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Macintosh Operating System is a series of GUI based operating systems developed by Apple Inc. Apple deliberately made the machine appear more user-friendly to separate it from other operating systems such as MS-DOS. There goal was to focus the masses.
The term "Mac OS" did not really exist until it was officially used during the mid-1990s. This term has been used for all versions of the Mac system software.
We can divide Mac OS into two families of operating systems:
- The classic Mac OS, the system which came with the first Macintosh in 1984 and its descendants, culminating with Mac OS 9.
- The newer Mac OS X, where X refers to the Roman numeral (ten). Mac OS X incorporates elements of OpenStep Mac OS 9.
Mac OS X is a line of proprietary, graphical operating systems manufactured, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. It was first released as Mac OS X Server 1.0 in 1999.
Versions
All the Mac OS X versions are named after big cats.
Mac OS X 10.0 (Cheetah)It was released on March 24, 2001. The initial version was slow and had a very few applications available at the time of its launch.
Mac OS X 10.1 (Puma)
Later in the same year on September 25, 2001, Mac OS X v10.1 was released. This
upgraded version increased the performance of the system and missing features were provided. It included features like DVD playback.
Mac OS X 10.2 (Jaguar)
In the next year of the first release of Mac OS X, Apple released Jaguar on August 24, 2002, which contained extreme enhancements including Quartz Extreme for compositing graphics directly on the AGP-based video card. Many people call it the first good release of Apple Inc.
Mac OS X 10.3 (Panther)
Mac OS X v10.3 "Panther" was released on October 24, 2003. In addition to increased performance it also included the most extensive update yet to the user interface. It included as many or more new features as Jaguar had the year before. On the other end, support for some early G3 computers such as "beige" Power Macs and "WallStreet" PowerBooks was discontinued.
Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger)
Mac OS X v10.4 "Tiger" was released on April 29, 2005. It contains more than 200 new features. It requires a Mac with a built-in FireWire port. Its features included Spotlight, Dashboard, Smart Folders, updated Mail program with Smart Mailboxes, QuickTime 7, Safari 2, Automator, VoiceOver, Core Image and Core Video.
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