117-484: ISIS , short for Intel System Implementation Supervisor , was an operating system for early Intel microprocessors like the 8080 . It was originally developed by Ken Burgett and Jim Stein under the management of Steve Hanna and Terry Opdendyk for the Intel Microprocessor Development System with two 8" floppy drives , starting in 1975, and later adopted as ISIS-II as the operating system for
234-428: A system call to perform a block I/O write operation, then the system call might execute the following instructions: While the writing takes place, the operating system will context switch to other processes as normal. When the device finishes writing, the device will interrupt the currently running process by asserting an interrupt request . The device will also place an integer onto the data bus. Upon accepting
351-701: A 'no new features' release. Since its release, several OS X or macOS releases (namely OS X Mountain Lion , OS X El Capitan , macOS High Sierra , and macOS Monterey ) follow this pattern, with a name derived from its predecessor, similar to the ' tick–tock model ' used by Intel. In two succeeding versions, Lion and Mountain Lion , Apple moved some applications to a highly skeuomorphic style of design inspired by contemporary versions of iOS while simplifying some elements by making controls such as scroll bars fade out when not in use. This direction was, like brushed metal interfaces, unpopular with some users, although it continued
468-675: A business that attempted to profit from selling macOS on non-Apple certified hardware, was sued by Apple in 2008. In April 2002, eWeek announced a rumor that Apple had a version of Mac OS X code-named Marklar , which ran on Intel x86 processors. The idea behind Marklar was to keep Mac OS X running on an alternative platform should Apple become dissatisfied with the progress of the PowerPC platform. These rumors subsided until late in May 2005, when various media outlets, such as The Wall Street Journal and CNET , announced that Apple would unveil Marklar in
585-645: A computer even if they are not compatible with the base operating system. A library operating system (libOS) is one in which the services that a typical operating system provides, such as networking, are provided in the form of libraries and composed with a single application and configuration code to construct a unikernel : a specialized (only the absolute necessary pieces of code are extracted from libraries and bound together ), single address space , machine image that can be deployed to cloud or embedded environments. The operating system code and application code are not executed in separated protection domains (there
702-571: A development of MULTICS for a single user. Because UNIX's source code was available, it became the basis of other, incompatible operating systems, of which the most successful were AT&T 's System V and the University of California 's Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). To increase compatibility, the IEEE released the POSIX standard for operating system application programming interfaces (APIs), which
819-740: A disadvantage due to blocking the Mac App Store's use for professional applications that require elevated privileges. Applications without any code signature cannot be run by default except from a computer's administrator account. Apple produces macOS applications. Some are included with macOS and some sold separately. This includes iWork , Final Cut Pro , Logic Pro , iLife , and the database application FileMaker . Numerous other developers also offer software for macOS . In 2018, Apple introduced an application layer, codenamed Marzipan, to port iOS apps to macOS. macOS Mojave included ports of four first-party iOS apps including Home and News , and it
936-484: A large legal settlement was paid. In the twenty-first century, Windows continues to be popular on personal computers but has less market share of servers. UNIX operating systems, especially Linux, are the most popular on enterprise systems and servers but are also used on mobile devices and many other computer systems. On mobile devices, Symbian OS was dominant at first, being usurped by BlackBerry OS (introduced 2002) and iOS for iPhones (from 2007). Later on,
1053-442: A library with no protection between applications, such as eCos . A hypervisor is an operating system that runs a virtual machine . The virtual machine is unaware that it is an application and operates as if it had its own hardware. Virtual machines can be paused, saved, and resumed, making them useful for operating systems research, development, and debugging. They also enhance portability by enabling applications to be run on
1170-447: A malformed machine instruction . However, the most common error conditions are division by zero and accessing an invalid memory address . Users can send messages to the kernel to modify the behavior of a currently running process. For example, in the command-line environment , pressing the interrupt character (usually Control-C ) might terminate the currently running process. To generate software interrupts for x86 CPUs,
1287-467: A new recompiled version of OS X along with Rosetta , a binary translation layer which enables software compiled for PowerPC Mac OS X to run on Intel Mac OS X machines. The system was included with Mac OS X versions up to version 10.6.8. Apple dropped support for Classic mode on the new Intel Macs. Third party emulation software such as Mini vMac , Basilisk II and SheepShaver provided support for some early versions of Mac OS. A new version of Xcode and
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#17328728629241404-412: A number of features, such as fast file searching and improved graphics processing, that Microsoft had spent several years struggling to add to Windows Vista with acceptable performance. As the operating system evolved, it moved away from the classic Mac OS , with applications being added and removed. Considering music to be a key market, Apple developed the iPod music player and music software for
1521-610: A number of pre-G3 Power Macintosh systems that can be made to run up to and including Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar, all G3-based Macs which can run up to and including Tiger, and sub-867 MHz G4 Macs can run Leopard by removing the restriction from the installation DVD or entering a command in the Mac's Open Firmware interface to tell the Leopard Installer that it has a clock rate of 867 MHz or greater. Except for features requiring specific hardware such as graphics acceleration or DVD writing,
1638-455: A particular application's memory is stored, or even whether or not it has been allocated yet. In modern operating systems, memory which is accessed less frequently can be temporarily stored on a disk or other media to make that space available for use by other programs. This is called swapping , as an area of memory can be used by multiple programs, and what that memory area contains can be swapped or exchanged on demand. Virtual memory provides
