1.
Computer terminal
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A computer terminal is an electronic or electromechanical hardware device that is used for entering data into, and displaying data from, a computer or a computing system. The function of a terminal is confined to display and input of data, a terminal that depends on the host computer for its processing power is called a dumb terminal or thin client. A personal computer can run terminal emulator software that replicates the function of a terminal, sometimes allowing concurrent use of local programs and access to a distant terminal host system. The terminal of the first working programmable, fully automatic digital Turing-complete computer, the Z3, had a keyboard, early user terminals connected to computers were electromechanical teleprinters/teletypewriters, such as the Teletype Model 33 ASR, originally used for telegraphy or the Friden Flexowriter. Later printing terminals such as the DECwriter LA30 were developed, however printing terminals were limited by the speed at which paper could be printed, and for interactive use the paper record was unnecessary. The problem was that the amount of memory needed to store the information on a page of text was comparable to the memory in low end minicomputers then in use. Displaying the information at video speeds was also a challenge and the control logic took up a rack worth of pre-integrated circuit electronics. Another approach involved the use of the tube, a specialized CRT developed by Tektronix that retained information written on it without the need to refresh. The Datapoint 3300 from Computer Terminal Corporation was announced in 1967 and shipped in 1969 and it solved the memory space issue mentioned above by using a digital shift-register design, and using only 72 columns rather than the later more common choice of 80. Some type of blinking cursor that can be positioned, the term intelligent in this context dates from 1969. Notable examples include the IBM2250 and IBM2260, predecessors to the IBM3270, providing even more processing possibilities, workstations like the Televideo TS-800 could run CP/M-86, blurring the distinction between terminal and Personal Computer. Most terminals were connected to minicomputers or mainframe computers and often had a green or amber screen, typically terminals communicate with the computer via a serial port via a null modem cable, often using an EIA RS-232 or RS-422 or RS-423 or a current loop serial interface. In fact, the design for the Intel 8008 was originally conceived at Computer Terminal Corporation as the processor for the Datapoint 2200. While early IBM PCs had single color green screens, these screens were not terminals. The screen of a PC did not contain any character generation hardware, all signals and video formatting were generated by the video display card in the PC, or by the CPU. An IBM PC monitor, whether it was the monochrome display or the 16-color display, was technically much more similar to an analog TV set than to a terminal. With suitable software a PC could, however, emulate a terminal, the Data General One could be booted into terminal emulator mode from its ROM. Since the advent and subsequent popularization of the computer, few genuine hardware terminals are used to interface with computers today
2.
Unix
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Among these is Apples macOS, which is the Unix version with the largest installed base as of 2014. Many Unix-like operating systems have arisen over the years, of which Linux is the most popular, Unix was originally meant to be a convenient platform for programmers developing software to be run on it and on other systems, rather than for non-programmer users. The system grew larger as the system started spreading in academic circles, as users added their own tools to the system. Unix was designed to be portable, multi-tasking and multi-user in a time-sharing configuration and these concepts are collectively known as the Unix philosophy. By the early 1980s users began seeing Unix as a universal operating system. Under Unix, the system consists of many utilities along with the master control program. To mediate such access, the kernel has special rights, reflected in the division between user space and kernel space, the microkernel concept was introduced in an effort to reverse the trend towards larger kernels and return to a system in which most tasks were completed by smaller utilities. In an era when a standard computer consisted of a disk for storage and a data terminal for input and output. However, modern systems include networking and other new devices, as graphical user interfaces developed, the file model proved inadequate to the task of handling asynchronous events such as those generated by a mouse. In the 1980s, non-blocking I/O and the set of inter-process communication mechanisms were augmented with Unix domain sockets, shared memory, message queues, and semaphores. In microkernel implementations, functions such as network protocols could be moved out of the kernel, Multics introduced many innovations, but had many problems. Frustrated by the size and complexity of Multics but not by the aims and their last researchers to leave Multics, Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, M. D. McIlroy, and J. F. Ossanna, decided to redo the work on a much smaller scale. The name Unics, a pun on Multics, was suggested for the project in 1970. Peter H. Salus credits Peter Neumann with the pun, while Brian Kernighan claims the coining for himself, in 1972, Unix was rewritten in the C programming language. Bell Labs produced several versions of Unix that are referred to as Research Unix. In 1975, the first source license for UNIX was sold to faculty at the University of Illinois Department of Computer Science, UIUC graduate student Greg Chesson was instrumental in negotiating the terms of this license. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, the influence of Unix in academic circles led to adoption of Unix by commercial startups, including Sequent, HP-UX, Solaris, AIX. In the late 1980s, AT&T Unix System Laboratories and Sun Microsystems developed System V Release 4, in the 1990s, Unix-like systems grew in popularity as Linux and BSD distributions were developed through collaboration by a worldwide network of programmers
3.
