally, however, the development effort was beset with problems due to dysfunctional corporate personnel and project management. Development milestones and developer release dates were missed repeatedly.

[[Ellen Hancock]] was hired to get the project back on track, but quickly concluded it could never ship. In August 1996, it was announced that Copland was canceled and Apple would look outside the company for a new operating system. Among many choices, they selected [[NeXTSTEP]] and purchased [[NeXT]] in 1997 to obtain it. In the interim period, while NeXTSTEP was ported to the Mac, Apple released the much more legacy-oriented [[Mac OS 8]] in 1997 based upon adding components from Copland, and [[Mac OS 9]] in 1999 to transition forward. [[macOS|Mac OS X]] became Apple's next-generation operating system in 2001.

The Copland development effort has been described as an example of [[feature creep]]. In 2008, ''[[PC World]]'' included Copland on a list of the biggest project failures in [[information technology]] (IT) history.

==Design==
===Mac OS legacy===
Launched in 1984, the Macintosh and its operating system were designed from the start as a single-user, single-tasking system, which allowed the hardware development to be greatly simplified.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.macworld.com/article/2025408/30-years-of-the-apple-lisa-and-the-apple-iie.html|title=30 years of the Apple Lisa and the Apple IIe|date=January 18, 2013|website=Macworld|access-date=August 28, 2020|archive-date=August 19, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200819175606/https://www.macworld.com/article/2025408/30-years-of-the-apple-lisa-and-the-apple-iie.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

{{Blockquote |text=The Macintosh lacks multitasking but tries to fake it, and it insists on a complicated user interface but leaves much of the work up to the application. These are serious drawbacks, and it is difficult to imagine elegant repairs for them.|author=Adam Brooks Webber |source=''[[Byte (magazine)|Byte]]'' (September 1986)<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Webber |first=Adam Brooks |title=Amiga vs. Macintosh |magazine=Byte |date=September 1986 |volume=11 |issue=9 |pages=249–256 |url=https://archive.org/details/byte-magazine-1986-09/page/n259/mode/2up}} (Adam Webber was the programmer responsible for porting [[TrueBASIC]] to the Amiga and Macintosh)</ref>}}

These limits meant that supporting the multitasking of more than one program at a time would be difficult, without rewriting all of this operating system and application code. Yet doing so would mean the system would run unacceptably slow on existing hardware. Instead, Apple adopted a system known as [[MultiFinder]] in 1987, which keeps the running application in control of the computer, as before, but allows an application to be rapidly switched to another, normally simply by clicking on its window. Programs that are not in the foreground are periodically given short bits of time to run, but as before, the entire process is controlled by the applications, not the operating system.

Because the operating system and applications all share one memory space, it is possible for a bug in any one of them to corrupt the entire operating system, and crash the machine. Under MultiFinder, any crash anywhere will crash all running programs. Running multiple applications potentially increases the chances of a crash, making the system potentially more fragile.

Adding greatly to the severity of the problem is the [[Patch (computing)|patching]] mechanism used to add functions to the operating system, known as [[System Preferences|CDEVs]] and [[Extension (Mac OS)|INITs]] or Control Panels and Extensions. Third party developers also make use of this mechanism to add features, including [[screensaver]]s and a hierarchical [[Apple menu]]. Some of these third-party control panels became almost universal, like the popular [[After Dark (software)|After Dark]] screensaver package.<ref name=Tidbits>{{cite web
 | last = Engst
 | first = Adam C.
 | title = After Dark Returns for Mac OS X
 | url = http://db.tidbits.com/article/7211
 | work = Tidbits
 | access-date = September 11, 2013
 | location = Ithaca, New York
 | date = June 9, 2003
 | archive-date = July 17, 2011
 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110717055324/http://db.tidbits.com/article/7211
 | url-status = live
 }}</ref> Because there was no standard for use of these patches, it is not uncommon for several of these add-ons — including Apple's own additions to the OS — to use the same patches, and interfere with each other, leading to more crashing.

===Copland design===
Copland was designed to consist of the Mac OS on top of a [[microkernel]] named [[Nukernel]], which would handle basic tasks such as application startup and memory management, leaving all other tasks to a series of semi-special programs known as ''servers''. For instance, networking and file services would not be provided by the kernel itself, but by servers that would be sending requests through [[Inter-process communication|interapplication communications]].{{sfn|Francis|1996|p=32}} The Copland system as a whole consists of the combination of Nukernel, various servers, and a suite of application support libraries to provide implementations of the well-known classic Macintosh programming interface.{{sfn|Dierks|1995}}

