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... Mac OS X, but a few criticized it as being more difficult and less user-friendly than the original Mac OS. 4. 2 Microsoft Vista has been released in 2007 and it is the first new operating system since Windows XP was introduced in 2001. The long-anticipated system was first made available to businesses only. A consumer version was released later.
The new system won generally favorable reviews for its improved graphics, search capabilities, and stronger security protection against viruses. Windows Vista contains many changes and new features, including an updated graphical user interface and visual style dubbed Windows Aero, improved searching features, new multimedia creation tools like Windows DVD Maker, and redesigned networking, audio, print, and display sub-systems. Vista was designed to increase the level of communication between machines on a home network, using peer-to-peer technology to simplify sharing files and digital media between computers and devices. 4. 3 UNIX operating system was first developed in 1969 by Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie at AT&T Bell Laboratories for use on minicomputers and initially was intended to be a research tool. But in the early 1970 s, many universities, research institutions, and companies began to expand on and improve UNIX. Therefore it has grown into an actual product soon. The efforts of developers resulted in two main versions: BSD UNIX, a version developed at the University of California at Berkeley, and System V, developed by AT&T and its collaborators.
From the original editions of UNIX, newer version and distributions were developed. Today there are many UNIX flavors. Some notable ones are Sun Microsystems Solaris, UNIX System V, Sgi's IRIX, and BSD. UNIX was one of the early computer operating systems, now it has evolved and is in use on a wide variety of hardware platforms.
It is considered to be a very powerful multitasking operating system, it is written in the C language and can be installed on virtually any computer. Many companies eventually developed and marketed their own versions of UNIX. The variations of UNIX include: - AIX, a version of UNIX adapted by IBM for RISC-based workstations; - A/UX, a graphical version for the Apple Macintosh; - XENIX OS, developed by Microsoft Corporation for 16 -bit microprocessors; - SunOS, adapted and distributed by Sun Microsystems, Inc. ; - Mach, a UNIX-compatible operating system for the NeXT computer; - Linux, developed by Finnish computer engineer Linus Torvalds with collaborators worldwide and available for download free of charge or distributed commercially by companies such as Red Hat, Inc. UNIX is popular among academic computer users. Its popularity is basing mainly on the growth of the interconnected computer network known as the Internet. Software for the Internet was initially designed for computers that ran UNIX.
UNIX and its clones support multitasking and multiple users. Its file system provides a simple means of organizing disk files and lets users control access to their files. The commands in UNIX are not readily apparent, however, and mastering the system is difficult. That is why UNIX is used mostly by professionals and is not the operating system of choice for the general public. Instead, windowing systems with graphical interfaces, such as Windows and the Macintosh OS, which make computer technology more accessible, are widely used in personal computers. However, graphical systems generally have the disadvantage of requiring more hardware, such as faster CPUs, more memory, and higher-quality monitors, than do command-oriented operating systems. 4. 4 Now most people use Windows, but there are a few up and coming stars to challenge Windows.
Among them are LINUX and BeOS. These two are the main competition for Windows in the PC market. BeOS is manufactured by a company called BeOS. It is totally free for anybody to download off of the Internet or to order on CD. It is about 100 MB. An operating system that uses open source software that has been growing lately is the Linux operating system.
It was developed for the Intel 80386 in 1991 by Finnish software engineer Linus Torvalds. The original version of Linux was not developed as a commercial product. Linus Torvalds wrote the first version of Linux while he was a second-year student of computer science at the University of Helsinki in Finland. He released it to a public Internet forum in 1991. Being put available for free on the internet, Linux basically has grown through collaboration by many users around the world. Other software engineers worldwide subsequently adopted Linux as a programming challenge.
