Macintosh System Software (OS) History
- System 1.0 was the original OS for the Macintosh 128k when it was released in 1984.
- System 6.0 started a new era for the Mac, introducing Multi-Finder, color support, etc.
- System 7.0 was hailed as a major-rewrite. The System 7.x family introduced the alias, QuickTime, Apple Guide and other things that Mac users take for granted now.
- Mac OS 8.0 was an evolutionary step along the way. It cleaned up a lot of messy things in the interface that had been added during the System 7.x days. It started to be more streamlined and optimized for the PowerPC. It dropped support for all Macs, up to the 68030 processor. It still supported the 68040.
- Mac OS 8.5 officially dropped support for all Macs based on the Motorola 680x0 series processor.
- Mac OS 9.0 was an evolutionary step up from Mac OS 8.6.
- Mac OS 9.1 was the last OS to support pre-G3 Power Macs (PowerPC 601, 603, and 604). All future releases will only support Macs bases on the Motorola PPC 750 (G3) series and 7400 (G4) series processors.
- Mac OS X was a complete re-write of the Mac OS. It's core is based on FreeBSD Unix. It also has a lot of code derived from the NExTSTEP operating system, purchased by Apple in 1996. Mac OS X can NOT run any programs not written for it. It uses an emulation environment called "Classic" to run Mac OS 9.x in tandem. Any program not written for OS X, uses the "Classic" environment.
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