Mac OS X v10.0
Encyclopedia
Mac OS X version 10.0, code name
d "Cheetah", is the first major release of Mac OS X
, Apple’s desktop and server operating system
. Mac OS X v10.0 was released on March 24, 2001 for a price of US$129. It was the successor of the Mac OS X Public Beta
and the predecessor of Mac OS X v10.1
.
Mac OS X v10.0 was a radical departure from the previous “classic” Macintosh operating system and was Apple’s long awaited answer to the call for a next generation Macintosh operating system. It introduced a brand new code base completely separate from Mac OS 9
's, as well as all previous Apple operating systems. Mac OS X introduced the new Darwin
Unix-like
core and a totally new system of memory management. It proved to be a rocky start to the Mac OS X line, plagued with missing features and performance issues, although it was praised for being a good start to an operating system still in its infancy, in terms of completeness and overall operating system stability. Unlike later releases of Mac OS X, the cat-themed code name was not used in marketing the new operating system.
s (MB) of RAM, while the Mac OS X v10.0 requirements called for 128 MB of RAM. In addition, processor
upgrade cards, which were quite popular for obsolete pre-G3 Power Macintosh
computers, were not supported (and never officially have been, but can be made to work through third-party utility programs).
The heavy criticism of Mac OS X version 10.0 ultimately resulted in Apple offering a free upgrade to Mac OS X v10.1
to users.
Input of simplified Chinese, traditional Chinese, and Korean were only included with the 2Z CDs. They also came with more languages (the full set of 15 languages), whereas the 1Z CDs came only with about eight languages and in version 10.0.x, could not actually display simplified Chinese, traditional Chinese and Korean (except for the Chinese characters present in Japanese Kanji). A variant of 2Z CDs began when Mac OS X version 10.0.3 was released to the Asian market. However, it could not be upgraded to version 10.0.4 of the operating system. The brief period of multilingual confusion ended with the release of version 10.1, and came to a real end with version 10.2
. Currently, all Mac OS X installer CDs and preinstallations include the full set of 15 languages and full multilingual compatibility.
Code name
A code name or cryptonym is a word or name used clandestinely to refer to another name or word. Code names are often used for military purposes, or in espionage...
d "Cheetah", is the first major release of Mac OS X
Mac OS X
Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
, Apple’s desktop and server operating system
Operating system
An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
. Mac OS X v10.0 was released on March 24, 2001 for a price of US$129. It was the successor of the Mac OS X Public Beta
Mac OS X Public Beta
The Mac OS X Public Beta was an early beta version of Apple Computer's Mac OS X operating system Cheetah. It was released to the public on September 13, 2000 for US$29.95...
and the predecessor of Mac OS X v10.1
Mac OS X v10.1
Mac OS X version 10.1, code named "Puma", is the second major release of Mac OS X, Apple's desktop and server operating system. It superseded Mac OS X v10.0 and preceded Mac OS X v10.2. Version 10.1 was released on 25 September 2001 as a 'free update' to version 10.0...
.
Mac OS X v10.0 was a radical departure from the previous “classic” Macintosh operating system and was Apple’s long awaited answer to the call for a next generation Macintosh operating system. It introduced a brand new code base completely separate from Mac OS 9
Mac OS 9
Mac OS 9 is the final major release of Apple's Mac OS before the launch of Mac OS X. Introduced on October 23, 1999, Apple positioned it as "The Best Internet Operating System Ever," highlighting Sherlock 2's Internet search capabilities, integration with Apple's free online services known as...
's, as well as all previous Apple operating systems. Mac OS X introduced the new Darwin
Darwin (operating system)
Darwin is an open source POSIX-compliant computer operating system released by Apple Inc. in 2000. It is composed of code developed by Apple, as well as code derived from NeXTSTEP, BSD, and other free software projects....
Unix-like
Unix-like
A Unix-like operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system, while not necessarily conforming to or being certified to any version of the Single UNIX Specification....
core and a totally new system of memory management. It proved to be a rocky start to the Mac OS X line, plagued with missing features and performance issues, although it was praised for being a good start to an operating system still in its infancy, in terms of completeness and overall operating system stability. Unlike later releases of Mac OS X, the cat-themed code name was not used in marketing the new operating system.
