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Macintosh by Apple

Intro

The first Mac Operating System was released on January 24, 1984, which was the first operating system to use a Graphical User Interface (GUI) which provided easy access to files and removed the hassle of typing commands on the command prompt. The Macintosh GUI consisted of icons for folders and applications.

  • The first three versions, Systems 1.0, 1.1, and 2.0, and had minimum support for folders or subdirectories.
  • System 2.1 introduced the Hierarchical File System (HFS) which consisted of real directories and improved file accessing and storage.
  • System 3.0 was introduced with MacPlus, which supported SCSI (type of hard drive), and Trash "bulging" (the trash would become bulged when it contained files).
  • System 4.0 was released with other versions of the Apple computer.
  • System 5 introduced multi-tasking (the use of several programs or applications at once) and a better graphics system.
  • System 6 was a major upgrade for the Mac OS; it supported 32-bit memory addressing (place where data is stored) which complemented the increasing amounts of RAM available.
  • System 7 was the first upgrade to change the GUI from black-and-white to color (however, the user could switch between black-and-white and color if the computer did not support color images yet). Shortcuts were also introduced to provide mutli-access to a file stored in different locations. The AppleMenu (similar to the Start Menu) was made user-editable; for example, users could place files into different folders and transfer files from one folder to another.
  • System 8 was released on July 26, 1997. It improved mutli-tasking, changed the look of the GUI to Platinum (greyscale), and added the ability to change appearance themes (An analogy would be the Windows classic and XP themes available in the modern Windows XP Operating System).
  • System 9 was released on October 23, 1999. It introduced "Network Browsers" which allowed connection to other networks, improved the searching utility, a new sound panel, and automatic updates that could be controlled through the Control Panel.
  • Mac OS X is the newest version of the Macintosh operating systems. It is largely based on the UNIX operating system. It consists of several improvements to the GUI, memory management, network access, and multi-tasking. It also supports several programming languages such as C, C++, and Java. The Mac OS X is open source, similar to the GNU/LINUX operating system.

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