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Mac OS X

See also: Macintosh, Rhapsody, Mac OS X Server, and NeXT

summary

Macintosh OS X (ten) is a desktop operating system based on Rhapsody. Macintosh OS X is made by Apple Computer and will run on Motorola/IBM PowerPC.

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further reading: books on Mac OS X

Macintosh OS X is essentially Rhapsody 3.0 optimized for Apple’s PowerPC computers, a high powered UNIX^† with the friendly face of the Macintosh.

“Mac OS X is the most important software from Apple since the original Macintosh operating system in 1984 that revolutionized the entire industry. We can’t wait for Mac users around the globe to experience its stability, power and elegance.” —Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO

    “Forget a dual operating system strategy. In his keynote address at Apple’s 1998 Worldwide Developer Conference, Steve Jobs, Apple’s interim CEO, says all the company’s operating system plans are converging into one entity: Mac OS X (10), due next year [it actually arrived three years later].
    “Mac OS 8 and Rhapsody will be the “parents” of Mac OS X, due the third quarter of 1999. The best parts of Rhapsody will be integrated into the Mac OS to make it a modern operating system. [NOTE: These dates slipped to first quarter 2001.]
    “Mac OS X will be targeted for G3 systems and their predecessors; all shipping products will run Mac OS X. It will be 100% PowerPC native; all 68k code will be excised. The upcoming OS is slated to have protected memory, enhanced virtual memory (with no more fixed size heaps), preemptive multitasking, fast networking, and fast file I/O. It will also run Mac OS 8 compatible applications transparently [it ended up running Mac OS 9 applications that were updated to Carbon and didn’t involve access to hardware].” —Dennis Sellers, “The X-Files: Rhapsody, Allegro + Sonata = Mac OS 10”^e30

“Mac OS X the biggest leap in the Mac OS since 1984, bringing it into new territory, but bringing all of us and current applications with it.” —Steve Jobs^e30

Intended purpose

server/mainframe: small to medium scale servers

desktop/workstation: general desktop and content creation workstations

handheld: not appropriate

real time: not appropriate

Kind of OS: proprietary BSD (Berkeley Software Distribution) UNIX^†

“Under the appealing, easy-to-use interface is a rock-solid foundation — an industrial-strength core OS engineered for stability, reliability, and phenomenal performance.” — Apple Computer^w56

Much of the underpinnings of Mac OS X (MACH, FreeBSD, etc.) are open source projects.

“The open source community helped bring you the core OS. Feel free to pitch in and contribute your programming talents.” — Apple Computer^w56

“After protests that Apple was illegally violating the open source requirement to make available their enhancements, Apple finally released those underpinnings as Darwin, while continueing to keep higher level components a proprietary secret (and compounding their lack of ethics by falsely claiming that they were making their operating system open source while only making a small part open source) and simultaneously releasing the open source portions with a highly restrictive license that includes the option for Apple to revoke permission to use the code at any time at any whim, going against the very meaning of open source.” —a developer who requested his name be kept private

Public Beta Release Date: Sept 13, 2000

Official Release Date: March 24, 2001

Current Version: X (10.1.2)

Cost: $129

Mac OS X ships with 7 languages (English, Japanese, French, German, Spanish, Italian, and Dutch) included on a single CD.

Hardware Supported: IBM/Motorola PowerPC G3 and G4

Maximum Number of Processors: 32^e125

Number of bits: 64

Kernel: MACH^e75 (microkernel)

POSIX: compatible^e49

“I expect there’s some work to port a Unix app to MacOS X, especially one that uses any of the Unix System-V APIs. BSD-flavored apps should port easily to MacOS X. Of course, the windowing systems of Unix and MacOS X are completely different, so don’t expect to easily port any X-windows apps.” — Steve Byan^e59

Peripherals:

“Despite Mac OS X’s relative immaturity, it’s often more reliable at connecting to new add-ons [than Windows XP].” —Jim Heid, “A Study in Contrasts”, Los Angeles Times, March 2002ⁿ⁴

File Systems Supported:

preferred file system: HFS+ (NRWF), UFS (NRWF)
file systems can read/write/format: HFS (DRWF), FAT (RWF)
file systems can read/write: FAT32 (RW), VFAT (RW), UFS (RW), DVD-R (RW), DVD-R/W (RW), DVD-RAM (RW), SMB (RW)
file systems read only and can write through optional software: ISO 9660 (Rw), CD-i (Rw), VCD (Rw), ECD (Rw), PD (Rw), CD (Rw), DVD-Video (Rw), DVD-ROM (Rw)

“I just got 10.1, and WOW. I knew I was going to get a lot more speed, but GEEZ! My PBG4/500 FLIES now. DVD playback was almost flawless in 9.x (unless you were running a lot of apps in the background). It *IS* flawless in 10.1. I was watching it full screen in the background while using AOL Instant Messenger (which munches processor cycles like a Pentium eats electricity), and it was PERFECT.” — Kynan Shook

Other Systems Emulated: MS-DOS (with third party Virtual PC), Windows 3.1 (with third party Virtual PC), Windows 95 (with third party Virtual PC or SoftWindows95), Windows 98 (with third party Virtual PC or SoftWindows98)

Graphics Engine: Quartz (formerly called Enhanced QuickDraw); OpenGL for 3D graphics

“Based on the portable document format (PDF), Quartz delivers on-the-fly rendering, anti-aliasing, and compositing of PostScript-strength graphics.” — Apple Computer^w56

“It would certainly be nice if Apple Computer ever got some documentation out to developers on Quartz. So far, nothing is available. The WWDC session totally lacked any detail, much less having things like an API. They just point you to the Postscript and PDF specs, on which it is based. (Quartz is somewhat modified from these.) That still doesn’t qualify as an API or programmer-useful documentation. This is probably the area of Mac OSX where the developer need is the greatest and the information the least forthcoming. (If you can’t draw, you can’t do anything.)”