1755-558: A performance penalty when run on Intel Macs through Rosetta. Moreover, some PowerPC software, such as kernel extensions and System Preferences plugins, are not supported on Intel Macs at all. Plugins for Safari need to be compiled for the same platform as Safari, so when Safari is running on Intel, it requires plug-ins that have been compiled as Intel-only or universal binaries, so PowerPC-only plug-ins will not work. While Intel Macs can run PowerPC, Intel, and universal binaries, PowerPC Macs support only universal and PowerPC builds. Support for
1872-503: A program does not interfere with memory already in use by another program. Since programs time share, each program must have independent access to memory. Cooperative memory management, used by many early operating systems, assumes that all programs make voluntary use of the kernel 's memory manager, and do not exceed their allocated memory. This system of memory management is almost never seen any more, since programs often contain bugs which can cause them to exceed their allocated memory. If
1989-408: A program fails, it may cause memory used by one or more other programs to be affected or overwritten. Malicious programs or viruses may purposefully alter another program's memory, or may affect the operation of the operating system itself. With cooperative memory management, it takes only one misbehaved program to crash the system. Memory protection enables the kernel to limit a process' access to
2106-440: A program tries to access memory that is not accessible memory, but nonetheless has been allocated to it, the kernel is interrupted (see § Memory management ) . This kind of interrupt is typically a page fault . When the kernel detects a page fault it generally adjusts the virtual memory range of the program which triggered it, granting it access to the memory requested. This gives the kernel discretionary power over where
2223-582: A result of Apple's acquisition of NeXT , which also brought Steve Jobs back to Apple. The first desktop version, Mac OS X 10.0 , was released on March 24, 2001. All macOS releases are UNIX 03 certified. The derivatives of macOS are Apple's other operating systems: iOS , iPadOS , watchOS , tvOS , and audioOS . macOS has supported three major processor architectures: originally PowerPC -based Macs in 1999; Intel Core-based Macs from 2006 ; and self-designed 64-bit Arm Apple M series Macs since 2020 . A prominent part of macOS's original brand identity
2340-464: A sense of depth. New interface elements were integrated, including sheets ( dialog boxes attached to specific windows) and drawers, which would slide out and provide options. The use of soft edges, translucent colors, and pinstripes, similar to the hardware design of the first iMacs , brought more texture and color to the user interface when compared to what Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X Server 1.0 's " Platinum " appearance had offered. According to Siracusa,
2457-467: A significant amount of CPU time. Direct memory access (DMA) is an architecture feature to allow devices to bypass the CPU and access main memory directly. (Separate from the architecture, a device may perform direct memory access to and from main memory either directly or via a bus.) When a computer user types a key on the keyboard, typically the character appears immediately on the screen. Likewise, when
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#17328728629242574-402: A specific moment in time. Hard real-time systems require exact timing and are common in manufacturing , avionics , military, and other similar uses. With soft real-time systems, the occasional missed event is acceptable; this category often includes audio or multimedia systems, as well as smartphones. In order for hard real-time systems be sufficiently exact in their timing, often they are just
2691-582: A system that would be adopted by Apple's primary market of home users and creative professionals. The project was first codenamed " Rhapsody " before officially being named Mac OS X. The letter "X" in Mac OS X's name refers to the number 10, a Roman numeral , and Apple has stated that it should be pronounced "ten" in this context. However, it is also commonly pronounced like the letter "X". The iPhone X , iPhone XR and iPhone XS all later followed this convention. Previous Macintosh operating systems (versions of
2808-492: A trend of greater animation and variety in the interface previously seen in design aspects such as the Time Machine backup utility, which presented past file versions against a swirling nebula, and the glossy translucent dock of Leopard and Snow Leopard . In addition, with Mac OS X 10.7 Lion , Apple ceased to release separate server versions of Mac OS X, selling server tools as a separate downloadable application through
2925-417: A user moves a mouse , the cursor immediately moves across the screen. Each keystroke and mouse movement generates an interrupt called Interrupt-driven I/O . An interrupt-driven I/O occurs when a process causes an interrupt for every character or word transmitted. Devices such as hard disk drives , solid-state drives , and magnetic tape drives can transfer data at a rate high enough that interrupting
3042-453: A variation of the classic reader/writer problem . The writer receives a pipe from the shell for its output to be sent to the reader's input stream. The command-line syntax is alpha | bravo . alpha will write to the pipe when its computation is ready and then sleep in the wait queue. bravo will then be moved to the ready queue and soon will read from its input stream. The kernel will generate software interrupts to coordinate
3159-549: A variety of professional video and image formats and includes an extensive pre-installed font library, featuring many prominent brand-name designs. The Finder is a file browser allowing quick access to all areas of the computer, which has been modified throughout subsequent releases of macOS. Quick Look has been part of the Finder since version 10.5 . It allows for dynamic previews of files, including videos and multi-page documents without opening any other applications. Spotlight ,
3276-418: Is interrupted by it. Operating systems are found on many devices that contain a computer – from cellular phones and video game consoles to web servers and supercomputers . In the personal computer market, as of September 2024 , Microsoft Windows holds a dominant market share of around 73%. macOS by Apple Inc. is in second place (15%), Linux is in third place (5%), and ChromeOS