Application services are offered through a single program known officially as the Cooperative Program Address Space.{{sfn|Francis|1996|pp=41-45}} Mac programs run much as they do under System 7, as cooperative tasks that use the non-[[Reentrant (subroutine)|reentrant]] Toolbox calls. Copland provided much improved stability for applications running compared to System 7 – "the system won’t crash as it can in System 7. Instead, because the Copland microkernel tracks all resources (such as, tasks, timers, and areas), it can reclaim them when it terminates the process associated with your application.".<ref name="ReferenceA">Copland Technical Overview, Apple Developer Press 1995</ref> A worst-case scenario is that an application in the CPAS environment crashes, taking down the entire environment with it. This does not result in the system as a whole going down, however, and the Cooperative Program Address Space environment is automatically restarted.{{sfn|Francis|1996|p=}}{{page needed|date=March 2024}} In addition, Copland provides pre-emptive scheduling of tasks where "the Process Manager gives each primary task the opportunity to be preemptively scheduled by the microkernel."<ref name="ReferenceA"/>

[[File:Copland organization.svg|thumb|right|The Copland runtime architecture includes purple boxes showing threads of control, and the heavy lines show different memory partitions. In the upper left the blue boxes are running several System 7 applications, and the toolbox code supporting them (green). Two headless applications are running in their own spaces, providing file and web services. At the bottom are the OS servers in the same memory space as the kernel, indicating colocation.]]
New applications, written with Copland in mind, are able to directly communicate with the system servers and thereby gain many advantages in terms of performance and scalability. They can also communicate with the kernel to launch separate applications or threads, which run as separate processes in [[protected memory]], as in most modern operating systems.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Markoff |first=John |date=1996-12-23 |title=Why Apple Sees Next as a Match Made in Heaven |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1996/12/23/business/why-apple-sees-next-as-a-match-made-in-heaven.html |access-date=2024-03-07 |work=The New York Times |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331}}</ref> These separate applications cannot use non-reentrant calls like QuickDraw, however, and thus could have no user interface. Apple suggested that larger programs could place their user interface in a normal Macintosh application, which then start worker threads externally.{{sfn|Dierks|1995}}

Copland is fully [[PowerPC]] (PPC) native. System 7 had been ported to the PowerPC with great success; some parts of the system run as PPC code. There is enough 68k code left in the system to be run in emulation, and especially user applications, however that the operating system must map some data between the two environments. In particular, every call into the Mac OS requires a mapping between the interrupt systems of the 68k and PPC. Removing these mappings would greatly improve general system performance. At WWDC 1996, engineers claimed that system calls would execute as much as 50% faster.{{sfn|Francis|1996|p=9, 18}}

Copland is also based on the then-recently defined [[Common Hardware Reference Platform]], or CHRP, which standardized the Mac hardware to the point where it could be built by different companies and can run other operating systems ([[Solaris (operating system)|Solaris]] and [[IBM AIX|AIX]] were two of many mentioned). This was a common theme at the time; many companies were forming groups to define standardized platforms to offer an alternative to the "[[Wintel]]" platform that was rapidly becoming dominant — examples include [[88open]], [[Advanced Computing Environment]], and the [[AIM alliance]].{{sfn|Francis|1996|p=9}}

The fundamental challenge of Copland's development and adoption was getting all of these functions to fit into an ordinary Mac. System 7.5 already uses up about 2.5&nbsp;[[megabyte]]s (MB) of RAM, which is a significant portion of the total RAM in most contemporaneous machines. Copland is a hybrid of two systems, as its native foundation also hosts the Cooperative Program Address Space application environment as well as Copland native Server tasks. Copland thus uses a [[Mach (kernel)|Mach]]-inspired memory management system and relies extensively on [[Shared library|shared libraries]],{{sfn|Francis|1996|pp=19, 20}} with the goal of being about 50% larger than 7.5.

==History==
===Pink and Blue===
{{see also|Taligent#History}}
In March 1988,{{efn|group=notes|name=PinkDate}} technical middle managers at Apple held an offsite meeting to plan the future course of Mac OS development.{{sfn|Carlton|1997|p=96}} Ideas were written on [[index card]]s; features that seemed simple enough to implement in the short term (like adding color to the [[user interface]]) were written on blue cards; longer-term goals—such as preemptive multitasking—were on pink cards; and long-range ideas like an [[object-oriented]] [[file system]] were on red cards.{{sfn|Carlton|1997|pp=96-98}}{{sfn|Singh|2007|p=2}}{{efn|There is some confusion about the coloring depending on the source, it may be that pink and red are describing the same cards.}} Development of the ideas contained on the blue and pink cards was to proceed in parallel, and at first, the two projects were known simply as "blue" and "[[Taligent|pink]]".{{sfn|Carlton|1997|p=167}} Apple intended to have the Blue team {{sfn|Carlton|1997|p=169}} release an updated version of the existing Macintosh operating system in the 1990–1991 timeframe, and the Pink team to release an all-new OS around 1993.