Text Command Shell: UNIX shells (default shell is tcsh, ships with precompiled copies of sh, csh, tcsh, and zsh)

User Interface (graphic): Aqua (built on the Macintosh ToolBox)

“The Aqua interface brings your Mac to life with color, depth, translucence, and fluid motion — and keeps you on top of things with continuous visual feedback.” — Apple Computer^w56

“Aqua is what Eazel, Gnome, KDE, and all the rest of the we-make-it-easy Linux GUI crowd can only dream about. I find Aqua’s design light-years ahead of any other GUI on the market, which goes for both Linux and MS Windows.” —“X a perfect X”, Open (a Linux e-business magazine)^m4

Graphic Command Shell: Finder

“With Mac OS X featuring numerous advances, it’s the job of the new Finder to ease your transition to the next level of computing. Navigating your Mac and the Internet has never been easier.” —Apple Computer^w56


controls in window title bar		a window opening

Disabled support:

blind: keyboard can be used to access the menu bar, the dock, palettes, toolbars, and window controls

deaf: system alert sound can be replaced by having the menu bar flash

motor impaired: Sticky Keys (a system wide control panel), Mouse Keys (a system wide control panel), keyboard can be used to access the menu bar, the dock, palettes, toolbars, and window controls

Internet Services:

“Mac OS X combines a host of powerful features and technologies — plus iTools, Sherlock, and QuickTime TV — to give you more of what you want from the Internet.” — Apple Computer^w56

“The killer app of the Internet gets compelling new features and capabilities. It’s called Mail, and it’s a full-featured email application built from the ground up as an integral part of Mac OS X.” — Apple Computer^w56

“ ‘Mac OS X is going to be one of the best platforms for doing Web development,’ said Macromedia’s Tony Campitelli during Steve Jobs’ Seybold keynote.” — Apple Computer^w56

http://www.isc.org/products/DHCP “Internet Software Consortium DHCP Server, Client, and Relay agent” freely redistributable tools: source builds on most Unix platforms, Mac, NeXTStep, and Rhapsody.

Application Programs:

Bundled Software: iMovie™ 2 (low end digital video editing software); iTunes (low end consumer jukebox software for managing music files); most of the open source UNIX tools needed for commercial server operation

Security:

Other:

“From the WWDC98 charts, Mac OS X ’s CoreOS is essentially a Mach system kernel (mk7.x + other advancements) with a POSIX-like system interface very similar to *BSD-lite servers (which includes sockets), IOKit, VFS file system interface (a BSD 4.4 thing), and AppleTalk.” —Tuan Truong^e49

“Macs have many advantages: ease of use, integration of OS and hardware, reliability, overall lower cost of ownership over the life of the machine, and, of course, style.” —Why Monopolies Are Bad, by Jeff Adkins^w77

references

references within this web site

(for your convenience, look for this symbol marking passages about Macintosh OS X)

Cost
Hardware Supported
Installation and Set-up
File Systems Supported
Reliability
Speed
Disabled Access
Hardware (Physical) Layer of an Operating System
User Interface

further reading: books

For more UNIX book listings, see also the general book listings on the UNIX web page.

Also see the web pages for Rhapsody, NeXT, Mac OS X Server, and Macintosh.

If you want your book reviewed, please send a copy to: Milo, POB 1361, Tustin, CA 92781, USA.

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Macintosh	Windows	UNIX
AIX	AmigaOS	BeOS
BSDi	Digital UNIX (or DUNIX)	FreeBSD
GNU Hurd	HP-UX	IRIX
LINUX	Macintosh	Mac OS X
MS-DOS	MVS	NetBSD
NetWare	NeXT	NeXTSTEP
OpenBSD	OPENSTEP	OpenVMS (or OVMS)
OS/2	OS/2 Warp	OS/2 Warp Server
PC-DOS-2000	Pyramid	Rhapsody
SCO	Solaris	SunOS
ULTRIX	UNIX	VMS
Windows 3.1	Windows 95	Windows 98
Windows NT	Windows NT Server	Windows NT Server Enterprise Edition

This web site handcrafted on Macintosh computers using Tom Bender’s Tex-Edit Plus and served using FreeBSD .

†UNIX used as a generic term unless specifically used as a trademark (such as in the phrase “UNIX certified”). UNIX is a registered trademark in the United States and other countries, licensed exclusively through X/Open Company Ltd.

Names and logos of various OSs are trademarks of their respective owners.

Last Updated: March 20, 2002

Created: June 22, 1998

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OSdata.com

Mac OS X

summary

OSdata.com is used in more than 300 colleges and universities around the world

references

references within this web site

further reading: web sites

official web sites

FAQs

user group web sites

other related web sites

further reading: books

further reading: books: introductory/general

further reading: books: administration

further reading: books: internet

further reading: books: enterprise/business

further reading: books: content creation

further reading: books: programming

further reading: books: hardware

further reading: books: miscellaneous

OSdata.com is used in more than 300 colleges and universities around the world

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