System requirements
The system requirements for Mac OS X v10.0 were not well received by the Macintosh community, as at the time the amount of RAM standard with Macintosh computers was 64 megabyteMegabyte
The megabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information storage or transmission with two different values depending on context: bytes generally for computer memory; and one million bytes generally for computer storage. The IEEE Standards Board has decided that "Mega will mean 1 000...
s (MB) of RAM, while the Mac OS X v10.0 requirements called for 128 MB of RAM. In addition, processor
Central processing unit
The central processing unit is the portion of a computer system that carries out the instructions of a computer program, to perform the basic arithmetical, logical, and input/output operations of the system. The CPU plays a role somewhat analogous to the brain in the computer. The term has been in...
upgrade cards, which were quite popular for obsolete pre-G3 Power Macintosh
Power Macintosh
Power Macintosh, later Power Mac, was a line of Apple Macintosh workstation-class personal computers based on various models of PowerPC microprocessors that were developed, marketed, and supported by Apple Inc. from March 1994 until August 2006. The first models were the Power Macintosh 6100,...
computers, were not supported (and never officially have been, but can be made to work through third-party utility programs).
- Supported Computers: Power Macintosh G3Power Macintosh G3The Power Macintosh G3, commonly called "beige G3s" or "platinum G3s" for the color of their cases, was a series of personal computers designed, manufactured, and sold by Apple Computer, Inc. from November 1997 to January 1999...
, G3 B&WPower Macintosh G3 (Blue & White)The Power Macintosh G3 series was a series of personal computers designed, manufactured and sold by Apple Computer Inc. as part of their Power Macintosh line...
, G4, G4 CubePower Mac G4 CubeThe Power Mac G4 Cube was a small form factor Macintosh personal computer from Apple Inc. It was sold from 2000 to 2001. Its cube shape is reminiscent of the NeXTcube from NeXT, acquired by Apple in 1996. The machine was designed by Apple industrial designer Jonathan Ive...
, iMacIMacThe iMac is a range of all-in-one Macintosh desktop computers built by Apple. It has been the primary part of Apple's consumer desktop offerings since its introduction in 1998, and has evolved through five distinct forms....
, PowerBook G3PowerBook G3The PowerBook G3 is a line of laptop Macintosh computers made by Apple Computer between 1997 and 2000. It was the first laptop to use the PowerPC G3 series of microprocessors...
, PowerBook G4PowerBook G4The PowerBook G4 are a series of notebook computers that were manufactured, marketed, and sold by Apple, Inc. between 2001 and 2006 as part of its PowerBook line. It uses the PowerPC G4 processor, initially produced by Motorola and later by Freescale, after Motorola spun off its semiconductor...
, iBookIBookThe iBook was a line of laptop computers sold by Apple Computer from 1999 to 2006. The line targeted the consumer and education markets, with lower specifications and prices than the PowerBook, Apple's higher-end line of laptop computers....
(The original "Kanga" PowerBook G3 was the only G3-based Mac not to be supported by Mac OS X). - RAM required:
- 128 MB (unofficially 64 MB minimum)
- Hard Drive Space: 1.5 gigabyteGigabyteThe gigabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information storage. The prefix giga means 109 in the International System of Units , therefore 1 gigabyte is...
s (GB)- 800 MB for the minimal install
Features
- Dock — the Dock was a new way of organizing one's Mac OS X applications on a user interface, and a change from the classic method of Application launching in previous Mac OS systems. Until Mac OS X Leopard, the dock was shown in 2-D form.
- Mach 3.0Mach (kernel)Mach is an operating system kernel developed at Carnegie Mellon University to support operating system research, primarily distributed and parallel computation. Although Mach is often mentioned as one of the earliest examples of a microkernel, not all versions of Mach are microkernels...
— the Unix-like microkernel was used for XNU operating systems, and was one of the largest changes from a technical standpoint in Mac OS X. - Terminal — the Terminal was a feature that allowed access to Mac OS X's underpinnings, namely the Unix core.