3393-562: Is remote direct memory access , which enables each CPU to access memory belonging to other CPUs. Multicomputer operating systems often support remote procedure calls where a CPU can call a procedure on another CPU, or distributed shared memory , in which the operating system uses virtualization to generate shared memory that does not physically exist. A distributed system is a group of distinct, networked computers—each of which might have their own operating system and file system. Unlike multicomputers, they may be dispersed anywhere in
3510-451: Is a POSIX -compliant operating system built on top of the XNU kernel , (which incorporated large parts of FreeBSD kernel ) and FreeBSD userland for the standard Unix facilities available from the command line interface . Apple has released this family of software as a free and open source operating system named Darwin . On top of Darwin, Apple layered a number of components, including
3627-484: Is a change away from the currently running process. Similarly, both hardware and software interrupts execute an interrupt service routine . Software interrupts may be normally occurring events. It is expected that a time slice will occur, so the kernel will have to perform a context switch . A computer program may set a timer to go off after a few seconds in case too much data causes an algorithm to take too long. Software interrupts may be error conditions, such as
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3744-420: Is also the final release with PowerPC Mac support. Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard was the first version of Mac OS X to be built exclusively for Intel Macs, and the final release with 32-bit Intel Mac support. The name was intended to signal its status as an iteration of Leopard, focusing on technical and performance improvements rather than user-facing features; indeed it was explicitly branded to developers as being
3861-422: Is difficult to define, but has been called "the layer of software that manages a computer's resources for its users and their applications ". Operating systems include the software that is always running, called a kernel —but can include other software as well. The two other types of programs that can run on a computer are system programs —which are associated with the operating system, but may not be part of
3978-896: Is in fourth place (2%). In the mobile sector (including smartphones and tablets ), as of September 2023 , Android's share is 68.92%, followed by Apple's iOS and iPadOS with 30.42%, and other operating systems with .66%. Linux distributions are dominant in the server and supercomputing sectors. Other specialized classes of operating systems (special-purpose operating systems), such as embedded and real-time systems, exist for many applications. Security-focused operating systems also exist. Some operating systems have low system requirements (e.g. light-weight Linux distribution ). Others may have higher system requirements. Some operating systems require installation or may come pre-installed with purchased computers ( OEM -installation), whereas others may run directly from media (i.e. live CD ) or flash memory (i.e. USB stick). An operating system
4095-443: Is only a single application running, at least conceptually, so there is no need to prevent interference between applications) and OS services are accessed via simple library calls (potentially inlining them based on compiler thresholds), without the usual overhead of context switches , in a way similarly to embedded and real-time OSes. Note that this overhead is not negligible: to the direct cost of mode switching it's necessary to add
4212-499: Is supported by most UNIX systems. MINIX was a stripped-down version of UNIX, developed in 1987 for educational uses, that inspired the commercially available, free software Linux . Since 2008, MINIX is used in controllers of most Intel microchips , while Linux is widespread in data centers and Android smartphones. The invention of large scale integration enabled the production of personal computers (initially called microcomputers ) from around 1980. For around five years,
4329-473: Is that they do not load user-installed software. Consequently, they do not need protection between different applications, enabling simpler designs. Very small operating systems might run in less than 10 kilobytes , and the smallest are for smart cards . Examples include Embedded Linux , QNX , VxWorks , and the extra-small systems RIOT and TinyOS . A real-time operating system is an operating system that guarantees to process events or data by or at
4446-410: Is the second most widely used desktop OS , after Microsoft Windows and ahead of all Linux distributions, including ChromeOS and SteamOS . As of 2024 , the most recent release of macOS is macOS 15 Sequoia , the 21st major version of macOS. Mac OS X succeeded classic Mac OS , the primary Macintosh operating system from 1984 to 2001. Its underlying architecture came from NeXT 's NeXTSTEP , as
4563-435: Is the part of the operating system that provides protection between different applications and users. This protection is key to improving reliability by keeping errors isolated to one program, as well as security by limiting the power of malicious software and protecting private data, and ensuring that one program cannot monopolize the computer's resources. Most operating systems have two modes of operation: in user mode ,
4680-414: Is therefore unsupported by Apple technical support, warranties etc.), but communities that cater to personal users, who do not install for resale and profit, have generally been ignored by Apple. These self-made computers allow more flexibility and customization of hardware, but at a cost of leaving the user more responsible for their own machine, such as on matter of data integrity or security. Psystar ,
4797-686: The Aqua interface and the Finder , to complete the GUI -based operating system which is macOS. With its original introduction as Mac OS X, the system brought a number of new capabilities to provide a more stable and reliable platform than its predecessor, the classic Mac OS . For example, pre-emptive multitasking and memory protection improved the system's ability to run multiple applications simultaneously without them interrupting or corrupting each other. Many aspects of macOS's architecture are derived from OPENSTEP , which
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4914-535: The CP/M (Control Program for Microcomputers) was the most popular operating system for microcomputers. Later, IBM bought the DOS (Disk Operating System) from Microsoft . After modifications requested by IBM, the resulting system was called MS-DOS (MicroSoft Disk Operating System) and was widely used on IBM microcomputers. Later versions increased their sophistication, in part by borrowing features from UNIX. Apple 's Macintosh