With thousands of minds focused on improving the software, Linux rapidly became a fast, reliable, and widespread operating system. What perhaps endeared Linux most to so many people who volunteered their efforts was the fact that the basic Linux operating system was, and continues to be, free. Linux has been continually enhanced since the 1990 s, with thousands of programming enthusiasts working to develop applications as part of an open-source software movement. In addition, several commercial enterprises have released their own Linux-based products. The similarities to UNIX are obvious because it was designed to be UNIX compatible. However, little by little Linux has become more than just another UNIX flavor, now it is a separate operating system that has numerous distributions.
Linux is an alternative to commercial operating systems such as Windows, UNIX, or Macintosh OS. Being an open source software, users have access to the source code and are allowed to use, modify, or redistribute the code. The software of the Linux operating system consists of two main parts. The Linux kernel is low-level software that manages computer hardware and the many programs that are running at any given time. The Linux Operating System is the collection of utility programs that allows a user to copy files, delete files, and do all of the other actions that make a computer useful. Although Linux can be used to run desktop computers, it is most widely used for servers, mobile platforms, and supercomputers.
It is also used in embedded hardware for consumer electronics products such as game consoles and digital radios and televisions. A significant part of the business companies has chosen Linux to support office and commercial systems. A number of vendors have gathered together various pieces of software and presented them in a distributable format that makes Linux look like any operating system with which people are familiar. The Linux releases from these companies are called distributions. The Red Hat distribution is the most popular commercial offering, with Caldera, Debian, and openSuse some of the other leading names. Ubuntu is the most popular desktop distribution and is available preinstalled on desktop computers manufactured by Dell.
The way in which Linux has been developed has made it important in the advancement of computing in the world. The basic Linux operating system can be downloaded from Internet Web sites, therefore, a significant number of low-budget computer users choose it for their PCs. Moreover, Linux is able to run in almost any computer with very few resources, giving the possibility to reuse old or discarded computers in developing countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The One Laptop Per Child program to provide inexpensive laptop computers to school children in developing countries has adopted a version of the Linux operating system for the XO laptop. Open source software should allow users to adapt the laptops to local needs and technological requirements. 5.
Nowadays operating systems are used widely practically in every sphere of our life. Apart from computers, operating systems are introduced in automobile driving controls systems, mobile phones, gaming systems and other devices. Microsoft company produces a wide range of software products not only for computers, but for many computing devices. Microsoft initially entered the mobile market through Windows CE for handheld devices, which today has developed into Windows Mobile 6.
The operating system focuses on devices where the OS may not directly be visible to the end user, for example, appliances and cars. Microsoft sells computer games that run on Windows PCs, among them are Age of Empires, Halo and the Microsoft Flight Simulator series. In 2001 the company released Xbox videogame. It was Microsoft's first step into the gaming console market, and competed directly with Sony's PlayStation 2 and the Nintendo GameCube. The Xbox also has a successor in the Xbox 360, released in November, 2005 in North America and other countries. Personal digital assistance's (PDAs), also known as palmtop computers, are in popular demand nowadays.
The overall market for PDAs continues to grow. The following operating systems has been designed for PDAs: Palm OS, Windows Mobile, RIM BlackBerry, Symbian OS and various Linux-based operating systems. Smartphone is an advanced kind of mobile phone. It has adopted many of PC functions, can provide the connection to Internet and has other advanced features. The most common operating systems for smartphones are almost the same as for PDAs: Symbian OS, iPhone OS, RIM BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Linux OS, Palm OS, Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless, Android. One of the internet-connected multimedia smartphones is the iPhone, designed and marketed by Apple Inc.
It has a flush multi-touch screen and a minimal hardware interface. The device does not have a physical keyboard, so a virtual keyboard is rendered on the touch screen. The i Phones functions include those of a camera phone and portable media player in addition to text messaging and visual voicemail. It also includes Internet services like e-mail, web browsing, and local Wi-Fi connection. Apple Inc. developed iPhone OS or OS X iPhone operating systems specially for iPhone and iPod Touch.