The Blue team, who came to call themselves the "[[Blue Meanies (Apple Computer)|Blue Meanies]]" after characters in the film ''[[Yellow Submarine (film)|Yellow Submarine]]'', delivered what became known as [[System 7 (Macintosh)|System 7]] on May 13, 1991, but the Pink team's efforts suffered from [[second-system effect]] and its release date continued to slip into the indefinite future. Some of the reason for this can be traced to problems that would become widespread at Apple as time went on; as Pink became delayed, its engineers moved to Blue instead.{{sfn|Carlton|1997|p=99}} This left the Pink team constantly struggling for staffing, and suffering from the problems associated with high employee turnover. Management ignored these sorts of technical development issues, leading to continual problems delivering working products.

At this same time, the recently released [[NeXTSTEP]] was generating intense interest in the developer world. Features that were originally part of Red were folded into Pink, and the Red project (also known as "Raptor"){{sfn|Singh|2007|p=4}} was eventually canceled. This problem was also common at Apple during this period; to chase the "next big thing", middle managers added new features to their projects with little oversight, leading to enormous problems with [[feature creep]]. In the case of Pink, development eventually slowed to the point that the project appeared moribund.

===Taligent===
{{main|Taligent}}
On April 12, 1991, Apple CEO [[John Sculley]] performed a secret demonstration of Pink running on a [[IBM PS/2 Model 70|PS/2 Model 70]] to a delegation from [[IBM]]. Though the system was not fully functional, it resembled [[System 7]] running on a PC. IBM was extremely interested, and over the next few months, the two companies formed an alliance to further development of the system. These efforts became public in early 1992, under the new name "[[Taligent]]".<ref name=slip>{{cite magazine | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3kw1AAAAMAAJ | title='Pink' may get a pink slip | magazine=[[Business Week]] | date=1993 | page=40 | access-date=2016-10-10 | archive-date=2020-07-29 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200729170701/https://books.google.com/books?id=3kw1AAAAMAAJ | url-status=live }}</ref> At the time, Sculley summed up his concerns with Apple's own ability to ship Pink when he stated "We want to be a major player in the computer industry, not a niche player. The only way to do that is to work with another major player."{{sfn|Linzmayer|2004|p=69}}

Infighting at the new joint company was legendary, and the problems with Pink within Apple soon appeared to be minor in comparison.{{sfn|Linzmayer|2004|pp=70, 230}} Apple employees made T-shirts graphically displaying their prediction that the result would be an IBM-only project.<ref>{{cite book |first=Gordon |last=Thygeson |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pEGTAAAAIAAJ |title=Apple T-shirts: a yearbook of history at Apple computer |publisher=Pomo Pub |date=1997 |pages=44–48 |isbn=9780966139341 |access-date=2016-10-10 |archive-date=2020-07-29 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200729181728/https://books.google.com/books?id=pEGTAAAAIAAJ |url-status=live }}</ref> On December 19, 1995, Apple officially pulled out of the project.{{sfn|Linzmayer|2004|p=81}} IBM continued working alone with Taligent, and eventually released its application development portions under the new name "CommonPoint". This saw little interest and the project disappeared from IBM's catalogs within months.

===Business as usual===
While Taligent efforts continued, very little work addressing the structure of the original OS was carried out. Several new projects started during this time, such as the [[Star Trek project]], a port of System 7 and its basic applications to Intel-compatible x86 machines, which reached internal demo status. But as Taligent was still a concern, it was difficult for new OS projects to gain any traction.

Instead, Apple's Blue team continued adding new features to the same basic OS. During the early 1990s, Apple released a series of major new packages to the system; among them are [[QuickDraw GX]], [[Open Transport]], [[OpenDoc]], [[PowerTalk]], and many others. Most of these were larger than the original operating system. Problems with stability, which had existed even with small patches, grew along with the size and requirements of these packages, and by the mid-1990s the Mac had a reputation for instability and constant crashing.{{sfn|Dierks|1995}}

As the stability of the operating system collapsed, the ready answer was that Taligent would fix this with all its modern foundation of full reentrance, preemptive multitasking, and protected memory. When the Taligent efforts also collapsed, Apple was left with an aging OS and no designated solutions. By 1994, the press buzz surrounding the upcoming release of [[Windows 95]] started to crescendo, often questioning Apple's ability to respond to the challenge it presented.{{sfn|Singh|2007|p=2}} The press turned on the company, often introducing Apple's new projects as failures in the making.<ref>{{cite magazine |title=Apple set to ship System 7.5 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ljgEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA6 |magazine=[[InfoWorld]] |volume=16 |issue=28 |date=July 11, 1994 |page=6 |first=Tom |last=Quinlan |access-date=October 2, 2021 |archive-date=October 2, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211002151339/https://books.google.com/books?id=ljgEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA6 |url-status=live }}</ref>

===Another try===
Given this pressure, the collapse of Taligent, the growing problems with the existing operating system, after the release of System 7.5 in late 1994, Apple management decided that the decade-old operating system had run its course. A new system that did not have these problems was needed, and soon. Since so much of the existing system would be difficult to rewrite, Apple developed a two-stage approach to the problem.

