History Of Mac Os

Mac OS History

                           Apple
 

On January 24, 1984, Apple Computer, Inc. (now Apple Inc.) introduced the Macintosh personal computer, with the Macintosh 128K model, which came bundled with the Mac OS operating system, then known as the System Software. The Macintosh is often credited with popularizing the graphical user interface. The Mac OS has been pre-installed on almost every Macintosh computer ever sold. The operating system is also sold separately at Apple retail stores, and online. The original Mac OS was partially based on the Lisa OS, previously released by Apple for the Lisa computer in 1983 and, as part of an agreement allowing Xerox to buy shares in Apple at a favourable rate, it also used concepts from the Xerox PARC Xerox Alto which Steve Jobs and several other Macintosh team members had previewed.


    Early history

    Development

    The Macintosh project started in early 1979 with Jef Raskin, who envisioned an easy-to-use, low-cost computer for the average consumer. In September 1979, Raskin was given permission to start hiring for the project and was, in particular, looking for an engineer that could put together a prototype. Bill Atkinson, a member of the Apple Lisa team, introduced him to Burrell Smith, a service technician who had been hired earlier that year.

  In January 1981, Steve Jobs completely took over the Macintosh project. Jobs and a number of Apple engineers visited Xerox PARC in December 1979, three months after the Lisa and Macintosh projects had begun. After hearing about the pioneering GUI technology being developed at Xerox PARC from former Xerox employees like Raskin, Jobs negotiated a visit to see the Xerox Alto computer and Smalltalk development tools in exchange for Apple stock options. The final Lisa and Macintosh operating systems mostly used concepts from the Xerox Alto, but many elements of the graphical user interface were created by Apple including the menubar and pop-up menus.

    Unlike the IBM PC, which used 8 kB of system ROM for power-on self-test (POST) and basic input/output system (BIOS), the Mac ROM was significantly larger (64 kB) and held key OS code. Much of the original Mac ROM was coded by Andy Hertzfeld, a member of the original Macintosh team. He was able to conserve some of the precious ROM space by interleaving some of the assembly language code. In addition to coding the ROM, he also coded the kernel, the Macintosh Toolbox and some of the desktop accessories (DAs) as well. The icons of the operating system, which represented folders and application software were designed by Susan Kare, who later designed the icons for Microsoft Windows 3.0. Bruce Horn and Steve Capps wrote the Macintosh Finder as well as a number of Macintosh system utilities.

    Apple was very strong in advertising their newfound machine. After it was created, the company bought all 39 pages of advertisement space in the Newsweek magazine, 1984 November/December edition. Apple was so successful in its marketing for the Macintosh, that it quickly outshone its more sophisticated predecessor, the Lisa, in sales – so much so that Apple quickly developed a product called MacWorks which allowed the Lisa to emulate Macintosh system software through System 3, by which time it had been discontinued as the re-branded Macintosh XL. Many of Lisa's operating system advances would not appear in the Macintosh OS until System 7.

History Of Linux

LINUX's History

Note: The following text was written by Linus on July 31 1992. It is a
   collection of various artifacts from the period in which Linux first
   began to take shape.
  
   This is just a sentimental journey into some of the first posts
   concerning linux, so you can happily press 'n' now if you actually
   thought you'd get anything technical.

From: torvalds@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Linus Benedict Torvalds)
  Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
  Subject: Gcc-1.40 and a posix-question
  Message-ID:
  Date: 3 Jul 91 10:00:50 GMT

  Hello netlanders,

  Due to a project I'm working on (in minix), I'm interested in the posix
  standard definition. Could somebody please point me to a (preferably)
  machine-readable format of the latest posix rules? Ftp-sites would be
  nice.

   The project was obviously linux, so by July 3rd I had started to think
   about actual user-level things: some of the device drivers were ready,
   and the harddisk actually worked. Not too much else.

  As an aside for all using gcc on minix - [ deleted ]

   Just a success-report on porting gcc-1.40 to minix using the 1.37
   version made by Alan W Black & co.

                Linus Torvalds          torvalds@kruuna.helsinki.fi

  PS. Could someone please try to finger me from overseas, as I've
  installed a "changing .plan" (made by your's truly), and I'm not certain
  it works from outside? It should report a new .plan every time.

History of Electricity

 History of Electricity

Starting With Mr. Edison and
Ben Franklin His Light
Many people think Benjamin In 1879, Thomas Edison
Franklin discovered electricity focused on inventing a
with his famous kite-flying practical light bulb, one that
experiments in 1752, but would last a long time before
electricity was not discovered burning out. The problem was
all at once. At first, electricity finding a strong material for
was associated with light. the filament, the small wire
People wanted a cheap inside the bulb that conducts
and safe way to light their electricity. Finally, Edison used
homes, and scientists thought ordinary cotton thread that
electricity might be a way. had been soaked in carbon.
                           This filament didn’t burn at
                            all—it became incandescent;
                             that is, it glowed.