5031-564: The Classic Environment with performance limitations; this feature was removed from 10.5 onwards and all Macs using Intel processors. Because macOS is POSIX compliant, many software packages written for the other Unix-like systems including Linux can be recompiled to run on it, including many scientific and technical programs. Third-party projects such as Homebrew , Fink , MacPorts and pkgsrc provide pre-compiled or pre-formatted packages. Apple and others have provided versions of
5148-496: The INT assembly language instruction is available. The syntax is INT X , where X is the offset number (in hexadecimal format) to the interrupt vector table . To generate software interrupts in Unix-like operating systems, the kill(pid,signum) system call will send a signal to another process. pid is the process identifier of the receiving process. signum is
5265-518: The Mac App Store , a marketplace of software maintained by Apple through a process requiring the company's approval. Apps installed through the Mac App Store run within a sandbox , restricting their ability to exchange information with other applications or modify the core operating system and its features. This has been cited as an advantage, by allowing users to install apps with confidence that they should not be able to damage their system, but also as
5382-419: The Mac App Store . Newer versions of Mac OS X also included modifications to the general interface, moving away from the striped gloss and transparency of the initial versions. Some applications began to use a brushed metal appearance, or non-pinstriped title bar appearance in version 10.4. In Leopard, Apple announced a unification of the interface, with a standardized gray-gradient window style. In 2006,
5499-781: The Mac transition to Intel processors , it was modified so that developers could build their applications as a universal binary , which provides compatibility with both the Intel-based and PowerPC-based Macintosh lines. First and third-party applications can be controlled programmatically using the AppleScript framework, retained from the classic Mac OS , or using the newer Automator application that offers pre-written tasks that do not require programming knowledge. Apple offered two main APIs to develop software natively for macOS: Cocoa and Carbon . Cocoa
5616-505: The PL/M compiler, assembler, link editor, and In-Circuit Emulator (developed by Steve Morse). The ISIS operating system was developed on an early prototype of the MDS 800 computer, the same type of hardware that Gary Kildall used to develop CP/M . Communication with the user is terminal -like. Its user interface is somewhat CP/M -like, even from the program interface point of view. For file opening,
5733-462: The Taligent , Copland and Gershwin projects, but all were eventually abandoned. This led Apple to acquire NeXT in 1997, allowing NeXTSTEP, later called OPENSTEP , to serve as the basis for Apple's next generation operating system. This purchase also led to Steve Jobs returning to Apple as an interim, and then the permanent CEO, shepherding the transformation of the programmer-friendly OPENSTEP into
5850-617: The X Window System graphical interface which can allow these applications to run with an approximation of the macOS look-and-feel. The current Apple-endorsed method is the open-source XQuartz project; earlier versions could use the X11 application provided by Apple, or before that the XDarwin project. Applications can be distributed to Macs and installed by the user from any source and by any method such as downloading (with or without code signing , available via an Apple developer account) or through
5967-437: The classic Mac OS ) were named using Arabic numerals , as with Mac OS 8 and Mac OS 9 . Until macOS 11 Big Sur , all versions of the operating system were given version numbers of the form 10. x , with this going from 10.0 up until 10.15; starting with macOS 11 Big Sur , Apple switched to numbering major releases with numbers that increase by 1 with every major release. The first version of Mac OS X, Mac OS X Server 1.0 ,
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#17328728629246084-420: The transistor in the mid-1950s, mainframes began to be built. These still needed professional operators who manually do what a modern operating system would do, such as scheduling programs to run, but mainframes still had rudimentary operating systems such as Fortran Monitor System (FMS) and IBSYS . In the 1960s, IBM introduced the first series of intercompatible computers ( System/360 ). All of them ran
6201-650: The "NS" prefix is ubiquitous in the framework, standing variously for N eXT S TEP or N eXT/ S un . The official OPENSTEP API, published in September 1994, was the first to split the API between Foundation and ApplicationKit and the first to use the "NS" prefix. Traditionally, Cocoa programs have been mostly written in Objective-C , with Java as an alternative. However, on July 11, 2005, Apple announced that "features added to Cocoa in Mac OS X versions later than 10.4 will not be added to
6318-560: The 2010s. Rumors intensified in 2020, when numerous reports announced that the company would announce its shift to its custom processors at WWDC. Apple officially announced its shift to processors designed in-house on June 22, 2020, at WWDC 2020, with the transition planned to last for approximately two years. The first release of macOS to support ARM was macOS Big Sur . Big Sur and later versions support Universal 2 binaries , which are applications consisting of both Intel ( x86-64 ) and Apple silicon ( AArch64 ) binaries; when launched, only
6435-459: The Aqua appearance. To some extent, Apple has used the successful transition to this new design as leverage, at various times threatening legal action against people who make or distribute software with an interface the company says is derived from its copyrighted design. Apple has continued to change aspects of the macOS appearance and design, particularly with tweaks to the appearance of windows and
6552-410: The CPU for every byte or word transferred, and having the CPU transfer the byte or word between the device and memory, would require too much CPU time. Data is, instead, transferred between the device and memory independently of the CPU by hardware such as a channel or a direct memory access controller; an interrupt is delivered only when all the data is transferred. If a computer program executes
6669-474: The CPU to re-enter supervisor mode , placing the kernel in charge. This is called a segmentation violation or Seg-V for short, and since it is both difficult to assign a meaningful result to such an operation, and because it is usually a sign of a misbehaving program, the kernel generally resorts to terminating the offending program, and reports the error. Windows versions 3.1 through ME had some level of memory protection, but programs could easily circumvent