ReactOS
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ReactOS is a free and open-source operating system for x86/x64 personal computers intended to be binary-compatible with computer programs and device drivers made for Windows Server 2003. Development began in 1996, as a Windows 95 clone project, ReactOS has been noted as a potential open-source drop-in replacement for Windows and for its information on undocumented Windows APIs. As stated on the website, The main goal of the ReactOS project is to provide an operating system which is binary compatible with Windows. Such that people accustomed to the user interface of Windows would find using ReactOS straightforward. The ultimate goal of ReactOS is to allow you to remove Windows, ReactOS is primarily written in C, with some elements, such as ReactOS File Explorer, written in C++. The project partially implements Windows API functionality and has been ported to the AMD64 processor architecture, around 1996, a group of free and open-source software developers started a project called FreeWin95 to implement a clone of Windows 95. The project stalled in discussions of the design of the system, while FreeWin95 had started out with high expectations, there still had not been any builds released to the public by the end of 1997. As a result, the members, led by coordinator Jason Filby. The revived project sought to duplicate the functionality of Windows NT, in creating the new project, a new name, ReactOS, was chosen. The project began development in February 1998 by creating the basis for a new NT kernel, the name ReactOS was coined during an IRC chat. While the term OS stood for operating system, the term referred to the groups dissatisfaction with –. In 2004, a copyright / license violation of ReactOS GPLed code was found when someone distributed a ReactOS fork under the name Ekush OS, in order to avoid copyright prosecution, ReactOS must be expressively completely distinct and non-derivative from Windows, a goal which needs very careful work. A claim was made on 17 January 2006, by now former developer Hartmut Birr on the ReactOS developers mailing list that ReactOS contained code derived from disassembling Microsoft Windows, the code that Birr disputed involved the function BadStack in syscall. S. as well as other unspecified items. Comparing this function to disassembled binaries from Windows XP, Birr argued that the BadStack function was simply copy-pasted from Windows XP, on 27 January 2006, the developers responsible for maintaining the ReactOS code repository disabled access after a meeting was held to discuss the allegations. When approached by NewsForge, Microsoft declined to comment about the incident, contributions from several active ReactOS developers have been accepted post-audit, and low level cooperation for bug fixes still occurs. In a statement on its website, ReactOS cited differing legal definitions of what constitutes clean-room reverse engineering as a cause for the conflict, consequently, ReactOS clarified that its Intellectual Property Policy Statement requirements on clean room reverse engineering conform to US law. Contributors to its development were not affected by events. In September 2007, with the audit nearing completion, the status was removed from the ReactOS homepage
4.
Computing
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Computing is any goal-oriented activity requiring, benefiting from, or creating a mathematical sequence of steps known as an algorithm — e. g. through computers. The field of computing includes computer engineering, software engineering, computer science, information systems, the ACM Computing Curricula 2005 defined computing as follows, In a general way, we can define computing to mean any goal-oriented activity requiring, benefiting from, or creating computers. For example, an information systems specialist will view computing somewhat differently from a software engineer, regardless of the context, doing computing well can be complicated and difficult. Because society needs people to do computing well, we must think of computing not only as a profession, the fundamental question underlying all computing is What can be automated. The term computing is also synonymous with counting and calculating, in earlier times, it was used in reference to the action performed by mechanical computing machines, and before that, to human computers. Computing is intimately tied to the representation of numbers, but long before abstractions like the number arose, there were mathematical concepts to serve the purposes of civilization. These concepts include one-to-one correspondence, comparison to a standard, the earliest known tool for use in computation was the abacus, and it was thought to have been invented in Babylon circa 2400 BC. Its original style of usage was by lines drawn in sand with pebbles, abaci, of a more modern design, are still used as calculation tools today. This was the first known computer and most advanced system of calculation known to date - preceding Greek methods by 2,000 years. The first recorded idea of using electronics for computing was the 1931 paper The Use of Thyratrons for High Speed Automatic Counting of Physical Phenomena by C. E. Wynn-Williams. Claude Shannons 1938 paper A Symbolic Analysis of Relay and Switching Circuits then introduced the idea of using electronics for Boolean algebraic operations, a computer is a machine that manipulates data according to a set of instructions called a computer program. The program has a form that the computer can use directly to execute the instructions. The same program in its source code form, enables a programmer to study. Because the instructions can be carried out in different types of computers, the execution process carries out the instructions in a computer program. Instructions express the computations performed by the computer and they trigger sequences of simple actions on the executing machine. Those actions produce effects according to the semantics of the instructions, computer software or just software, is a collection of computer programs and related data that provides the instructions for telling a computer what to do and how to do it. Software refers to one or more programs and data held in the storage of the computer for some purposes. In other words, software is a set of programs, procedures, algorithms, program software performs the function of the program it implements, either by directly providing instructions to the computer hardware or by serving as input to another piece of software
5.