- Mail (e-mail client)
- Address Book
- New word processor replacing SimpleTextSimpleTextSimpleText is the native text editor for the Classic Mac OS. SimpleText allows editing including text formatting , fonts, and sizes. It can be considered similar to Windows' WordPad application...
called TextEditTextEditTextEdit is a simple, open source word processor and text editor, first featured in NeXT's NEXTSTEP and OPENSTEP. It is now distributed with Mac OS X since Apple Inc.'s acquisition of NeXT, and available as a GNUstep application for other Unix-compatible operating systems such as Linux...
. - Full preemptive multitasking support, a long awaited feature on the Mac.
- PDF SupportPortable Document FormatPortable Document Format is an open standard for document exchange. This file format, created by Adobe Systems in 1993, is used for representing documents in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems....
(create PDFs from any application) - AquaAqua (user interface)Aqua is the GUI and primary visual theme of Apple Inc.'s Mac OS X operating system. It is based around the theme of water, as its name suggests, with droplet-like elements and liberal use of translucency and reflection effects...
Interface - Built on XNUXNUXNU is the computer operating system kernel that Apple Inc. acquired and developed for use in the Mac OS X operating system and released as free and open source software as part of the Darwin operating system...
, a Unix-likeUnix-likeA Unix-like operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system, while not necessarily conforming to or being certified to any version of the Single UNIX Specification....
operating system and its Darwin development platformDarwin (operating system)Darwin is an open source POSIX-compliant computer operating system released by Apple Inc. in 2000. It is composed of code developed by Apple, as well as code derived from NeXTSTEP, BSD, and other free software projects....
. - OpenGLOpenGLOpenGL is a standard specification defining a cross-language, cross-platform API for writing applications that produce 2D and 3D computer graphics. The interface consists of over 250 different function calls which can be used to draw complex three-dimensional scenes from simple primitives. OpenGL...
- AppleScriptAppleScriptAppleScript is a scripting language created by Apple Inc. and built into Macintosh operating systems since System 7. The term "AppleScript" may refer to the scripting system itself, or to particular scripts that are written in the AppleScript language....
- Supports CarbonCarbon (API)Carbon is one of Apple Inc.'s procedural application programming interfaces for the Macintosh operating system. It provides C programming language access to Macintosh system services...
and CocoaCocoa (API)Cocoa is Apple's native object-oriented application programming interface for the Mac OS X operating system and—along with the Cocoa Touch extension for gesture recognition and animation—for applications for the iOS operating system, used on Apple devices such as the iPhone, the iPod Touch, and...
APIApplication programming interfaceAn application programming interface is a source code based specification intended to be used as an interface by software components to communicate with each other...
s - SherlockSherlock (software)Sherlock, named after Sherlock Holmes, was a file and web search tool created by Apple Inc. for the Mac OS, introduced with Mac OS 8.5 as an extension of the Mac OS Finder's file searching capabilities. Like its predecessor, it can search for local files and file contents, which it does using the...
desktop and Internet search - Protected memory — memory protection so that if an application corrupts its memory, the memory of other applications will not be corrupted.
Limitations
- File-sharing client — The system can only use TCP/IP, not AppleTalk, to connect to servers sharing the Apple Filing ProtocolApple Filing ProtocolThe Apple Filing Protocol is a network protocol that offers file services for Mac OS X and original Mac OS. In Mac OS X, AFP is one of several file services supported including Server Message Block , Network File System , File Transfer Protocol , and WebDAV...
. The System cannot use SMB to connect to Windows or Samba servers.
- File-sharing server — As a server, the system is set up to share only the afp (over TCP/IP), http, ssh and ftp protocols.
Criticisms
While the first Mac OS X release was an advanced operating system in terms of its technical underpinnings, and in relation to its brand new code-base, Mac OS X v10.0 was heavily criticized. There were three main reasons for criticism:- Interface Responsiveness — The brand-new Aqua interface was sluggish at best. It was heavily criticized for its slow application launch speed and user interface response speed. The interface response times compared to earlier Apple operating systems showed that Mac OS X still had a long way to go in terms of interface performance.
- Stability — While 'theoretical' stability in Mac OS X was much better than stability in Mac OS 9Mac OS 9Mac OS 9 is the final major release of Apple's Mac OS before the launch of Mac OS X. Introduced on October 23, 1999, Apple positioned it as "The Best Internet Operating System Ever," highlighting Sherlock 2's Internet search capabilities, integration with Apple's free online services known as...