6786-653: The Cocoa-Java programming interface." macOS also used to support the Java Platform as a "preferred software package"—in practice this means that applications written in Java fit as neatly into the operating system as possible while still being cross-platform compatible, and that graphical user interfaces written in Swing look almost exactly like native Cocoa interfaces. Since 2014, Apple has promoted its new programming language Swift as
6903-408: The Mac App Store. A review described the trend in the server products as becoming "cheaper and simpler... shifting its focus from large businesses to small ones." In 2012, with the release of OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion , the name of the system was officially shortened from Mac OS X to OS X, after the previous version shortened the system name in a similar fashion a year prior. That year, Apple removed
7020-583: The Mac, including iTunes and GarageBand . Targeting the consumer and media markets, Apple emphasized its new "digital lifestyle" applications such as the iLife suite, integrated home entertainment through the Front Row media center and the Safari web browser. With the increasing popularity of the internet, Apple offered additional online services, including the .Mac, MobileMe and most recently iCloud products. It later began selling third-party applications through
7137-771: The PowerPC platform was dropped following the transition. In 2009, Apple announced at WWDC that Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard would drop support for PowerPC processors and be Intel-only. Rosetta continued to be offered as an optional download or installation choice in Snow Leopard before it was discontinued with Mac OS X 10.7 Lion. In addition, new versions of Mac OS X first- and third-party software increasingly required Intel processors, including new versions of iLife, iWork, Aperture and Logic Pro. Rumors of Apple shifting Macs from Intel to in-house ARM processors used by iOS devices began circulating as early as 2011, and ebbed and flowed throughout
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#17328728629247254-534: The application program, which then interacts with the user and with hardware devices. However, in some systems an application can request that the operating system execute another application within the same process, either as a subroutine or in a separate thread, e.g., the LINK and ATTACH facilities of OS/360 and successors . An interrupt (also known as an abort , exception , fault , signal , or trap ) provides an efficient way for most operating systems to react to
7371-531: The appropriate binary is run. Additionally, Intel binaries can be run on Apple silicon-based Macs using the Rosetta 2 binary translation software. The transition was completed at WWDC 2023 with the announce of the Apple silicon Mac Pro , ending the transition in 3 years, slightly behind schedule. The change in processor architecture allows Macs with ARM processors to be able to run iOS and iPadOS apps natively. One of
7488-423: The coming months. On June 6, 2005, Steve Jobs announced in his keynote address at WWDC that Apple would be making the transition from PowerPC to Intel processors over the following two years, and that Mac OS X would support both platforms during the transition. Jobs also confirmed rumors that Apple had versions of Mac OS X running on Intel processors for most of its developmental life. Intel-based Macs would run
7605-453: The computer's memory. Various methods of memory protection exist, including memory segmentation and paging . All methods require some level of hardware support (such as the 80286 MMU), which does not exist in all computers. In both segmentation and paging, certain protected mode registers specify to the CPU what memory address it should allow a running program to access. Attempts to access other addresses trigger an interrupt, which causes
7722-480: The cost of updates from Snow Leopard onwards, before removing upgrade fees altogether in OS X Mavericks . Some journalists and third-party software developers have suggested that this decision, while allowing more rapid feature release, meant less opportunity to focus on stability, with no version of OS X recommendable for users requiring stability and performance above new features. Apple's 2015 update, OS X 10.11 El Capitan ,
7839-421: The default file system is HFS+ , which it inherited from the classic Mac OS. Operating system designer Linus Torvalds had criticized HFS+, saying it is "probably the worst file system ever", whose design is "actively corrupting user data". He criticized the case insensitivity of file names, a design made worse when Apple extended the file system to support Unicode . The Darwin subsystem in macOS manages
7956-476: The default file system for SSD boot drives. Its successor, macOS 10.14 Mojave , was released in 2018, adding a dark mode option and a dynamic wallpaper setting . It was succeeded by macOS 10.15 Catalina in 2019, which replaces iTunes with separate apps for different types of media, and introduces the Catalyst system for porting iOS apps. In 2020, Apple announced macOS 11 Big Sur at that year's WWDC. This
8073-471: The details of how interrupt service routines behave vary from operating system to operating system. However, several interrupt functions are common. The architecture and operating system must: A software interrupt is a message to a process that an event has occurred. This contrasts with a hardware interrupt — which is a message to the central processing unit (CPU) that an event has occurred. Software interrupts are similar to hardware interrupts — there
8190-509: The developed device). There are two editors, one of which, AEDIT, contains editing macros support. File editing is provided directly on diskette (a .BAK file is always created). The other editor is CREDIT. ISIS-II needed at least 32 kilobytes of RAM , the 8080 / 8085 CPU maximum address space was 64 kilobytes. In the MDS-800 and Series-II, the Monitor occupied F800h to FFFFh. Floppy disk format
8307-522: The display to warmer colors at night, and two Continuity features: Universal Clipboard, which syncs a user's clipboard across their Apple devices, and Auto Unlock, which can unlock a user's Mac with their Apple Watch. macOS Sierra also adds support for the Apple File System (APFS), Apple's successor to the dated HFS+ file system. macOS 10.13 High Sierra , released in 2017, included performance improvements, Metal 2 and HEVC support, and made APFS
8424-448: The early releases in retrospect as "dog-slow, feature poor" and Aqua as "unbearably slow and a huge resource hog". Apple rapidly developed several new releases of Mac OS X. Siracusa's review of version 10.3, Panther , noted "It's strange to have gone from years of uncertainty and vaporware to a steady annual supply of major new operating system releases." Version 10.4, Tiger , reportedly shocked executives at Microsoft by offering
