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Credit goes to Matthew Skok for this article.

The Mac OS was not the first graphical user interface, but it was the first successful one. The reason for this is simple: affordability. The Xerox Alto cost $32,000 to build, the Xerox Star retailed for $16,600, and the Apple Lisa retailed for $10,000. The first Macintosh, on the other hand, retailed for $2,500. Because it was affordable by average people, it was immediately much more attractive than the GUI computers that came before it.

The Mac OS was not the first graphical user interface, but it was the first successful one. The reason for this is simple: affordability. The Xerox Alto cost $32,000 to build, the Xerox Star retailed for $16,600, and the Apple Lisa retailed for $10,000. The first Macintosh, on the other hand, retailed for $2,500. Because it was affordable by average people, it was immediately much more attractive than the GUI computers that came before it.

1984 - System 1

System 1 had a desktop, windows, icons, a mouse, menus, and scrollbars. Disks had an “Empty Folder” - new folders were created by changing the name of the Empty Folder - a replacement Empty Folder would immediately appear. The Trash worked like a garbage chute - anything in it would disappear with the next restart. Only one program could be run at a time, no virtual memory or protected memory was available. Some of the standard Macintosh features were missing - AppleTalk, desktop pictures, color, QuickTime, even Zoom Boxes. It was also impossible to nest folders within folders - in fact, folders were illusionary, all files were stored on the root level of a disk, with a note in the file table for which files were in which folder so the Finder could make them appear to be in the appropriate folder.

System 1.1 added the About dialog box, the Clean Up command, and some speed improvements.

1985 - System 2

System 2 was notable by making the Finder twenty percent faster. The Put Back and Close All commands were eliminated, while New Folder and Shutdown were added. Disks could now be ejected by dragging their icons to the Trash, instead of selecting the Eject Disk command and then dragging the icon to the Trash. A non-hierarchical List View, where items within a folder were listed in a vertical list with small icons, was added. A Choose Printer desk accessory was added, this would eventually evolve into the Chooser.

1986 - System 3

System 3 improved Finder speed even more. Hierarchical File System (HFS) replaced the Macintosh File System (MFS) of Systems 1 and 2 - folders were now real, and folders could be nested within folders. Zoom boxes were added to the right end of window title bars - clicking would make the window resize to just fit the contents of that folder, if possible - clicking again would make the window go back to its old size. The Trash icon bulged when something was put in it, and the lines pointed the opposite direction.

System 3.1 was horrendously buggy.

System 3.2 fixed thirty bugs. The Calculator was updated so that the onscreen keypad looked like the keypad on keyboards.

System 3.3 was enhanced for AppleShare, the old Macintosh file sharing.

1987 - System 4

System 4 was introduced with the Macintosh SE and Macintosh II. System 4 added multiple monitor support.

System 4.1 added support for disk drives of 32+ MB.

System 4.2 implemented MultiFinder - users could switch between Finder, which only supported one program at a time, and MultiFinder, which could support multiple programs. “About the Finder” now showed how much memory each program was using. A customizable Control Panel program was also included.

System 4.3 was a service upgrade - bug fixes and some updated printer drivers.

No System 5

Interestingly, Apple completely skipped System 5.

1988 - System 6

System 6 added color support, although the Finder itself still didn’t use color, even on color-capable machines. Erase Disk was enhanced with a progress dialog with a Cancel button. Get Info was enhanced to show the version number of a file. Notification Monitor allowed programs to notify users through the menu bar if they needed input.

Systems 6.0.1-6.0.8 simply added support for new models as they were released.

1990 - System 7

System 7 was the biggest change to the system software to that time. System 7 eliminated the Finder/MultiFinder issue - System 7’s Finder is MultiFinder - turning multitasking on for good. Memory management also got an overhaul: 32b memory addressing - which allows Macs to use more than 8 MB of RAM - was integrated into the operating system, Virtual Memory - which uses an unused section of hard drive space as substitute memory - was also first implemented in System 7. Networking via AppleTalk and file sharing via AppleShare were built into the operating system, instead of being optional. QuickTime multimedia software also debuted at this time - but was available separately. System 7 added many features that would be built upon in the god that is Mac OS X.