It was derived from Mac OS X and takes less than half a gigabyte of the devices total memory storage. This operating system did not have an official name until the first beta version of the iPhone SDK in March 2008 was released. Before then, Apple marketing literature simply mentioned that the iPhone uses OS X, a reference to iPhone OSs ancestor, Mac OS X. There are over 3, 000 applications officially available for the iPhone, not including the ones built into the iPhone. 6.
As the research of faster CPU continues, operating systems continue to evolve as well. Recently there has been developed a new type of an operating sistem called a distributed operating system. It is designed for a connected, but independent, collection of computers that share resources such as hard drives. In a distributed operating system, a process can run on any computer in the network to increase that processs performance. All basic operating system functions, such as maintaining file systems, ensuring reasonable behavior, and recovering data in the event of a partial failure become more complex in distributed systems. Researchers continue to work on finding innovative technologies, specifically there is being developed the idea of replacing the keyboard with a means of using voice or handwriting for input.
Currently these types of input are imprecise and difficult for a computer because of a great difference in peoples pronunciation and handwriting. However, advances in this field have led to systems that can recognize a small number of words spoken by a variety of people. Moreover, software has been developed that can be taught to recognize an individuals handwriting. 7. The competitive nature of the computer industry and the need of faster, more cost-effective computing continue the drive towards faster CPUs. The minimum transistor size that can be manufactured using current technology is fast approaching the theoretical limit. In the standard technique for microprocessor design, ultraviolet light is used to expose a light-sensitive covering on the silicon chip.
Various methods are then used to etch the base material along the pattern created by the light. These etchings form the paths that electricity follows in the chip. The theoretical limit for transistor size using this type of manufacturing process is approximately equal to the wavelength of the light used to expose the light-sensitive covering. By using light of shorter wavelength, greater detail can be achieved and smaller transistors can be manufactured, resulting in faster, more powerful CPUs.
Printing integrated circuits with X-rays, which have a much shorter wavelength than ultraviolet light, may provide further reductions in transistor size that will translate to improvements in CPU speed. Many other ways of research are being followed in an attempt to make faster CPUs. New base materials for integrated circuits, such as composite layers of gallium arsenide and gallium aluminum arsenide, may contribute to faster chips. Alternatives to the standard transistor-based model of the CPU are also being considered.
Experimental ideas in computing may radically change the design of computers and the concept of the CPU in the future. These ideas include quantum computing, in which single atoms hold bits of information; molecular computing, where certain types of problems may be solved using recombinant DNA techniques; and neural networks, which are computer systems with the ability to learn. Fruitful researches of the faster CPUs and improving other hardware characteristics will provide software engineers and designers with new opportunities in creating completely new operating systems in the future. Bibliography /Reference list: Audio, Samuel, OS/ 2 Warp 4, OS/ 2 Warp homepage, 7 May 2001, retrieved on 17 Nov. 2008, web Central Processing Unit, Microsoft Encarta Online Encyclopedia 2008, retrieved on 16 Nov. 2008, web Evolution of Operating Systems, SL Central, 13 Nov. 2000, retrieved on 14 Nov. 2008 web International Business Machines Corporation, Microsoft Encarta Online Encyclopedia 2008, retrieved on 16 Nov. 2008, web Linux, Microsoft Encarta Online Encyclopedia 2008, retrieved on 16 Nov. 2008, web Mac OS, History mania! , retrieved on 17 Nov. 2008, web Microsoft, Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, last modified 18 Nov. 2008, retrieved on 18 Nov. 2008 web Operating system evolution, California State University Domingues Hills, 24 May 2007, received on 14 Nov. 2008 web So, Matthew, History of Mac OS, Amacgenius. com, 1 Nov. 2005, Laurence Anderson, retrieved on 16 Nov. 2008 web Unix, Microsoft Encarta Online Encyclopedia 2008, retrieved on 16 Nov. 2008, web Windows Vista, Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, last modified 20 Nov. 2008, retrieved on 17 Nov. 2008 web
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