In the first stage, the existing system would be moved on top of a new kernel-based OS with built-in support for multitasking<ref>{{Cite web |title=OS 8 Adds New Life to Mac Platform |url=https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/cyber/week/080897macos8.html |access-date=2024-03-07 |website=archive.nytimes.com}}</ref> and protected memory. The existing libraries, like QuickDraw, would take too long to be rewritten for the new system and would not be converted to be reentrant. Instead, the CPAS keeps applications and legacy code such as QuickDraw in a single memory block so they continue to run as they had in the past. CPAS runs in a distinct Copland memory space, so crashing legacy applications or extensions within CPAS cannot crash the entire machine.

In the next stage of the plan, once the new kernel was in place and this basic upgrade was released, development would move on to rewriting the older libraries into new forms that could run directly on the new kernel.<ref>{{cite magazine |url=http://www.guidebookgallery.org/articles/beyondwindows95 |title=Beyond Windows 95 |last=Miller |first=Michael J. |magazine=[[PC Magazine]] |pages=75–76 |date=October 24, 1995 |access-date=July 23, 2006 |archive-date=November 13, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161113155700/http://www.guidebookgallery.org/articles/beyondwindows95 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.bebox.nu/articles.php?s=articles/199701xx-PlanBe |title=Plan Be |last1=Bortman |first1=Henry |last2=Pittelkau |first2=Jeff |date=January 1997 |publisher=MacUser |access-date=July 23, 2006 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060618111545/http://bebox.nu/articles.php?s=articles%2F199701xx-PlanBe |archive-date=June 18, 2006}}</ref><ref>{{cite magazine |url=https://archive.org/details/MacUser9701January1997/page/n67/mode/2up |title=Plan Be |last1=Bortman |first1=Henry |last2=Pittelkau |first2=Jeff |date=January 1997 |magazine=[[MacUser (US edition)|MacUser]] |volume=13 |issue=1 |pages=64–72}}</ref> At that point, applications would gain some added modern features.

In the musical code-naming pattern where System 7.5 is [[code name|code-named]] "Mozart", this intended successor is named "Copland" after composer [[Aaron Copland]]. In turn, its proposed successor system, Gershwin, would complete the process of moving the entire system to the modern platform, but work on Gershwin would never officially begin.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Lewis |first=Peter H. |date=1995-08-22 |title=PERSONAL COMPUTERS; Intriguing Promises From Apple |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1995/08/22/science/personal-computers-intriguing-promises-from-apple.html |access-date=2024-03-07 |work=The New York Times |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331}}</ref>

===Development===
The Copland project was first announced by [[David Nagel]] in May 1994.<ref>{{Citation|title=WWDC 1994 Dave Nagel Keynote|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoEjYBRmQvI|language=en|access-date=2022-02-11|archive-date=2022-02-11|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220211125731/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoEjYBRmQvI|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name=seven/> Parts of Copland, such as an early version of the new file system, were demonstrated at Apple's [[Worldwide Developers Conference]] in May 1995. Apple promised that a beta release of Copland would be ready by the end of the year, for final commercial release in early 1996.<ref name=seven/>{{sfn|Crabbe|1995}} Gershwin would follow the next year.<ref name=long>[http://www.macworld.com/article/14568/2000/09/buzzwindingroad.html "The Long and Winding Road"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090618224633/http://www.macworld.com/article/14568/2000/09/buzzwindingroad.html |date=2009-06-18 }}, ''MacWorld'', September 1, 2000</ref> Throughout the year, Apple released several [[mock-up]]s to various magazines showing what the new system would look like, and commented continually that the company was fully committed to this project. By the end of the year, however, no Developer Release had been produced.{{sfn|Crabbe|1995}}

[[File:Copland open file dialog screenshot.png|right|frame|Copland's ''open file'' dialog box has a preview area on the right. The ''stacked folders'' area on the left is intended to provide a visual path to the current selection, but this was later abandoned as being too complex. The user is currently using a ''favorite'' location shortcut.]]
As had happened during the development of Pink, developers within Apple soon started abandoning their own projects in order to work on the new system. Middle management and project leaders fought back by claiming that their project was vital to the success of the system, and moving it into the Copland development stream. Thus, it could not be canceled along with their employees being removed to work on some other part of Copland anyway.<ref name="PCWorld Project Failures">{{cite magazine |last=Widman |first=Jake |date=October 9, 2008 |title=Lessons Learned: IT's Biggest Project Failures |url=http://www.pcworld.com/article/152103/it_project_failures.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121105191809/http://www.pcworld.com/article/152103/it_project_failures.html |archive-date=November 5, 2012 |access-date=October 23, 2012 |magazine=PCWorld}}</ref> This process took on momentum across the next year.

