macintosh operating system
(foldoc) | Macintosh Operating System
Mac OS
(Mac OS) Apple Computer, Inc.'s
proprietary operating system for their Macintosh family of
personal computers.
The part of the operating system that simulates the desktop is
called "Finder." The multitasking version of Finder was
called "MultiFinder" until multitasking was integrated
into the core of the OS with the introduction of System 7.0 in
1990.
The Macintosh series provides a built-in graphics language,
called "QuickDraw", which provides a standard for software
developers.
Mac OS 8, scheduled for delivery in July 1997, included new
human-interface features, increased system stability and
performance, a PowerPC processor-native Finder, tighter
integration of Internet access through panel-based
"assistants," Personal Web Sharing and the ability to run
Java applets and programs through Mac OS Run Time for
Java. Version 9.2 was the last version of the bespoke Mac
OS. The next version, Mac OS X is quite different, being
based on Unix.
See also Macintosh file system, Macintosh user interface.
(2007-03-15)
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