OS/2
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OS/2 is a series of computer operating systems, initially created by Microsoft and IBM, then later developed by IBM exclusively. The name stands for Operating System/2, because it was introduced as part of the generation change release as IBMs Personal System/2 line of second-generation personal computers. The first version of OS/2 was released in December 1987 and newer versions were released until December 2001, OS/2 was intended as a protected mode successor of PC DOS. Because of this heritage, OS/2 shares similarities with Unix, Xenix, IBM discontinued its support for OS/2 on 31 December 2006. Since then, it has been updated, maintained and marketed under the name eComStation, in 2015 it was announced that a new OEM distribution of OS/2 would be released that was to be called ArcaOS. The development of OS/2 began when IBM and Microsoft signed the Joint Development Agreement in August 1985 and it was code-named CP/DOS and it took two years for the first product to be delivered. OS/21.0 was announced in April 1987 and released in December, the original release is textmode-only, and a GUI was introduced with OS/21.1 about a year later. OS/2 features an API for controlling the display and handling keyboard. In addition, development tools include a subset of the video, a task-switcher named Program Selector is available through the Ctrl-Esc hotkey combination, allowing the user to select among multitasked text-mode sessions. Communications and database-oriented extensions were delivered in 1988, as part of OS/21.0 Extended Edition, SNA, X. 25/APPC/LU6.2, LAN Manager, Query Manager, SQL. The promised graphical user interface, Presentation Manager, was introduced with OS/21.1 in October,1988 and it had a similar user interface to Windows 2.1, which was released in May of that year. The Extended Edition of 1.1, sold only through IBM sales channels, introduced distributed database support to IBM database systems, in 1989, Version 1.2 introduced Installable Filesystems and notably the HPFS filesystem. HPFS provided a number of improvements over the older FAT file system, including long filenames, in addition, extended attributes were also added to the FAT file system. The Extended Edition of 1.2 introduced TCP/IP and Ethernet support, OS/2 and Windows-related books of the late 1980s acknowledged the existence of both systems and promoted OS/2 as the system for the future. The collaboration between IBM and Microsoft unravelled in 1990, between the releases of Windows 3.0 and OS/21.3, during this time, Windows 3.0 became a tremendous success, selling millions of copies in its first year. Much of its success was because Windows 3.0 was bundled with most new computers, OS/2, on the other hand, was available only as an expensive stand-alone software package. In addition, OS/2 lacked device drivers for many devices such as printers. Windows, on the hand, supported a much larger variety of hardware
6.
