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The Common Desktop Environment (CDE) is a desktop environment for Unix and OpenVMS, based on the Motif widget toolkit. It was part of the UNIX 98 Workstation Product Standard, and was for a long time the Unix desktop associated with commercial Unix workstations. It helped to influence early implementations of successor projects such as KDE and GNOME, which largely replaced CDE following the turn of the century.
The history of the graphical user interface, understood as the use of graphic icons and a pointing device to control a computer, covers a five-decade span of incremental refinements, built on some constant core principles. Several vendors have created their own windowing systems based on independent code, but with basic elements in common that define the WIMP "window, icon, menu and pointing device" paradigm.
HP-UX is Hewlett Packard Enterprise's proprietary implementation of the Unix operating system, based on Unix System V and first released in 1984. Current versions support HPE Integrity Servers, based on Intel's Itanium architecture.
OpenStep is an object-oriented application programming interface (API) specification that was developed by NeXT Computer. It provides a framework for building graphical user interfaces (GUIs) and developing software applications. OpenStep was designed to be platform-independent, allowing developers to write code that could run on multiple operating systems, including NeXTSTEP, Windows NT, and various Unix-based systems. It has influenced the development of other GUI frameworks, such as Cocoa for macOS and GNUstep.
A workstation is a special computer designed for technical or scientific applications. Intended primarily to be used by a single user, they are commonly connected to a local area network and run multi-user operating systems. The term workstation has been used loosely to refer to everything from a mainframe computer terminal to a PC connected to a network, but the most common form refers to the class of hardware offered by several current and defunct companies such as Sun Microsystems, Silicon Graphics, Apollo Computer, DEC, HP, NeXT, and IBM which powered the 3D computer graphics revolution of the late 1990s.
A computing platform, digital platform, or software platform is an environment in which software is executed. It may be the hardware or the operating system (OS), a web browser and associated application programming interfaces, or other underlying software, as long as the program code is executed using the services provided by the platform. Computing platforms have different abstraction levels, including a computer architecture, an OS, or runtime libraries. A computing platform is the stage on which computer programs can run.
The PowerOpen Environment (POE), created in 1991 from the AIM alliance, is an open standard for running a Unix-based operating system on the PowerPC computer architecture.
Amiga Unix is a discontinued full port of AT&T Unix System V Release 4 operating system developed by Commodore-Amiga, Inc. in 1990 for the Amiga computer family as an alternative to AmigaOS, which shipped by default.
A/UX is a Unix-based operating system from Apple Computer for Macintosh computers, integrated with System 7's graphical interface and application compatibility. It is Apple's first official Unix-based operating system, launched in 1988 and discontinued in 1995 with version 3.1.1. A/UX requires select 68k-based Macintosh models with an FPU and a paged memory management unit (PMMU), including the Macintosh II, SE/30, Quadra, and Centris series.
OPEN LOOK is a graphical user interface (GUI) specification for UNIX workstations. It was originally defined in the late 1980s by Sun Microsystems and AT&T Corporation.
Star Trek is the code name that was given to a secret prototype project, running a port of Macintosh System 7 and its applications on Intel-compatible x86 personal computers. The project, starting in February 1992, was conceived in collaboration between Apple Computer, who provided the majority of engineers, and Novell, who at the time was one of the leaders of cross-platform file-servers. The plan was that Novell would market the resulting OS as a challenge to Microsoft Windows, but the project was discontinued in 1993 and never released, although components were reused in other projects. The project was named after the Star Trek science fiction franchise with the slogan "To boldly go where no Mac has gone before".
SoftPC is a software emulator of x86 hardware. It was developed by Rod MacGregor, Henry Nash & Phil Bousfield, following the founding of Insignia Solutions in 1986 by MacGregor, with "about a dozen people who had left the CAD/CAM workstation specialist Computervision", believing in a market opportunity for an independent CAD/CAM consultancy. Originally a side project, SoftPC quickly became the main focus for the company, running PC software on workstations. Originally developed on SPARCstations, the first customer to license the software was Intergraph whose workstation had a proprietary processor architecture. Available originally on UNIX workstations to run MS-DOS, the software was ported to the Macintosh in 1987, and later gained the ability to run Microsoft Windows software. Besides Mac OS, supported platforms included SGI IRIX, Sun Solaris, HP-UX, IBM AIX, NeXTSTEP, Motorola 88000, OpenVMS on VAX and DEC Alpha systems, DEC ULTRIX, and others.
A Unix-like operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system, although not necessarily conforming to or being certified to any version of the Single UNIX Specification. A Unix-like application is one that behaves like the corresponding Unix command or shell. Although there are general philosophies for Unix design, there is no technical standard defining the term, and opinions can differ about the degree to which a particular operating system or application is Unix-like.
Two major families of Mac operating systems were developed by Apple Inc.
X.desktop was an early desktop environment graphical user interface built on the X Window System. It was developed and sold during the late 1980s and early 1990s by IXI Limited, a British software house based in Cambridge. Versions of X.desktop were available for over 30 different UNIX operating system platforms and it was licensed to various vendors, including IBM, Compaq, Locus Computing Corporation, BiiN and Acorn Computers, the latter licensing it in 1988 for its future workstation products.
Mac OS is the series of operating systems developed for the Macintosh family of personal computers by Apple Computer, Inc. from 1984 to 2001, starting with System 1 and ending with Mac OS 9. The Macintosh operating system is credited with having popularized the graphical user interface concept. It was included with every Macintosh that was sold during the era in which it was developed, and many updates to the system software were done in conjunction with the introduction of new Macintosh systems.
Comparison of user features of operating systems refers to a comparison of the general user features of major operating systems in a narrative format. It does not encompass a full exhaustive comparison or description of all technical details of all operating systems. It is a comparison of basic roles and the most prominent features. It also includes the most important features of the operating system's origins, historical development, and role.
References
- 1 2 3 Levitt, Jason (May 23, 1994). "Apple's New 'Virtual Macintosh For Open Systems' Is An Impressive Piece Of Work". Open Systems Today. p. 96. Retrieved March 27, 2022.
- ↑ Macintosh Application Environment, Administrator's Manual (PDF). Apple Computer Inc. 1996. Archived from the original (PDF) on 25 July 1997.
- ↑ Gold, Rebecca (December 1996). "Apple bridges chasm between Mac and Unix". SunWorld. Archived from the original on February 18, 1999. Retrieved March 16, 2019.
- ↑ Macintosh Application Environment, User's Manual (PDF). Apple Computer Inc. 1997. Archived from the original (PDF) on 25 July 1997.