8541-422: The environment. Interrupts cause the central processing unit (CPU) to have a control flow change away from the currently running program to an interrupt handler , also known as an interrupt service routine (ISR). An interrupt service routine may cause the central processing unit (CPU) to have a context switch . The details of how a computer processes an interrupt vary from architecture to architecture, and
8658-476: The file system, which includes the Unix permissions layer. In 2003 and 2005, two Macworld editors expressed criticism of the permission scheme; Ted Landau called misconfigured permissions "the most common frustration" in macOS, while Rob Griffiths suggested that some users may even have to reset permissions every day, a process which can take up to 15 minutes. More recently, another Macworld editor, Dan Frakes, called
8775-444: The first Intel Macs were released with a specialized version of Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger . A key development for the system was the announcement and release of the iPhone from 2007 onwards. While Apple's previous iPod media players used a minimal operating system, the iPhone used an operating system based on Mac OS X, which would later be called " iPhone OS " and then iOS . The simultaneous release of two operating systems based on
8892-410: The hardware checks that the software is only executing legal instructions, whereas the kernel has unrestricted powers and is not subject to these checks. The kernel also manages memory for other processes and controls access to input/output devices. The operating system provides an interface between an application program and the computer hardware, so that an application program can interact with
9009-493: The hardware only by obeying rules and procedures programmed into the operating system. The operating system is also a set of services which simplify development and execution of application programs. Executing an application program typically involves the creation of a process by the operating system kernel , which assigns memory space and other resources, establishes a priority for the process in multi-tasking systems, loads program binary code into memory, and initiates execution of
9126-410: The head of OS X development, Scott Forstall , and design was changed towards a more minimal direction. Apple's new user interface design, using deep color saturation, text-only buttons and a minimal, 'flat' interface, was debuted with iOS 7 in 2013. With OS X engineers reportedly working on iOS 7, the version released in 2013, OS X 10.9 Mavericks , was something of a transitional release, with some of
9243-579: The iMDX-430 Series-IV Network Development System-II. Intel ASM80, PLM-80, BASIC-80, COBOL-80, FORTRAN-80 were all available for ISIS-II. ASM86 , ASM48 , ASM51 were available as well. The following list of commands are supported by the ISIS-II console. Operating system An operating system ( OS ) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common services for computer programs . Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of
9360-418: The indirect pollution of important processor structures (like CPU caches , the instruction pipeline , and so on) which affects both user-mode and kernel-mode performance. The first computers in the late 1940s and 1950s were directly programmed either with plugboards or with machine code inputted on media such as punch cards , without programming languages or operating systems. After the introduction of
9477-404: The interrupt request, the operating system will: When the writing process has its time slice expired, the operating system will: With the program counter now reset, the interrupted process will resume its time slice. Among other things, a multiprogramming operating system kernel must be responsible for managing all system memory which is currently in use by the programs. This ensures that
9594-484: The introduction of Aqua and its departure from the then conventional look "hit like a ton of bricks." Bruce Tognazzini (who founded the original Apple Human Interface Group) said that the Aqua interface in Mac OS X 10.0 represented a step backwards in usability compared with the original Mac OS interface. Third-party developers started producing skins for customizable applications and other operating systems which mimicked
9711-431: The kernel—and applications—all other software. There are three main purposes that an operating system fulfills: With multiprocessors multiple CPUs share memory. A multicomputer or cluster computer has multiple CPUs, each of which has its own memory . Multicomputers were developed because large multiprocessors are difficult to engineer and prohibitively expensive; they are universal in cloud computing because of
9828-572: The major differences between the classic Mac OS and the current macOS was the addition of Aqua , a graphical user interface with water-like elements, in the first major release of Mac OS X. Every window element, text, graphic, or widget is drawn on-screen using spatial anti-aliasing technology. ColorSync , a technology introduced many years before, was improved and built into the core drawing engine, to provide color matching for printing and multimedia professionals. Also, drop shadows were added around windows and isolated text elements to provide
9945-579: The major version number, similarly to classic Mac OS and iOS, but is still named after places within California. The heritage of what would become macOS had originated at NeXT , a company founded by Steve Jobs following his departure from Apple in 1985. There, the Unix-like NeXTSTEP operating system was developed, before being launched in 1989. The kernel of NeXTSTEP is based upon the Mach kernel , which
10062-400: The memory allocated to a different one. Around the same time, teleprinters began to be used as terminals so multiple users could access the computer simultaneously. The operating system MULTICS was intended to allow hundreds of users to access a large computer. Despite its limited adoption, it can be considered the precursor to cloud computing . The UNIX operating system originated as
10179-801: The menu bar. Since 2012, Apple has sold almost all of its Mac models with high-resolution Retina displays , and macOS and its APIs have extensive support for resolution-independent development on supporting high-resolution displays. Reviewers have described Apple's support for the technology as superior to that on Windows. The human interface guidelines published by Apple for macOS are followed by many applications, giving them consistent user interface and keyboard shortcuts. In addition, new services for applications are included, which include spelling and grammar checkers, special characters palette, color picker, font chooser and dictionary; these global features are present in every Cocoa application, adding consistency. The graphics system OpenGL composites windows onto
