So what is the deal with A/UX anyways?
This YouTube video on A&#x2F;UX <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=nwrTTXOg-KI" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=nwrTTXOg-KI</a> is one of the best things I&#x27;ve found about the subject. (It has a usable transcript.)<p>On the subject of what happened with Big Mac, the Macintosh II and NeXT, <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;lowendmac.com&#x2F;2013&#x2F;apples-bigmac-project-failed-precursor-mac-ii-next-cube&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;lowendmac.com&#x2F;2013&#x2F;apples-bigmac-project-failed-prec...</a> and some of the articles linked from it <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;lowendmac.com&#x2F;2013&#x2F;next-years-steve-jobs-before-triumphant-return-apple&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;lowendmac.com&#x2F;2013&#x2F;next-years-steve-jobs-before-triu...</a> <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.aventure-apple.com&#x2F;le-big-mac-apple&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.aventure-apple.com&#x2F;le-big-mac-apple&#x2F;</a> (Google Translate: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;translate.google.com&#x2F;translate?sl=fr&amp;tl=en&amp;u=https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.aventure-apple.com&#x2F;le-big-mac-apple&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;translate.google.com&#x2F;translate?sl=fr&amp;tl=en&amp;u=https:&#x2F;...</a> ) is the best intro that I&#x27;m aware of, though there are some additional, important bits of information in Steven Levy&#x27;s <i>Insanely Great</i> ch. 9 ( <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;books.google.ie&#x2F;books?id=Y6ZQAAAAMAAJ&amp;dq=insanely+great&amp;focus=searchwithinvolume&amp;q=dhuey" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;books.google.ie&#x2F;books?id=Y6ZQAAAAMAAJ&amp;dq=insanely+gr...</a> ) and the Isaacson bio&#x27;s ch. 13 ( <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;books.google.ie&#x2F;books?id=JT6FCgAAQBAJ&amp;printsec=frontcover&amp;dq=steve+jobs+isaacson&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;redir_esc=y#v=snippet&amp;q=distressed call from Rich Page&amp;f=false" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;books.google.ie&#x2F;books?id=JT6FCgAAQBAJ&amp;printsec=front...</a> ). TFA links to some of these, but it missed some of the information in them. (Unfortunately the Adventure-Apple piece needs one big caveat, that it mostly doesn&#x27;t cite any sources.)<p>There&#x27;s also yet <i>another</i> whole strand of Macintosh-adjacent Unix in the Network Server products: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=PsVAdrdkyoA" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=PsVAdrdkyoA</a> .<p>Some key points from these:<p>* I have little idea how well-founded Apple&#x27;s detailed legal complaints were, but the overall claim that &quot;Jobs had done research for a next generation product and taken the key staff, namely Page from Apple to make it reality&quot; is almost surely absolutely right, and NeXT was conceived an attempt to do Big Mac outside Apple using the Big Mac team  from Apple. One thing that TFA and the LowEndMac miss is that Jobs, apparently, wasn&#x27;t the instigator: according to Isaacson, Rich Page and other Big Mac people contacted <i>him</i> and begged him to launch a new company when Big Mac was cancelled. (ISTR seeing this confirmed elsewhere, too, but I don&#x27;t recall where atm.)<p>* TFA says that &quot;[a]ll that I can find of the Big Mac project is this insanely low resolution image&quot; showing some hardware and a screenshot of the GUI, but it links to an article which features this glamour shot of what was apparently an industrial design for Big Mac: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;i0.wp.com&#x2F;www.aventure-apple.com&#x2F;wp-content&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;2019&#x2F;06&#x2F;BigMacFrogDesign.jpg?resize=1024,950&amp;ssl=1" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;i0.wp.com&#x2F;www.aventure-apple.com&#x2F;wp-content&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;...</a> . (And this <i>is</i> cited: it&#x27;s apparently from the Appledesign book <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.worldcat.org&#x2F;title&#x2F;appledesign-the-work-of-the-apple-industrial-design-group&#x2F;oclc&#x2F;37719003&#x2F;editions?start_edition=11&amp;sd=desc&amp;referer=br&amp;se=yr&amp;editionsView=true&amp;fq=" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.worldcat.org&#x2F;title&#x2F;appledesign-the-work-of-the-a...</a> .) The resemblance to the original G3 iMac from over a decade later is obvious. Beyond appearances, some other hardware similarities include a lack of internal expansion slots (according to Levy&#x27;s book, Jobs maintained his opposition to &quot;slots&quot; through his departure from Apple) and a focus on external expandability instead: the G3 iMac was an early adopter of USB, while Big Mac apparently had Apple Desktop Bus. In fact, according to the Adventure-Apple piece ADB was originally developed for Big Mac under the name of Front Desk Bus (though as usual I see no reference to substantiate this). The single most obvious divergence is that Big Mac couldn&#x27;t display colour, though no doubt this is because of an underlying similarity: the Big Mac project was trying to hit a roughly G3-iMac-like price point in the mid-&#x27;80s.<p>&lt;pinwheel &#x2F;&gt;