{{blockquote |"Anytime they saw something sexy it had to go into the OS." said Jeffrey Tarter, publisher of the software industry newsletter ''Softletter''. "There were little groups all over Apple doing fun things that had no earthly application to Apple's product line." What resulted was a vicious cycle: As the addition of features pushed back deadlines, Apple was compelled to promise still more functions to justify the costly delays. Moreover, this [[Sisyphean]] pattern persisted at a time when the company could scarcely afford to miss a step.<ref name=seven/>}}

Soon the project looked less like a new operating system and more like a huge collection of new technologies; [[QuickDraw GX]], [[System Object Model]] (SOM), and [[OpenDoc]] became core components of the system,{{sfn|Duncan|1994}} while completely unrelated technologies like a new file management dialog box (the ''open dialog'') and ''[[Appearance Manager|themes]]'' support appeared also. The feature list grew much faster than the features could be completed, a classic case of creeping [[featuritis]].<ref name=seven>[https://www.cnet.com/news/macs-new-os-seven-years-in-the-making/ "Mac's new OS: Seven years in the making"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161003221815/https://www.cnet.com/news/macs-new-os-seven-years-in-the-making/ |date=2016-10-03 }} ''cnet'', March 21, 2001</ref> An industry executive noted that "The game is to cut it down to the three or four most compelling features as opposed to having hundreds of nice-to-haves, I'm not sure that's happening."{{sfn|Burrows|1995}}

As the "package" grew, testing it became increasingly difficult and engineers were commenting as early as 1995 that Apple's announced 1996 release date was hopelessly optimistic: "There's no way in hell Copland ships next year. I just hope it ships in 1997."{{sfn|Burrows|1995}}

In mid-1996, information was leaked that Copland would have the ability to run applications written for other operating systems, including [[Windows NT]]. Simultaneously allegedly being confirmed by Copland engineers while being authoritatively denied by Copland project management, this feature had supposedly been in development for more than three years. One user claimed to have been told about these plans by members of the Copland development team. Some analysts projected that this ability would increase Apple's penetration into the enterprise market, others said it was "game over" and was only a sign of the Mac platform's irrelevancy.<ref name="Apple radical">{{cite magazine |title=Apple mulls radical shift: Macs may embrace Windows to entice enterprise |last=Picarille |first=Lisa |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rrz6PIR7f0oC&pg=PT116 |magazine=Computerworld |date=July 29, 1996 |access-date=July 17, 2019 |page=1 |archive-date=September 19, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220919130658/https://books.google.com/books?id=rrz6PIR7f0oC&pg=PT116 |url-status=live }}</ref>

===Developer Release===
At WWDC 1996, Apple's new [[CEO]], [[Gil Amelio]], used the keynote to talk almost exclusively about Copland, now known as System 8.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |title=Mac's new OS: Seven years in the making |url=https://www.cnet.com/culture/macs-new-os-7-years-in-the-making/ |access-date=2024-03-07 |website=CNET |language=en}}</ref> He repeatedly stated that it was the only focus of Apple engineering and that it would ship to developers in a few months, with a full release planned for late 1996. Very few, if any, demos of the running system were shown at the conference. Instead, various pieces of the technology and user interface that would go into the package (such as a new file management dialog) were demonstrated. Little of the core system's technology was demonstrated and the new file system that had been shown a year earlier was absent.

There was one way to actually use the new operating system – by signing up for time in the developer labs. This did not go well:

{{blockquote|There was a hands-on demo of the current state of OS 8. There were tantalizing glimpses of the goodies to come, but the overall experience was awful. It does not yet support text editing, so you couldn’t actually do anything except open and view documents (any dialog field that needed something typed into it was blank and dead).
Also, it was incredibly fragile and crashed repeatedly, often corrupting system files on the disk in the process. The demo staff reformatted and rebuilt the hard disks at regular intervals. It was incredible that they even let us see the beast.<ref>{{Cite magazine |last1=Neuburg |first1=Matt |last2=Magnuson |first2=Chris |last3=George |first3=Jim |date=August 1996 |url=http://preserve.mactech.com/articles/mactech/Vol.12/12.09/WWDC96Report/ |title=Looking for the Future: What did you learn, Dorothy, in the Land of Oz? |magazine=MacTech |volume=12 |issue=9 |access-date=2020-08-27 |archive-date=2022-09-19 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220919130706/http://preserve.mactech.com/articles/mactech/Vol.12/12.09/WWDC96Report/index.html |url-status=live }}</ref>}}

Several people at the show complained about the microkernel's lack of sophistication, notably the lack of [[symmetric multiprocessing]], a feature that would be exceedingly difficult to add to a system due to ship in a few months. After that, Amelio came back on stage and announced that they would be adding that to the feature list.

