< operating system > (Mac OS) Apple Computer, Inc. 's proprietary operating system for their Macintosh family of personal computers .
The part of the operating system that simulates the desktop is called " Finder ." The multitasking version of Finder was called " MultiFinder " until multitasking was integrated into the core of the OS with the introduction of System 7.0 in 1990.
The Macintosh series provides a built-in graphics language, called " QuickDraw ", which provides a standard for software developers.
Mac OS 8, scheduled for delivery in July 1997, contains a number of significant improvements, including new human-interface features, increased system stability and performance, a PowerPC processor-native Finder, tighter integration of Internet access through panel-based "assistants," Personal Web Sharing, and the ability to run Java applets and programs through Mac OS Run Time for Java .
Mac OS X ("X" for 10) is based on FreeBSD . Apple released the kernel of Mac OS X Server as " darwin ", under an open source license.
See also Macintosh file system , Macintosh user interface .
(2002-06-29)