A menu was added to the right end of the Menu Bar - the Application Menu, which showed a list of running programs and allowed users to switch between them. Next to the Application Menu was the Help Menu. The Trash was changed into a true folder, meaning that items put in it remained until the Empty Trash command was selected. Aliases - later copied by Windows as Shortcuts - first appeared in System 7. Drag and Drop - where a selected section of text could just be dragged from one program to the other instead of having to copy and paste - was implemented. System 7’s Finder finally took advantage of color monitors - making some interface elements look a little three-dimensional.

System 7.x also had the largest number of minor updates.

System 7.0.1 fixed a few bugs. System 7.0.1p was a Performa-specific release with System 7.0.1’s fixes, plus some special features for novice users. (Performa was the name of Apple’s home computer line for a number of years.)

System 7.1 implemented the Fonts folder so that fonts could be easily added and removed - previously they were buried within the System itself - and the Enabler scheme - which mean new models could be released with an Enabler file instead of a very minor update like with Systems 6.0.1-6.0.8. There was also a System 7.1p for Performas.

System 7.1.1 - also known as System 7 Pro - bundled AppleScript, QuickTime, and PowerTalk, all of which used to be available separately. System 7.1.2 was made to support the PowerPC chip. System 7.1.3 fixed bugs in System 7.1.2.

System 7.5 integrated all of the features from the Performa releases. It also added the much more helpful Apple Guide help system. The startup screen finally had a progress bar.

Despite how far the Mac had come in the eleven years leading up to System 7.5, it was becoming clear that the Mac needed an entirely rewritten operating system. See the “Need for a New OS” section for details.

System 7.5.1 fixed bugs and the Mac OS Logo at startup. System 7.5.2 was available in two, incompatible versions: one for the first PCI Power Macs, one for the portables released at about the same time. System 7.5.3 incorporated some much-needed bug fixes.

Then things get really confusing. System 7.5.3L supported the first Mac Clones. System 7.5.3 Revisions 2, 2.1, and 2.2 were all bug fixes and supported new models. (Why no Enablers?) System 7.5.4 was announced, but not released because of a last-minute discovery of some major bugs. System 7.5.5 combined all the 7.5.3 versions and fixed more bugs.

Mac OS 7.6 was the first release following Apple’s strategy of releasing an update for the then-current Mac OS every six months until Rhapsody/Mac OS X could be completed. It was updated with some bug fixes via Mac OS 7.6.1.

1997 - Mac OS 8

Mac OS 8 revamped the Finder. The Finder was finally multithreaded - meaning that it could do more than one thing at the same time. Multithreading also meant that computers with more than one processor would experience better Finder performance. The overall appearance of the Finder was revamped to look more three-dimensional. The appearance of the Finder was also made a lot more customizable. Personal Web Sharing allowed users to host web pages on their computers.

Mac OS 8.1 was most notable for HFS+. This improved version of the Hierarchical File System introduced with System 3 freed up lots of space - hundreds of megabytes - on hard drives larger than 1 GB. (It does this by dividing the drive into a larger number of sectors, meaning that the minimum file size is much smaller, and there’s less space wasted by small files.) Mac OS 8.1 was also the last version to support 68K Macs, all subsequent versions were PowerPC-only. [Thanks to Jeff Leadbeater for bringing that to our attention. - mpy]

Mac OS 8.5 introduced Sherlock, an extremely advanced search program that works on local drives, network servers, and the Internet. Mac OS 8.5.1 was a maintenance update. Mac OS 8.6 added a Find by Content option to Sherlock, enhanced power management, and improved USB and FireWire support.