Image courtesy of NOAA Photo Library
The Battery
Learning how to produce
and use electricity was not
easy. For a long time there
was no dependable source
of electricity for experiments.
Finally, in 1800, Alessandro
Volta, an Italian scientist, made
a great discovery. He soaked
paper in salt water, placed zinc
and copper on opposite sides
of the paper, and watched the
chemical reaction produce
an electric current. Volta had
created the first electric cell.
By connecting many of these Alessandro Volta
cells together, Volta was able
to “string a current” and create
a battery. It is in honor of Volta that we measure battery power
in volts. Finally, a safe and dependable source of electricity was
available, making it easy for scientists to study electricity.

A Current Began
An English scientist, Michael Faraday, was the first one to realize that
an electric current could be produced by passing a magnet through
a copper wire. It was an amazing discovery. Almost all the electricity
we use today is made with magnets and coils of copper wire in giant
power plants.
Both the electric generator and electric motor are based on this
principle. A generator converts motion energy into electricity. A
motor converts electrical energy into motion energy.
42   
Image courtesy of U.S. Library of Congress
Thomas Edison in his lab in 1901.
The next challenge was developing an electrical system that could
provide people with a practical source of energy to power these new
lights. Edison wanted a way to make electricity both practical and
inexpensive. He designed and built the first electric power plant that
was able to produce electricity and carry it to people’s homes.
Edison’s Pearl Street Power Station started up its generator on
September 4, 1882, in New York City. About 85 customers in lower
Manhattan received enough power to light 5,000 lamps. His
customers paid a lot for their electricity, though. In today’s dollars,
the electricity cost $5.00 per kilowatt-hour! Today, electricity costs
about 12 cents per kilowatt-hour for residential customers, and
about 7 cents per kilowatt-hour for industry.

History of Coimbatore

History of Coimbatore

 A Trip down memory lane

Originally Coimbatore district  formed part of the Kongu country, the history of which dates back to the Sangam age. It is found that in early days the area was inhabited by the tribes, the most predominant among them being the Kosars who are reported to have had their headquaeters at Kosampathur  which probably later became the present Coimbatore.

However, tribal predominance did not last long as they were over-run by the Rashtra Kutas. From Rastrakutas the Region fell in to the hands of the cholas who were in prominence at the time of Raja Raja Chola. On the decline of Cholas the Kongun territory was occupied by the Chalukyas and then by the Pandyas and the cysalas.

Due to internal strife in the Pandyas Kingdom the Muslim rulers from Delhi happened to interfere. Thus the area fell into the hands of Madurai Sultanate from whom the Vijayanagar rulers wrestled for the region during 1377-78 after overthrowing the Madurai Nayaks.During the period of Muthu Veerappa Nayak and later during the period of Tirumal Nayak internal strife and intermittent wars ruined the kingdom.

 As a  consequence during the period of Tirumal Nayak,the Kongu region fell into the hands of the Mysore rulers from whom hyder Ali took over the area. However, consequents on the fall of Tippu Sultan of Mysore in 1799, the Kongu  region came to be ceded to the East India Company by the Maharaja of mysore who was restored to power by the East India Company after defeating Tippu Sultan. From then till 1947 when India attained Independence, the region remained under British control who initiated systematic revenue administration.   

In 1840, the areas were merged into one  and brought under one District Collector. During the time, Mr.H.S. GREAME, [I/C] from 20/10/1803 to 20/01/1805 was the Collector. In 1868, the Nilgiris District was bifurcated from the Coimbatore District. At the opening of the present century there were ten taluks in the district viz., Bhavani, Coimbatore, Dharapuram, Erode, Karur, Kollegal, Palladam, Pollachi, Sathyamangalam and Udumalaipettai. The name of Sathyamangalam taluk was subsequently changed as Gopichettipalaiyam.

Avinashi taluk was formed in the year Karur taluk happened to be transferred to Tiruchirappalli district. In 1927, some villages of Bhavani taluk together with a few village from Salem district were constituted into Mettur Area but very soon i.e, in 1929, this area was transferred to Salem district.

Again in the year 1956 considerable area of the district, viz., the whole of Kollegal taluk was transferred to Mysore State as part of the States Re-organisation Scheme. In 1975, Sathyamangalam sub-taluk was upgraded as a full fledged taluk.

History Of Unix

History Of Unix

Since it began to escape from AT&T's Bell Laboratories in the early 1970's, the success of the UNIX operating system has led to many different versions: recipients of the (at that time free) UNIX system code all began developing their own different versions in their own, different, ways for use and sale. Universities, research institutes, government bodies and computer companies all began using the powerful UNIX system to develop many of the technologies which today are part of a UNIX system.

Computer aided design, manufacturing control  systems, laboratory simulations, even the Internet itself, all began life with and because of UNIX systems. Today, without UNIX systems, the Internet would come to a screeching halt. Most telephone calls could not be made, electronic commerce would grind to a halt and there would have never been "Jurassic Park"!

By the late 1970's, a ripple effect had come into play. By now the under- and post-graduate students whose lab work had pioneered these new applications of technology were attaining management and decision-making positions inside the computer system suppliers and among its customers. And they wanted to continue using UNIX systems.

Soon all the large vendors, and many smaller ones, were marketing their own, diverging, versions of the UNIX system optimized for their own computer architectures and boasting many different strengths and features. Customers found that, although UNIX systems were available everywhere, they seldom were able to interwork or co-exist without significant investment of time and effort to make them work effectively. The trade mark UNIX was ubiquitous, but it was applied to a multitude of different, incompatible products.