10296-408: The need to use it. A general protection fault would be produced, indicating a segmentation violation had occurred; however, the system would often crash anyway. The use of virtual memory addressing (such as paging or segmentation) means that the kernel can choose what memory each program may use at any given time, allowing the operating system to use the same memory locations for multiple tasks. If
10413-408: The open-source Android operating system (introduced 2008), with a Linux kernel and a C library ( Bionic ) partially based on BSD code, became most popular. The components of an operating system are designed to ensure that various parts of a computer function cohesively. With the de facto obsoletion of DOS , all user software must interact with the operating system to access hardware. The kernel
10530-472: The operating system offers the same functionality on all supported hardware. As most Mac hardware components, or components similar to those, since the Intel transition are available for purchase, some technology-capable groups have developed software to install macOS on non-Apple computers. These are referred to as Hackintoshes , a portmanteau of the words "hack" and "Macintosh". This violates Apple's EULA (and
10647-421: The piping. Signals may be classified into 7 categories. The categories are: Input/output (I/O) devices are slower than the CPU. Therefore, it would slow down the computer if the CPU had to wait for each I/O to finish. Instead, a computer may implement interrupts for I/O completion, avoiding the need for polling or busy waiting. Some computers require an interrupt for each character or word, costing
10764-588: The preferred language for software development on Apple platforms. Apple's original plan with macOS was to require all developers to rewrite their software into the Cocoa APIs. This caused much outcry among existing Mac developers, who threatened to abandon the platform rather than invest in a costly rewrite, and the idea was shelved. To permit a smooth transition from Mac OS 9 to Mac OS X, the Carbon Application Programming Interface (API)
10881-646: The procedure of repairing permissions vastly overused. He argues that macOS typically handles permissions properly without user interference, and resetting permissions should only be tried when problems emerge. The architecture of macOS incorporates a layered design: the layered frameworks aid rapid development of applications by providing existing code for common tasks. Apple provides its own software development tools, most prominently an integrated development environment called Xcode . Xcode provides interfaces to compilers that support several programming languages including C , C++ , Objective-C , and Swift . For
10998-575: The program sends the name of file and gets back a handle. Each device has a name, which is entered between a pair of colons ( :F0: and :F1: are floppies, :LP: is printer, etc.). Each diskette has one directory and no subdirectories. ISIS-II has been distributed as part of the Intel Microprocessor Development System and includes standard operating system commands (COPY, DELETE, DIR, RENAME, FORMAT) and debugging software (assembler, linker and debugger for external debugging in
11115-416: The programmer or the user with the perception that there is a much larger amount of RAM in the computer than is really there. MacOS macOS , originally Mac OS X , previously shortened as OS X , is an operating system developed and marketed by Apple since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers . Within the market of desktop and laptop computers, it
11232-473: The release of Leopard onwards and announced that Carbon applications would not run at 64-bit. A number of macOS applications continued to use Carbon for some time afterwards, especially ones with heritage dating back to the classic Mac OS and for which updates would be difficult, uneconomic or not necessary. This included Microsoft Office up to Office 2016 , and Photoshop up to CS5. Early versions of macOS could also run some classic Mac OS applications through
11349-471: The same frameworks placed tension on Apple, which cited the iPhone as forcing it to delay Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard . However, after Apple opened the iPhone to third-party developers its commercial success drew attention to Mac OS X, with many iPhone software developers showing interest in Mac development. In 2007, Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard was the sole release with universal binary components, allowing installation on both Intel Macs and select PowerPC Macs. It
11466-418: The same operating system— OS/360 —which consisted of millions of lines of assembly language that had thousands of bugs . The OS/360 also was the first popular operating system to support multiprogramming , such that the CPU could be put to use on one job while another was waiting on input/output (I/O). Holding multiple jobs in memory necessitated memory partitioning and safeguards against one job accessing
11583-550: The screen to allow hardware-accelerated drawing. This technology, introduced in version 10.2, is called Quartz Extreme , a component of Quartz . Quartz's internal imaging model correlates well with the Portable Document Format (PDF) imaging model, making it easy to output PDF to multiple devices. As a side result, PDF viewing and creating PDF documents from any application are built-in features. Reflecting its popularity with design users, macOS also has system support for
11700-400: The signal number (in mnemonic format) to be sent. (The abrasive name of kill was chosen because early implementations only terminated the process.) In Unix-like operating systems, signals inform processes of the occurrence of asynchronous events. To communicate asynchronously, interrupts are required. One reason a process needs to asynchronously communicate to another process solves
11817-400: The size of the machine needed. The different CPUs often need to send and receive messages to each other; to ensure good performance, the operating systems for these machines need to minimize this copying of packets . Newer systems are often multiqueue —separating groups of users into separate queues —to reduce the need for packet copying and support more concurrent users. Another technique
11934-425: The skeuomorphic design removed, while most of the general interface of Mavericks remained unchanged. The next version, OS X 10.10 Yosemite , adopted a design similar to iOS 7 but with greater complexity suitable for an interface controlled with a mouse. From 2012 onwards, the system has shifted to an annual release schedule similar to that of iOS and Mac OS X releases prior to 10.4 Tiger . It also steadily cut
