
Keith Ohlfs, NeXTSTEP Designer, has passed away - rayshan
https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/31/keith-ohlfs/
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dictum
Rest in peace, Keith. I'll always hold a special place in my heart for the
NeXTStep interface and general look.

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Anyone notice some visual parallels between the icon aesthetic since El
Capitan and Keith Ohlfs's icons?

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This guy recreated the NeXT icons (with some creative liberties):

[http://galgot.free.fr/wordpress/?p=1380](http://galgot.free.fr/wordpress/?p=1380)

[http://galgot.free.fr/wordpress/?p=1410](http://galgot.free.fr/wordpress/?p=1410)

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frik
no wonder, as MacOSX/OSX/macOS is the direct successor of NEXTSTEP (the OS),
when Steve Jobs came back he managed that Apple buy his company. From
Interfacebuilder (nowadays XCode) to Mail, several things in early MacOS X 1.0
server looked similar to the previous NEXTSTEP version (decorated with a MacOS
8/9 theme).
[http://toastytech.com/guis/osxsv.html](http://toastytech.com/guis/osxsv.html)

Compare yourself, see the "Apple MacOS "X section:

[http://toastytech.com/guis/indexapple.html](http://toastytech.com/guis/indexapple.html)

~~~
tonyarkles
And if you've ever wondered what the NS in the Obj-C libraries stands for...

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webwielder2
Every new release of (mac)OS( X), I rush to see whether the Grab.app creepy
eye camera[0] has been replaced, and every time I breathe a sigh of relief.
Sadly though, a few versions ago it stopped following the mouse cursor.

0\. [https://imgur.com/a/xT3Od](https://imgur.com/a/xT3Od)

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mikestew
El Capitan here, creepy eye is still creepy and following my cursor around.
Don't have Sierra machine to test at the moment.

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ksherlock
still present in sierra.

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hibbelig
It doesn't follow the mouse pointer.

Does anyone know of a macOS equivalent of xeyes?

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49para
You have to select "selection" mode, the others modes don't follow.

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hibbelig
My (20 seconds) experience: In "selection" mode there is an eye and it moves
when my mouse moves, but it does _not_ follow the mouse pointer. For example,
I could move my mouse to the right, and the eye will go both left and right,
or I could move my mouse up and down and the eye will still go left and right.

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patrickg_zill
I remember speaking with him once, not knowing he was at a competing company,
and first, thanking him for the excellent UI I had the pleasure to use (I had
a NeXT machine on my desk for about 8 months at a job I was at); then asking
him if he was available for work (he wasn't).

Gracious guy, and I believe today that the NextStep v3.3 GUI was about the
perfect GUI even today; I miss it.

~~~
kps
There were giants in the earth in those days.

~~~
patrickg_zill
Yes, it was called "NeXT Cube 040 Turbo with NeXTDimension board" and it had a
Motorola 68040 @ 33Mhz, with a hardware accelerated NeXTDimension board that
could run 24bit or 32bit color and had a dedicated i860 or i960 CPU running
the Display PostScript interpreter on the card itself.

I think, you could take such beasties all the way up to 128MB RAM.

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jdswain
His NeXTStep user interface also strongly influenced Windows 95.

For a long time Keith had a web site called pixelsight.com. It used a NeXT
computer and the display postscript rendering to generate images from options
you could select on the web page, you could use it to generate buttons and
other types of icons. It was probably one of the first uses of a web server as
a front end for a program.

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rayshan
I was extremely lucky to be able to work side by side with Keith at Montage
Studio. I am grateful for all Keith has taught me and all he has shown the
world. I will always remember the late nights we spent together. My
condolences to the Ohlfs family. Rest in peace Keith.

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protomyth
I loved his folders and icons. For a number of years I used the NeXT icons on
my windows box at work. RIP good sir.

~~~
galonk
For some reason, the string around the folder icon seemed brilliant to me. It
was the kind of thing you could only do in the kind of giant icons they had on
NeXT.

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protomyth
The converted font did look pretty good on Windows. I wish I knew who I got it
from, but this is way back in 96. I still have my NeXTSTEP and OpenStep discs.
The ugly blue of the current plain icons makes me long to figure out how to
put them on my Mac again.

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saretired
The NeXT interface was wonderfully designed. Back in the day, its competition
was Openlook and Motif, plus the classic Mac desktop and whatever Windows and
OS/2 had at the time -- it was really a wonderful, integrated, beautifully
executed desktop that made sense soon as I first sat down to use it.

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agumonkey
Haa 52, damn young...

NS icons were unique, just enough shine and hue to compliment the "dull" (some
would perfectly non distracting) widget theme.

Thank you for the dreamy eyes you got me.

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outside1234
I worked with Keith at WebTV and besides being a fabulously smart person to
work with, he was also a super nice and gentle soul. Rest In Peace Keith.

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smaili
Anyone happen to know the cause of death? 52 is quite young.

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Audiophilip
Heart attack.

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cloudjacker
Hm, do you guys know any doctors that custom tailor lifestyles and treatments
for the sedentary lives of software engineers?

I often times find my inquiries dismissed because I'm young and slim.

~~~
CodeWriter23
The Apple Watch has done well for me. Closing the activity rings gamifies
exercise so I actually do it. I caught that you're thin, but to illustrate how
much activity that is, I've lost 12lbs in about 4 months. I was skeptical
about the Apple Watch but I was reeled in reading that Jim Dalrymple lost
40lbs closing activity rings.

As far as doctors go, your average MD only knows how to traverse a sometimes
complicated diagnostic tree and prescribe medication or refer you to a
specialist. They look at you and say you don't have a problem.

You might consider seeing a Doctor of Osteopathy (DO). Their discipline
focuses on nutrition and on ensuring your body is functioning properly. Which
results in treating problems at the source rather than mitigating symptoms.
And they can always break out the prescription pad if needed.

My wife has benefited greatly under the care of her osteopath. For example,
she had eczema from her fingertips to her shoulders on both arms. Her
osteopath put her on the GAPS diet, which cleared it mostly in about a week.
To get rid of it completely the doctor put her on the Autoimmune Paleo
Protocol. After about a year, she resumed a normal diet and has been fine. An
MD would have prescribed steroids on an ongoing basis, likely for the rest of
her life. And eventually prescribe more meds to treat the side effects of long
term steroid use.

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bitmage
The NeXT had such a clean aesthetic, even on the original B&W displays that
were limited to just four shades of grey. I still use the house icon from the
later color systems on my Linux desktop.

~~~
cha-cho
I cobbled together a NeXT-compliant Intel box in '95 so I could get NeXTSTEP
3.2 installed. What started it all? An old BYTE magazine article that featured
a screen capture of NeXTSTEP. It looked so good that I just had to try it out
firsthand.

~~~
mistermann
This thread makes me feel like I'm on the old slashdot, in a good way. :)

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danaliv
Still have my Turbo NeXTstation. Beautiful UI, beautiful machines.

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jpalomaki
Would be interesting to read a book related to this topic. Not about how to
design user interfaces, but something that would tell more about designers
like Keith and their work. Examples and then commentary by the designers. Any
pointers?