In August 1996, "Developer Release 0" was sent to a small number of selected partners.<ref name=seven/> Far from demonstrating improved stability, it often crashed after doing nothing at all, and was completely unusable for development. In October, Apple moved the target delivery date to "sometime", hinting that it might be 1997. One of the groups most surprised by the announcement was Apple's own hardware team, who had been waiting for Copland to allow the PowerPC to be natively represented, unburdened of software legacy. Members of Apple's software QA team joked that, given current resources and the number of bugs in the system, they could clear the program for shipping sometime around 2030.

===Cancellation===
Later in August 1996, the situation was no better. Amelio complained that Copland was "just a collection of separate pieces, each being worked on by a different team ... that were expected to magically come together somehow."<ref>{{cite book| first1=Gilbert F. |last1=Amelio |first2=William L. |last2=Simon |title=On the Firing Line |publisher=HarperCollins |year=1998 |url=https://archive.org/details/onfiringlinemy5000amel |url-access=registration |isbn=0887309186}}</ref> Hoping to salvage the situation, Amelio hired [[Ellen Hancock]] away from [[National Semiconductor]] to take over engineering from [[Ike Nassi]]<ref>{{Cite web |last=staff |first=CNET News |title=Apple OS chief quits |url=https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/apple-os-chief-quits/ |access-date=2022-11-28 |website=CNET |language=en}}</ref> and get Copland development back on track.{{sfn|Carlton|1997|p=402}}

After a few months on the job, Hancock came to the conclusion that the situation was hopeless; given current development and engineering, she believed Copland would never ship. Instead, she suggested that the various user-facing technologies in Copland be rolled out in a series of staged releases, instead of a single big release. Apple officially canceled Copland in August 1996,<ref name=long/> The CD envelopes for the developer's release had been printed, but the discs had not been mastered.

To address the aging infrastructure underneath these technologies, Amelio suggested looking outside the company for an unrelated new operating system. Candidates considered were [[Sun Microsystems|Sun]]'s [[Solaris (operating system)|Solaris]] and [[Windows NT]]. Hancock reportedly was in favor of going with Solaris, while Amelio preferred Windows. Amelio even reportedly called [[Bill Gates]] to discuss the idea, and Gates promised to put Microsoft engineers to work porting [[QuickDraw]] to NT.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://lowendmac.com/2013/the-rise-and-fall-of-apples-gil-amelio/|title=The Rise and Fall of Apple's Gil Amelio|date=August 10, 2013|website=Low End Mac|access-date=August 28, 2020|archive-date=August 13, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200813003046/https://lowendmac.com/2013/the-rise-and-fall-of-apples-gil-amelio/|url-status=live}}</ref>

After lengthy discussions with [[Be Inc.|Be]] and rumors of a merger with Sun Microsystems, many were surprised at Apple's December 1996 announcement that they were purchasing [[NeXT]] and bringing [[Steve Jobs]] on in an advisory role.<ref>Dawn Kawamoto, Mike Yamamoto and Jeff Pelline, [http://news.cnet.com/Apple-acquires-Next,-Jobs/2100-1001_3-256914.html "Apple acquires Next, Jobs"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120919205618/http://news.cnet.com/Apple-acquires-Next,-Jobs/2100-1001_3-256914.html |date=2012-09-19 }}, ''cnet'' December 20, 1996</ref> Amelio quipped that they "choose Plan A instead of Plan Be."{{sfn|Linzmayer|2004|p=277}} The project to port [[NeXTSTEP]] to the Macintosh platform was named [[Rhapsody (operating system)|Rhapsody]] and was to be the core of Apple's [[cross-platform]] operating system strategy. This would inherit [[OpenStep]]'s existing support for PowerPC, Intel x86, and [[DEC Alpha]] CPU architectures, and an implementation of the OpenStep libraries running on [[Windows NT]]. This would in effect open the Windows application market to Macintosh developers as they could license the library from Apple for distribution with their product, or depend on an existing installation.