, Mac OS X v10.0 was riddled with fatal bugs that caused kernel panicKernel panicA kernel panic is an action taken by an operating system upon detecting an internal fatal error from which it cannot safely recover. The term is largely specific to Unix and Unix-like systems; for Microsoft Windows operating systems the equivalent term is "Bug check" .The kernel routines that...
s, especially in complex hardware setups. - Missing Features and Hardware Compatibility Issues — Another reason for criticism were the missing features, especially missing DVDDVDA DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
playback, as well as CD burning, both of which were available in Mac OS 9. Mac OS X v10.0.2 included the necessary software frameworks to allow iTunes 1.1.1 to provide audio CD burning support, but data CD burning had to wait until version 10.1. There were also several issues in respect to missing printerComputer printerIn computing, a printer is a peripheral which produces a text or graphics of documents stored in electronic form, usually on physical print media such as paper or transparencies. Many printers are primarily used as local peripherals, and are attached by a printer cable or, in most new printers, a...
driversDevice driverIn computing, a device driver or software driver is a computer program allowing higher-level computer programs to interact with a hardware device....
and other hardware drivers.
The heavy criticism of Mac OS X version 10.0 ultimately resulted in Apple offering a free upgrade to Mac OS X v10.1
Mac OS X v10.1
Mac OS X version 10.1, code named "Puma", is the second major release of Mac OS X, Apple's desktop and server operating system. It superseded Mac OS X v10.0 and preceded Mac OS X v10.2. Version 10.1 was released on 25 September 2001 as a 'free update' to version 10.0...
to users.
Multilingual snags
With Mac OS X version 10.0.0 began a short era (that ended with Mac OS X version 10.2 Jaguar's release) where Apple offered two types of installation CDs: 1Z and 2Z CDs. The difference in the two lay in the extent of multilingual support.Input of simplified Chinese, traditional Chinese, and Korean were only included with the 2Z CDs. They also came with more languages (the full set of 15 languages), whereas the 1Z CDs came only with about eight languages and in version 10.0.x, could not actually display simplified Chinese, traditional Chinese and Korean (except for the Chinese characters present in Japanese Kanji). A variant of 2Z CDs began when Mac OS X version 10.0.3 was released to the Asian market. However, it could not be upgraded to version 10.0.4 of the operating system. The brief period of multilingual confusion ended with the release of version 10.1, and came to a real end with version 10.2
Mac OS X v10.2
Mac OS X version 10.2 "Jaguar" is the third major release of Mac OS X, Apple's desktop and server operating system. It superseded Mac OS X v10.1 code name Puma and preceded Mac OS X Panther...
. Currently, all Mac OS X installer CDs and preinstallations include the full set of 15 languages and full multilingual compatibility.
Release history
| Version | Build | Date | OS name Uname uname is a software program in Unix and Unix-like computer operating systems that prints the name, version and other details about the current machine and the operating system running on it... |
Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10.0 | 4K78 | March 24, 2001 | Darwin Darwin (operating system) Darwin is an open source POSIX-compliant computer operating system released by Apple Inc. in 2000. It is composed of code developed by Apple, as well as code derived from NeXTSTEP, BSD, and other free software projects.... 1.3.1 |
Original retail CD-ROM release |
| 10.0.1 | 4L13 | April 14, 2001 | Darwin 1.3.1 | |
| 10.0.2 | 4P12 | May 1, 2001 | Darwin 1.3.1 | |
| 10.0.3 | 4P13 | May 9, 2001 | Darwin 1.3.1 | Apple: 10.0.3 Update and Before You Install Information |
| 10.0.4 | 4Q12 | June 21, 2001 | Darwin 1.3.1 | Apple: 10.0.4 Update and Before You Install Information |
External links
- Mac OS X v10.0 review at Ars TechnicaArs TechnicaArs Technica is a technology news and information website created by Ken Fisher and Jon Stokes in 1998. It publishes news, reviews and guides on issues such as computer hardware and software, science, technology policy, and video games. Ars Technica is known for its features, long articles that go...