1999 - Mac OS 9

Multiple Users was added in Mac OS 9, which allowed users to log in and have their own, unique settings. AppleTalk over TCP/IP was also implemented. Software Update allowed users to get updates to software off the internet, and would inform users of new updates as they came out.

Mac OS 9.0.2 and 9.0.3 shipped with specific models. Mac OS 9.0.4 unified everything again, and is the only version of the classic Mac OS compatible with the Classic environment in Mac OS X Public Beta.

Mac OS 9.1 improved stability and added the Window menu. It is the minimum for the Classic Environment in Mac OS X 10.0 and 10.1. Mac OS 9.2 was only available as a pre-installed system starting with the “Quicksilver” Power Mac G4s released in the summer of 2001. Mac OS 9.2.1 was released soon after as a maintenance update, and is recommended for Classic in Mac OS X 10.1. Mac OS 9.2.2, the final version, was released near the end of 2001, and improves Classic performance.

Mac OS X is based very strongly on a PowerPC-port of OpenStep. Through it Mac OS X inherits Mach’s robust memory and processor management, and device driver interface, BSD’s POSIX - UNIX program protocol - support and networking interface, and NeXT’s OpenSTEP development environment - the Cocoa development environment is a descendent of OpenSTEP - and some of NeXT’s interface elements. NeXT’s interface was based on PostScript, the same technology that makes up the Portable Document Format (PDF) that Mac OS X’s Quartz windowing system is based on. The Mac OS X Dock and Column View are both clearly derived from OpenStep.

Building Blocks for Mac OS X

Mac OS X, today’s successful operation system that is on virtually all Mac’s today, has been almost a decade in the making.

1996 - Apple Purchases NeXT

In 1996 Apple desperately needed a new operating system. The Mac OS was still fundamentally the same operating system that was released in 1984 - which meant it lacked a lot of technologies that were needed to get the most out of new computers. Apple’s big attempt to turn the Mac OS into a fully modern operating system - Copland - was going nowhere. Rather than continue trying to re-invent the wheel, Apple discontinued Copland and started shopping for a fully modern operating system to succeed the Mac OS.

Several candidates were considered before Apple Settled on OpenStep from NeXT - the company founded by Steve Jobs when he left Apple.

By late 1997 Apple began previewing the prototypes of its replacement Mac OS - known simply by its code name “Rhapsody” - to developers. Rhapsody DR1 and DR2 - “DR” stands for “Developer Release” - were little more than OpenStep ported to PowerPC.

1999 - Darwin

One of the steps toward completing Mac OS X was the release of Darwin. Darwin is the fundamental, UNIX core of Mac OS X, which can also exist as an operating system in its own right. The standard Darwin OS uses a command-line interface, is open sourced, meaning that anybody interested can make improvements to the foundation of Mac OS X. (Mac OS X and Darwin OS are synced, so changes made to the one will show up in new versions of the other.)

Darwin handles all the hardware management, interprocess management, and protocol management of Mac OS X.

Darwin was originally released at version 0.1. Mac OS X Public Beta used Darwin 1.2.1, Mac OS X 10.0 used Darwin 1.3.1, and Mac OS X 10.1 used Darwin 1.4.1. FreeBSD 4.5 elements were incorporated into Mac OS X 10.2, and were reflected in Darwin as version 6.x.

1999 - Mac OS X Server

Released at about the same time as Darwin, Mac OS X Server was a sort of preview version of Mac OS X designed specifically for file servers. New releases for Darwin and Server were roughly parallel until the final release of Mac OS X client, after which client and Server roughly paralleled each other.

2000 - Mac OS X Public Beta

Mac OS X Public Beta was released in 2000 for anybody willing to pay the $20 fee to test it out and report bugs and feature requests to Apple. Public Beta had a tendency to kernel panic a lot, and a lot of features that people were used to from the Mac OS were missing. However, it did a lot to show off the progress that Mac OS X had made in four years, and help assuage some fears that were rooted in the Copland fiasco, and let people “play” with an advanced operating system on their Macs.

