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The Apple–Intel architecture, or Mactel, is an unofficial name used for Macintosh personal computers developed and manufactured by Apple Inc. that use Intel x86 processors, [not verified in body] rather than the PowerPC and Motorola 68000 ("68k") series processors used in their predecessors or the ARM-based Apple silicon SoCs used in their successors. [1]
The history of macOS, Apple's current Mac operating system formerly named Mac OS X until 2011 and then OS X until 2016, began with the company's project to replace its "classic" Mac OS. That system, up to and including its final release Mac OS 9 , was a direct descendant of the operating system Apple had used in its Mac computers since their ...
On Apple Mac computers using Intel x86-64 processor architecture, the EFI system partition is initially left blank and unused for booting into macOS. [13] [14]However, the EFI system partition is used as a staging area for firmware updates [15] and for the Microsoft Windows bootloader for Mac computers configured to boot into a Windows partition using Boot Camp.
The Mac Pro comes with EFI 1.1, a successor to Apple's use of Open Firmware (and the then wider industry's use of BIOS). [27] Apple's Boot Camp provides BIOS backwards compatibility, allowing dual and triple boot configurations. The following operating systems are installable on Intel x86–based Apple computers: [28] Mac OS X 10.4.7 and later
Since the Old World ROM usually boots to Toolbox, most OSs have to be installed using a boot loader from inside Mac OS (BootX is commonly used for Linux installations). 68K-based Macs and NuBus Power Macs must have Mac OS installed to load another OS (even A/UX, which was an Apple product), usually with virtual memory turned off.
Apple also set the default input and output devices to ttya (the modem port on beige Macs), which made it difficult for normal users to get to Open Firmware; to do so it was necessary to either hook up a terminal, or change the Open Firmware settings from inside Mac OS using a tool such as Boot Variables or Apple's System Disk.
In 1997, System Software was renamed Mac OS. In 1999, Mac OS X Server 1.0 was released, followed by Mac OS X 10.0, the first consumer release of the Mac OS X. From the release of Mac OS X 10.0 until early 2007, Mac OS X was the only software platform.
Mac OS X succeeded classic Mac OS, the primary Macintosh operating system from 1984 to 2001. Its underlying architecture came from NeXT's NeXTSTEP, as a result of Apple's acquisition of NeXT, which also brought Steve Jobs back to Apple. The first desktop version, Mac OS X 10.0, was released on March 24, 2001.