OpenVMS
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OpenVMS is a computer operating system for use in general-purpose computing. It is the successor to the VMS Operating System, that was produced by Digital Equipment Corporation, in the 1990s, it was used for the successor series of DEC Alpha systems. OpenVMS also runs on the HP Itanium-based families of computers, as of 2015, a port to the X86-64 architecture is underway. The name VMS is derived from virtual memory system, according to one of its architectural features. OpenVMS is a operating system, but source code listings are available for purchase. OpenVMS is a multi-user, multiprocessing virtual memory-based operating system designed for use in time sharing, batch processing, when process priorities are suitably adjusted, it may approach real-time operating system characteristics. The system offers high availability through clustering and the ability to distribute the system over multiple physical machines and this allows the system to be tolerant against disasters that may disable individual data-processing facilities. OpenVMS contains a user interface, a feature that was not available on the original VAX-11/VMS system. Versions of VMS running on DEC Alpha workstations in the 1990s supported OpenGL, customers using OpenVMS include banks and financial services, hospitals and healthcare, network information services, and large-scale industrial manufacturers of various products. As of mid-2014, Hewlett Packard licensed the development of OpenVMS exclusively to VMS Software Inc, VMS Software will be responsible for developing OpenVMS, supporting existing hardware and providing roadmap to clients. The company has a team of developers that originally developed the software during DECs ownership. In April 1975, Digital Equipment Corporation embarked on a project, code named Star. A companion software project, code named Starlet, was started in June 1975 to develop a new operating system, based on RSX-11M. These two projects were integrated from the beginning. Gordon Bell was the VP lead on the VAX hardware and its architecture, the Star and Starlet projects culminated in the VAX 11/780 computer and the VAX-11/VMS operating system. The Starlet name survived in VMS as a name of several of the system libraries, including STARLET. OLB. Over the years the name of the product has changed, in 1980 it was renamed, with version 2.0 release, to VAX/VMS. g. The smallest MicroVAX2000 had a 40MB RD32 hard disk and a maximum of 6MB of RAM, microVMS kits were released for VAX/VMS4.4 to 4.7 on TK50 tapes and RX50 floppy disks, but discontinued with VAX/VMS5.0
7.
Computer file
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A computer file is a computer resource for recording data discretely in a computer storage device. Just as words can be written to paper, so can information be written to a computer file, there are different types of computer files, designed for different purposes. A file may be designed to store a picture, a message, a video. Some types of files can store different several types of information at once, by using computer programs, a person can open, read, change, and close a computer file. Computer files may be reopened, modified, and copied a number of times. Typically, computer files are organised in a system, which keeps track of where the files are. The word file derives from the Latin filum, such a file now exists in a memory tube developed at RCA Laboratories. Electronically it retains figures fed into calculating machines, holds them in storage while it memorizes new ones - speeds intelligent solutions through mazes of mathematics, in 1952, file denoted, inter alia, information stored on punched cards. In early use, the hardware, rather than the contents stored on it, was denominated a file. For example, the IBM350 disk drives were denominated disk files, although the contemporary register file demonstrates the early concept of files, its use has greatly decreased. On most modern operating systems, files are organized into one-dimensional arrays of bytes, for example, the bytes of a plain text file are associated with either ASCII or UTF-8 characters, while the bytes of image, video, and audio files are interpreted otherwise. Most file types also allocate a few bytes for metadata, which allows a file to some basic information about itself. Some file systems can store arbitrary file-specific data outside of the file format, on other file systems this can be done via sidecar files or software-specific databases. All those methods, however, are susceptible to loss of metadata than are container. At any instant in time, a file might have a size, normally expressed as number of bytes, in most modern operating systems the size can be any non-negative whole number of bytes up to a system limit. Many older operating systems kept track only of the number of blocks or tracks occupied by a file on a storage device. In such systems, software employed other methods to track the exact byte count, the general definition of a file does not require that its size have any real meaning, however, unless the data within the file happens to correspond to data within a pool of persistent storage. A special case is a zero byte file, these files can be newly created files that have not yet had any data written to them, or may serve as some kind of flag in the file system, or are accidents
8.