One important thing that assuaged fears was the Classic environment. This emulation environment would run a version of the Mac OS within Mac OS X, allowing the old programs to run on Mac OS X. The Public Beta Classic environment is only compatible with Mac OS 9.0.4.

2001 - Mac OS X 10.0 Codename: “Cheetah”

Mac OS X 10.0 was released on March 24, 2001. It incorporated a lot of the feedback provided by people that tried out Mac OS X Public Beta.

Mac OS X 10.0 also provided all the standard features of a modern operating system - protected memory so programs couldn’t corrupt each others’ data, preemptive multitasking so programs couldn’t hog the processor or lock the entire computer up, device drivers that would be loaded or unloaded as needed, and so on. Mac OS X also provided Cocoa, the descendent of NeXT’s very sophisticated OpenSTEP software development environment.

There were also some teething issues. Like the original Mac OS, Mac OS X users’ biggest complaint was speed - many felt the code name of “Cheetah” was wildly inaccurate. The Classic environment in 10.0, although much better than in Public Beta, still had strange compatibility problems and quirky behavior. The Mac OS X interface looked so much like the Mac OS interface that users assumed everything was done the same, which it wasn’t, so users had to unlearn old habits.

Mac OS X versions 10.0.1, 10.0.2, 10.0.3, and 10.0.4 all incorporated bug fixes and performance improvements. All versions of Mac OS X 10.0 require Mac OS 9.1 or later for Classic.

2001 - Mac OS X 10.1 Codename: “Puma”

Mac OS 10.1 was released less than a year after 10.0, and incorporated a lot of performance improvements, especially on G3 Macs.

Versions 10.1.1, 10.1.2, 10.1.3, 10.1.4, an 10.1.5 all incorporated bug fixes, updates to bundled components - mostly the open source UNIX utilities included with Mac OS X - and additional drivers to support more and more devices.

2002 - Mac OS X 10.2 “Jaguar”

Mac OS 10.2 - interestingly, it’s often referred to by its code name of “Jaguar” more than it is by its version number - added a lot of new features.

The spring loaded folders feature was added into Mac OS X with Jaguar. This was one of the features from the classic Mac OS that was sorely missed - when dragging something from one location to another, it was possible to hold the item over a folder, wait a few seconds, and the folder would open up, so users didn’t have to find the destination location in advance. Another classic Mac OS feature that was added into Jaguar was the Simple Finder - a very stripped-down Finder with access to only what the administrator gives that user access to, no Finder window toolbars, and no access to hard disks or partitions. Some other, new, interface features included: a quick search in Finder window toolbars, animated desktop pictures, and automatic thumbnail icons.

The interface was also supercharged on video cards with 16MB or more of video memory via Quartz Extreme - a version of Mac OS X’s windowing environment that takes advantage of graphics accelerators. A character palette was added to easily find unusual characters. Jaguar also added an LCD anti-aliasing control, support for MPEG4 and AAC Audio - the latest standards for digital video and audio - and improved video streaming.

Back from the classic Mac OS were Airport software base station - which allows an Airport-equipped Power Mac function like a wireless base station - dynamic discovery of file servers, Netboot - where a computer can be started up off of a file server instead of an internal drive - and a workgroup manager. Jaguar added Internet file sharing via WebDAV, network service browsing via Rendezvous, support for Microsoft’s Active Directory, SASL Authentication, IPv6 - the “Internet 2″ protocol - and IPSec. The ability to use a Jaguar-equipped computer as a SMB server - the Windows file server protocol - was also added.

Jaguar’s security was also improved a lot with the additions of a built-in firewall, Smart Card support, 255 character user names, system wide certificate support, secure remote logins via SSH, SSL, and TLS, and a VPN-PPTP based remote access client - which allows users to remotely connect to services unique to an organization’s local network.