===Legacy===
Following Hancock's plan, development continued with System 7.5 receiving integration of several elements of Copland. System 7 was renamed to Mac OS 7 with the release of 7.6, wherein stability and performance were improved.{{sfn|Singh|2007|p=6}} Many Copland features, including the new multithreaded Finder and support for themes (defaulting to [[Platinum (theme)|Platinum]]) were integrated into the unreleased beta of Mac OS 7.7, which was instead rebranded and launched as [[Mac OS 8]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Continued Development of the Classic Mac OS - Running Mac OS X Tiger [Book] |url=https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/running-mac-os/0596009135/ch01s06.html |access-date=2024-03-07 |website=www.oreilly.com |language=en}}</ref>

With the return of Jobs, this rebranding to version 8 also allowed Apple to exploit a legal loophole to terminate third-party manufacturers' licenses to System 7 and effectively shut down the [[Macintosh clone]] market.<ref>{{Cite magazine |last=Beale |first=Steven |date=October 1997 |title=Mac OS 8 Ships with No License Deal |magazine=[[Macworld]] |pages=34–36 |volume=14 |issue=10 |url=https://archive.org/details/MacWorld9710October1997/page/n37/mode/2up}}</ref> Later, [[Mac OS 8.1]] finally added the new file system and [[Mac OS 8.6]] updated the [[nanokernel]] to handle limited support for [[Preemption (computing)#Preemptive multitasking|preemptive task]]s. Its interface is [[Multiprocessing Services]] 2.x and later, but there is no process separation and the system still uses [[cooperative multitasking]] between processes. Even a process that is [[Multiprocessing Services]]-aware still has a part that also runs all single-threaded programs and the only task that can run 68k code.

The Rhapsody project was canceled after several Developer Preview releases, support for running on non-Macintosh platforms was dropped, and it was eventually released as [[Mac OS X Server 1.0]]. In 2001 this foundation was coupled to the [[Carbon (API)|Carbon]] library and [[Aqua (user interface)|Aqua]] user interface to form the modern [[macOS|Mac OS X]] product.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Apple's Mac OS X to Ship on March 24 |url=https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2001/01/09Apples-Mac-OS-X-to-Ship-on-March-24/ |access-date=2024-03-07 |website=Apple Newsroom |language=en-US}}</ref> Several features originally seen in Copland demos, including its advanced Find command, built-in [[web browser]], ''piles'' of folders, and support for [[video-conferencing]], have reappeared in subsequent releases of Mac OS X as [[Spotlight (software)|Spotlight]], [[Safari (web browser)|Safari]], [[Stacks (software)|Stacks]], and [[iChat AV]], respectively, although the implementation and user interface for each feature is very different.

==Hardware requirements==
According to the documentation included in the Developer Release, Copland supports the following hardware configurations:<ref>How to Install Mac OS 8 (D11E4), "Hardware Supported" section</ref>

* [[NuBus]]-based Macintoshes: 6100/60, 6100/60AV (no AV functions), 6100/66, 6100/66 AV (no AV functions), 6100/66 DOS (no DOS functions), 7100/66, 7100/66 AV (no AV functions), 7100/80, 7100/80 AV (no AV functions), 8100/80/ 8100/100/ 8100/100 AV (no AV functions), 8100/110
* NuBus-based Performas: 6110CD, 6112CD, 6115CD, 6117CD, 6118CD
* PCI-based Macintoshes: 7200/70, 7200/90, 7500/100, 8500/120, 9500/120, 9500/132
* Drives formatted with Drive Setup
* For DR1 and earlier, the installer requires System 7.5 or later on a hard disk of 250MB or greater capacity.
* Display set to 256 colors (8-bit) or Thousands (16-bit).

==See also==

* [[Classic Mac OS]]
* [[MkLinux]]
* [[Workplace OS]]
* [[BeOS]]

==Notes ==
{{notelist | group="notes" | refs=
{{efn|group=notes|name=PinkDate|Primary sources Erich Ringewald{{sfn|Carlton|1997|page=96}} and Mike Potel{{sfn|Cotter|1995|page=XIII}}{{sfn|Cotter|1995|page=6}} date the start of Pink as "March 1988" or "early 1988", and ''Apple Confidential'' says "March 1987".{{sfn|Linzmayer|2004|p=35}}{{sfn|Linzmayer|2004|p=47}}}}
}}