12051-442: The system and may also include accounting software for cost allocation of processor time , mass storage , peripherals, and other resources. For hardware functions such as input and output and memory allocation , the operating system acts as an intermediary between programs and the computer hardware, although the application code is usually executed directly by the hardware and frequently makes system calls to an OS function or
12168-472: The underlying command-line compilers supported building universal binaries that would run on either architecture. PowerPC-only software is supported with Apple's official binary translation software, Rosetta , though applications eventually had to be rewritten to run properly on the newer versions released for Intel processors. Apple initially encouraged developers to produce universal binaries with support for both PowerPC and Intel. PowerPC binaries suffer
12285-473: The world. Middleware , an additional software layer between the operating system and applications, is often used to improve consistency. Although it functions similarly to an operating system, it is not a true operating system. Embedded operating systems are designed to be used in embedded computer systems , whether they are internet of things objects or not connected to a network. Embedded systems include many household appliances. The distinguishing factor
12402-427: Was 8-inch single-sided, 250 KB single-sided, single-density FM, or 500 KB single-sided, double-density MMFM . ISIS-PDS was also software and media incompatible and unique, it came on 720 KB double-sided double-density (DSDD) 5¼-inch floppies with the Intel personal development system (iPDS-100). The ISIS-IV operating system was another incompatible (even with other Intel development systems) that ran on
12519-401: Was a descendant of APIs inherited from OPENSTEP with no ancestry from the classic Mac OS , while Carbon was an adaptation of classic Mac OS APIs, allowing Mac software to be minimally rewritten to run natively on Mac OS X. The Cocoa API was created as the result of a 1993 collaboration between NeXT Computer and Sun Microsystems . This heritage is highly visible for Cocoa developers, since
12636-490: Was a transitional product, featuring an interface resembling the classic Mac OS , though it was not compatible with software designed for the older system. Consumer releases of Mac OS X included more backward compatibility . Mac OS applications could be rewritten to run natively via the Carbon API ; many could also be run directly through the Classic Environment with a reduction in performance. The consumer version of Mac OS X
12753-527: Was announced that the API would be available for third-party developers to use from 2019. With macOS Catalina in 2019, the application layer was made available to third-party developers as Mac Catalyst . List of macOS versions, the supported systems on which they run, and their RAM requirements Tools such as XPostFacto and patches applied to the installation media have been developed by third parties to enable installation of newer versions of macOS on systems not officially supported by Apple. This includes
12870-402: Was announced to focus specifically on stability and performance improvements. In 2016, with the release of macOS 10.12 Sierra , the name was changed from OS X to macOS with the purpose of aligning it with the branding of Apple's other primary operating systems: iOS , watchOS , and tvOS . macOS Sierra added Siri , iCloud Drive , picture-in-picture support, a Night Shift mode that switches
12987-401: Was created. Applications written with Carbon were initially able to run natively on both classic Mac OS and Mac OS X, although this ability was later dropped as Mac OS X developed. Carbon was not included in the first product sold as Mac OS X: the little-used original release of Mac OS X Server 1.0 , which also did not include the Aqua interface. Apple limited further development of Carbon from
13104-463: Was designed to be portable, to ease the transition from one platform to another. For example, NeXTSTEP was ported from the original 68k -based NeXT workstations to x86 and other architectures before NeXT was purchased by Apple, and OPENSTEP was later ported to the PowerPC architecture as part of the Rhapsody project . Prior to macOS High Sierra, and on drives other than solid state drives (SSDs),
13221-413: Was launched in 2001 with Mac OS X 10.0 . Reviews were variable, with extensive praise for its sophisticated, glossy Aqua interface , but criticizing it for sluggish performance. With Apple's popularity at a low, the maker of FrameMaker , Adobe Inc. , declined to develop new versions of it for Mac OS X. Ars Technica columnist John Siracusa, who reviewed every major OS X release up to 10.10, described
13338-487: Was originally developed at Carnegie Mellon University , with additional kernel layers and low-level user space code derived from parts of FreeBSD and other BSD operating systems. Its graphical user interface was built on top of an object-oriented GUI toolkit using the Objective-C programming language. Throughout the 1990s, Apple had tried to create a "next-generation" OS to succeed its classic Mac OS through
13455-625: Was the first increment in the primary version number of macOS since the release of Mac OS X Public Beta in 2000; updates to macOS 11 were given 11.x numbers, matching the version numbering scheme used by Apple's other operating systems. Big Sur brought major changes to the user interface and was the first version to run on Apple Silicon , based on the ARM architecture. The numbering system started with Big Sur continued in 2021 with macOS 12 Monterey , 2022 with macOS 13 Ventura , 2023 with macOS 14 Sonoma , and 2024 with macOS 15 Sequoia . At macOS's core
13572-406: Was the first popular computer to use a graphical user interface (GUI). The GUI proved much more user friendly than the text-only command-line interface earlier operating systems had used. Following the success of Macintosh, MS-DOS was updated with a GUI overlay called Windows . Windows later was rewritten as a stand-alone operating system, borrowing so many features from another ( VAX VMS ) that
13689-506: Was the use of Roman numeral X, pronounced "ten", as well as code naming each release after species of big cats , and later, places within California . Apple shortened the name to "OS X" in 2011 and then changed it to "macOS" in 2016 to align with the branding of Apple's other operating systems. After sixteen distinct versions of macOS 10, macOS Big Sur was presented as version 11 in 2020, and every subsequent version has also incremented
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