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.
macOS is a proprietary graphical operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and laptop computers it is the second most widely used desktop OS, after Microsoft Windows and ahead of Chrome OS.
QuickTime is an extensible multimedia framework developed by Apple Inc., capable of handling various formats of digital video, picture, sound, panoramic images, and interactivity. Created in 1991, the latest Mac version, QuickTime X, is available for Mac OS X Snow Leopard up to macOS Mojave. Apple ceased support for the Windows version of QuickTime in 2016, and ceased support for QuickTime 7 on macOS in 2018.
TrueType is an outline font standard developed by Apple in the late 1980s as a competitor to Adobe's Type 1 fonts used in PostScript. It has become the most common format for fonts on the classic Mac OS, macOS, and Microsoft Windows operating systems.
GNUstep is a free software implementation of the Cocoa Objective-C frameworks, widget toolkit, and application development tools for Unix-like operating systems and Microsoft Windows. It is part of the GNU Project.
Carbon was one of two primary C-based application programming interfaces (APIs) developed by Apple for the macOS operating system. Carbon provided a good degree of backward compatibility for programs that ran on Mac OS 8 and 9. Developers could use the Carbon APIs to port (“carbonize”) their “classic” Mac applications and software to the Mac OS X platform with little effort, compared to porting the app to the entirely different Cocoa system, which originated in OPENSTEP. With the release of macOS 10.15 Catalina, the Carbon API was officially discontinued and removed, leaving Cocoa as the sole primary API for developing macOS applications.
WinZip is a trialware file archiver and compressor for Windows, macOS, iOS and Android. It is developed by WinZip Computing, which is owned by Corel Corporation. The program can create archives in Zip file format, unpack some other archive file formats and it also has various tools for system integration.
Mac OS 9 is the ninth major release of Apple's classic Mac OS operating system which was succeeded by OS X. Introduced on October 23, 1999, it was promoted by Apple as "The Best Internet Operating System Ever", highlighting Sherlock 2's Internet search capabilities, integration with Apple's free online services known as iTools and improved Open Transport networking. While Mac OS 9 lacks protected memory and full pre-emptive multitasking, lasting improvements include the introduction of an automated Software Update engine and support for multiple users.
Apple Mail is an email client included by Apple Inc. with its operating systems macOS, iOS, iPadOS and watchOS. Apple Mail grew out of NeXTMail, which was originally developed by NeXT as part of its NeXTSTEP operating system, after Apple's acquisition of NeXT in 1997.
Mac OS X Panther is the fourth major release of macOS, Apple's desktop and server operating system. It followed Mac OS X 10.2 and preceded Mac OS X Tiger. It was released on October 24, 2003.
System 7, codenamed "Big Bang", and also known as Mac OS 7, is a graphical user interface-based operating system for Macintosh computers and is part of the classic Mac OS series of operating systems. It was introduced on May 13, 1991, by Apple Computer, Inc. It succeeded System 6, and was the main Macintosh operating system until it was succeeded by Mac OS 8 in 1997. Features added with the System 7 release included virtual memory, personal file sharing, QuickTime, QuickDraw 3D, and an improved user interface.
System 6 is a graphical user interface-based operating system for Macintosh computers, made by Apple Computer, Inc. It was released in 1988, and is part of the classic Mac OS series. It is a monolithic operating system, with cooperative multitasking based on an improved MultiFinder. The boxed version cost US$49, and it was included with all new Macintosh computers until 1991, when it was succeeded by System 7.
Mac OS 8 is an operating system that was released by Apple Computer, Inc. on July 26, 1997. It includes the largest overhaul of the classic Mac OS experience since the release of System 7, approximately six years before. It places a greater emphasis on color than prior versions. Released over a series of updates, Mac OS 8 represents an incremental integration of many of the technologies which had been developed from 1988 to 1996 for Apple's overly ambitious OS named Copland. Mac OS 8 helped modernize the Mac OS while Apple developed its next-generation operating system, Mac OS X.
BBEdit is a proprietary text editor made by Bare Bones Software, originally developed for Macintosh System Software 6, and currently supporting macOS.
The Appearance Manager is a component of Mac OS 8 and Mac OS 9 that controls the overall look of the Macintosh graphical user interface widgets and supports several themes. It was originally developed for Apple's ill-fated Copland project, but with the cancellation of this project the system was moved into newer versions of the Mac OS. The Appearance Manager is also available free as part of a downloadable SDK for System 7.
System Preferences is an application included with macOS. It allows users to modify various system settings, which are divided into separate Preference Panes. The System Preferences application was introduced in the first version of Mac OS X to replace the control panels found in earlier versions of the Mac operating system.
Apple's Macintosh computer supports a wide variety of fonts. This support was one of the features that initially distinguished it from other systems.
Workbench is the graphical file manager of AmigaOS developed by Commodore International for their Amiga line of computers. Workbench provides the user with a graphical interface to work with file systems and launch applications. It uses a workbench metaphor for representing file system organisation.
The classic Mac OS is the series of operating systems developed for the Macintosh family of personal computers by Apple 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.