==References==
{{reflist}}

===Bibliography===
{{refbegin|colwidth=30em}}
* {{cite magazine |last=Burrows |first=Peter |archive-url=https://archive.today/20130119060720/http://www.businessweek.com/1995/51/b345595.htm |archive-date=2013-01-19 |url=https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/1995-12-17/apples-copland-new-improved-not-here-yet |title=Apple's Copland: New! Improved! Not Here Yet! |magazine=BusinessWeek |date=December 18, 1995 |access-date=2021-02-08 |url-status=live }}
* {{cite book |last=Carlton |first=Jim |url=https://archive.org/details/appleinsidestory00carl |url-access=registration |title=Apple: the inside story of intrigue, egomania, and business blunders |publisher=Times Business/Random House |date=1997 |isbn=0-8129-2851-2 }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Crabbe |first=Don |url=http://preserve.mactech.com/articles/mactech/Vol.11/11.12/Dec95CrabbsApple/ |title=Copland, Where Are Thee? |magazine=MacTech |volume=11 |issue=12 |date=December 1995 |access-date=2020-08-27 |archive-date=2022-09-19 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220919130712/http://preserve.mactech.com/articles/mactech/Vol.11/11.12/Dec95CrabbsApple/index.html |url-status=live }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Dierks |first=Tim |url=http://www.mactech.com/articles/develop/issue_22/copland.html |title=Copland: The Mac OS Moves Into the Future |magazine=develop |issue=22 |date=June 1995 |access-date=2005-10-07 |archive-date=2005-10-23 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051023083238/http://www.mactech.com/articles/develop/issue_22/copland.html |url-status=live }}
* {{cite web |last=Duncan |first=Geoff |url=https://tidbits.com/1994/12/12/os-directions-marconi-copland-and-gershwin/ |title=OS Directions: Marconi, Copland, and Gershwin |website=TidBITS |issue=256 |date=December 12, 1994 |access-date=November 3, 2021 |archive-date=November 3, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211103002424/https://tidbits.com/1994/12/12/os-directions-marconi-copland-and-gershwin/ |url-status=live }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Falkenburg |first=Steve |url=http://www.mactech.com/articles/develop/issue_26/falkenburg.html |title=Planning for Mac OS 8 Compatibility |magazine=develop |issue=26 |date=June 1996 |access-date=2009-11-25 |archive-date=2011-06-04 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110604215936/http://www.mactech.com/articles/develop/issue_26/falkenburg.html |url-status=live }}
* {{cite book |last=Francis |first=Tony |url=http://www.pagetable.com/docs/copland_docs/book/Mac%20OS%208%20Revealed.pdf |title=Mac OS 8 Revealed |publisher=Addison-Wesley |date=1996 |access-date=2012-02-22 |archive-date=2012-03-21 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120321014508/http://www.pagetable.com/docs/copland_docs/book/Mac%20OS%208%20Revealed.pdf |url-status=live }}
* {{cite book |last=Linzmayer |first=Owen |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mXnw5tM8QRwC |title=Apple Confidential 2.0: The Definitive History of the World's Most Colorful Company |publisher=No Starch Press |date=2004 |isbn=1-59327-010-0 |access-date=2016-10-10 |archive-date=2020-05-12 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200512092507/https://books.google.com/books?id=mXnw5tM8QRwC |url-status=live }}
* {{cite book |last=Singh |first=Amit |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=K8vUkpOXhN4C |title=Mac OS X internals: a systems approach |publisher=Addison-Wesley |date=2007 |isbn=9780132702263 }}
* {{cite book |first=Sean |last=Cotter |url=http://www.wildcrest.com/Potel/Portfolio/InsideTaligentTechnology/WW11.htm |title=Inside Taligent Technology |publisher=Addison-Wesley |year=1995 |isbn=0-201-40970-4 |access-date=2017-09-27 |archive-date=2017-11-22 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171122222354/http://www.wildcrest.com/Potel/Portfolio/InsideTaligentTechnology/WW11.htm |url-status=live }}
* {{cite web |url=http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Mea_Culpa.txt |first=Andy |last=Hertzfeld |title=Mea Culpa |access-date=2019-04-08 |archive-date=2010-06-19 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100619193516/http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Mea_Culpa.txt |url-status=live }}
{{refend}}

==External links==
*Copland retrospectives at [http://www.mackido.com/Myths/Copland.html MacKiDo], [http://igeek.com/Copland iGeek], and [https://web.archive.org/web/20030628122747/http://www.igeek.com/articles/History/CoplandAndNeXT.txt iGeek]
*[http://lowendmac.com/orchard/05/1108.html Apple's Copland project: An OS for the common man], development history
*[http://www.macworld.com/article/133222/2008/04/time_machine_copland.html "A Time Machine trip to the mid-'90s"], ''MacWorld'' article with screenshots from Copland
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20130401185701/http://basalgangster.macgui.com/RetroMacComputing/The_Long_View/Entries/2011/2/26_Copland.html The Long View], a retrospective analysis of the development cycle and code legacy of Copland into MacOS 8 and Carbon
*[http://www.pagetable.com/?p=211 Apple's Copland Reference Documentation]
*[https://archive.org/details/MacClone Computer Chronicles: Mac Clones], with a demo of Copland
*[http://webarchive.loc.gov/all/20011116192135/http://businessweek.com/1995/51/b345595.htm Businessweek article on Copland]

{{Apple operating systems}}
{{Mach-like}}
{{Microkernel}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Copland (Operating System)}}
[[Category:Aaron Copland]]
[[Category:Apple Inc. operating systems]]
[[Category:Macintosh operating systems]]
[[Category:Macintosh platform]]
[[Category:Microkernel-based operating systems]]
[[Category:Microkernels]]
[[Category:PowerPC operating systems]]
[[Category:Object-oriented operating systems]]
[[Category:Vaporware]]