Subsequent versions of Jaguar continued to enhance and refine Mac OS X: fixing bugs, updating the included tools, and so on. They are: 10.2.1, 10.2.2, 10.2.3, 10.2.4, 10.2.5, and 10.2.6. Version 10.2.7 supports the new Power Macintosh G5, and 10.2.8 was released primarily to fix some security holes found in OpenSSH, but was pulled after a couple of days because a bug emerged that caused some Power Macintosh G4s to loose their network connections.

2003 - Mac OS X 10.3 Codename: “Panther”

Mac OS X 10.3 “Panther” was a very substantial release of Mac OS X. It was announced at World Wide Developers’ Conference (WWDC) in June of 2003. At that time it was also announced that Apple’s plan was to have Panther ready for purchase by the end of the year.

Panther enhanced the Finder by adding the Places sidebar to every Finder window - which uses the brushed metal style instead of the pin striped one. This section has a list of all mounted volumes - hard drives, CDs, DVDs, file servers, etc. - and a customizable list of folders for users to add aliases to frequently-accessed folder. The Places sidebar was inspired by iTunes playlists. The Places sidebar also appears in all open and save panes, not just Finder windows.

Searching within the finder was enhanced in Panther to match iTunes and Mail - search results are shown as the user types, instead of typing in a search and then waiting for all the results to be found.

One really nice feature is Exposé - which allows users to quickly locate a specific window no matter how cluttered the screen is. Users can define key combinations, hot corners, or clicks on multi-button mice to activate one of the Exposé modes. One mode will shrink and tile all open windows, another will shrink and tile just the windows in the current application - greying out the other applications - and the third will hide all windows so that it’s easy to access the desktop. In the two tiled window modes the title of the window will be displayed as the user mouses over the windows.

Panther upgrades iChat to iChat AV. iChat AV added Audio/Visual features, such as the ability to video (or audio) chat with people. It also added Rendezvous Zero Config messaging, where people on your local network would show up automatically on your buddy list.

2005 - Mac OS X 10.4 Codename: “Tiger”

Tiger is the latest re-incarnation of the Mac OS X Family. Its features Include:

Dashboard: Dashboard is the biggest new feature in Tiger. It enables the user to store ‘widgets’, which are little mini applications, that replaced traditional desk applications like Calculator and iCal, to some extent. There are thousands of widgets available on Apple’s website, that add features like blogging, FTP access, Podcasts, and package tracking.

Automator: Automator was designed to be a glorified version of Applescript, which has been used to ‘automate’ frequently done tasks into one click. Automator was basically a GUI version of Applescript, with a few more features. However, Automator was not perceived by the general public as an easy-to-use time saver, like Apple had hoped. Many people had indicated that Automator was confusion to use, and running the Automator ’script’ was harder than doing the task by hand.

iChat AV: The Tiger version of iChat AV added support for multi-way video conferencing, and also integrated iTunes ‘Now Playing’ into a users status. Support was also added for Jabber open source instant messaging, although not many Jabber servers exist. Google recently opened a Jabber server to its Gmail subscribers.

Spotlight: Spotlight adds real-time searching to the Mac OS. The operating system keeps an index of all files and folder, as well as applications, and allows you to search for them from anywhere in the system.

Safari RSS: Adding on its very successful Safari browser, Safari RSS added support for RSS (Really Simple Syndication). Another popular feature among people who share a computer with other internet users is Private Browsing, also known as ‘Secret Porno Mode!’ to people who are so inclined. Safari and Mail.app have teamed up to allow users to email whole webpages. PDF’s, to the rejoice of Safari users everywhere, are viewable in a Safari window instead of in Preview, and Bookmarks have been updated and it is now easier to organize them.

Mail: Mail in Tiger has been updated with improvements to IMAP and POP3 support. Mail has also added support for Spotlight searching of your mail, parental controls, and Smart Mailboxes.

Credits:
Wikipedia was referenced in the gathering of historical Mac OS information. More recent information was gathered from Mac OS X’s built-in help system, as well as the Mac OS site on Apple.com.

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