VT100
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The VT100 is a video terminal, introduced in August 1978 by Digital Equipment Corporation. This led to rapid uptake of the ANSI standard, becoming the de facto standard for terminal emulators, the VT100s, especially the VT102, was extremely successful in the market, and made DEC the leading terminal vendor. The VT100 series was replaced by the VT200 series starting in 1983, ultimately, over six million terminals in the VT series would be sold, based largely on the success of the VT100s. DECs first successful video terminal was the VT50, introduced in 1974, the VT52 featured a text display with 80 columns and 24 rows, bidirectional scrolling, and a custom control language that allowed the cursor to be moved about the screen. The VT100 was introduced in August 1978, replacing the VT50/VT52 family, like the earlier models, it communicated with its host system over serial lines at a speed selectable between 50 and 19,200 bit/s. Basic improvements on the VT52 included a 132 column mode, and a variety of graphic renditions including blinking, bolding, reverse video, the VT100 also introduced an additional box-drawing character set containing various pseudographics that allowed the drawing of on-screen forms. All setup of the VT100 was accomplished using interactive displays presented on the screen, maintainability was also significantly improved since a VT100 could be disassembled quickly without use of tools. The major change within the system was the control system, unlike the VT50/52s proprietary language, the VT100 were based on the emerging ANSI X3.64 standard for command codes. At the time, computer vendors suggested that the standard was beyond the state of the art, the introduction of low-cost microprocessors and the ever-falling cost of computer memory addressed these problems, and the VT100 used the new Intel 8080 as its internal driver. In addition, the VT100 provided backwards compatibility for VT52 users, in 1983, the VT100 was replaced by the more-powerful VT200 series terminals such as the VT220. The VT100 was the first of Digitals terminals to be based on an industry-standard microprocessor, options could be added to the terminal to support an external printer, additional graphic renditions, and more memory. The later option, known as Advanced Video Option or AVO, the VT100 became a platform on which Digital constructed related products. The VT101 and VT102 were cost-reduced, non-expandable follow-on versions, the VT101 was essentially a base-model VT100, while the VT102 came standard with the AVO and serial printer port options pre-installed. The VT105 contained a simple graphics subsystem known as waveform graphics which was compatible with same system in the earlier VT55. This system allowed two mathematical functions to be drawn to the screen on top of the text display, allowing text and graphics to be mixed to produce charts. The VT100 form factor left significant room in the case for expansion, the VT180 added a single-board microcomputer using a Zilog Z80 to run CP/M. The VT278 added a PDP-8 processor, allowing the terminal to run Digitals WPS-8 word processing software, notes DEC video terminal history VT100 user guide VT100 Series Technical Manual ECMA-48 The DEC category at the Terminals Wiki
9.
Command-line interface
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A program which handles the interface is called a command language interpreter or shell. The interface is implemented with a command line shell, which is a program that accepts commands as text input. Command-line interfaces to computer operating systems are widely used by casual computer users. Alternatives to the line include, but are not limited to text user interface menus, keyboard shortcuts. Examples of this include the Windows versions 1,2,3,3.1, and 3.11, DosShell, and Mouse Systems PowerPanel. Command-line interfaces are preferred by more advanced computer users, as they often provide a more concise. Programs with command-line interfaces are generally easier to automate via scripting, a program that implements such a text interface is often called a command-line interpreter, command processor or shell. Under most operating systems, it is possible to replace the shell program with alternatives, examples include 4DOS for DOS, 4OS2 for OS/2. For example, the default Windows GUI is a program named EXPLORER. EXE. These programs are shells, but not CLIs, application programs may also have command line interfaces. When a program is launched from an OS command line shell, interactive command line sessions, After launch, a program may provide an operator with an independent means to enter commands in the form of text. OS inter-process communication, Most operating systems support means of inter-process communication, Command lines from client processes may be redirected to a CLI program by one of these methods. Some applications support only a CLI, presenting a CLI prompt to the user, Some examples of CLI-only applications are, DEBUG Diskpart Ed Edlin Fdisk Ping Some computer programs support both a CLI and a GUI. In some cases, a GUI is simply a wrapper around a separate CLI executable file, in other cases, a program may provide a CLI as an optional alternative to its GUI. CLIs and GUIs often support different functionality, for example, all features of MATLAB, a numerical analysis computer program, are available via the CLI, whereas the MATLAB GUI exposes only a subset of features. The early Sierra games, like the first three Kings Quest games, used commands from a command line to move the character around in the graphic window. Early computer systems often used teleprinter machines as the means of interaction with a human operator, the computer became one end of the human-to-human teleprinter model. So instead of a human communicating with another human over a teleprinter, in time, the actual mechanical teleprinter was replaced by a glass tty, and then by a smart terminal
10.
CP/M
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Initially confined to single-tasking on 8-bit processors and no more than 64 kilobytes of memory, later versions of CP/M added multi-user variations and were migrated to 16-bit processors. The combination of CP/M and S-100 bus computers was loosely patterned on the MITS Altair and this computer platform was widely used in business through the late 1970s and into the mid-1980s. CP/M increased the size for both hardware and software by greatly reducing the amount of programming required to install an application on a new manufacturers computer. An important driver of innovation was the advent of low-cost microcomputers running CP/M, as independent programmers and hackers bought them. CP/M was displaced by MS-DOS soon after the 1981 introduction of the IBM PC, manufacturers of CP/M-compatible systems customized portions of the operating system for their own combination of installed memory, disk drives, and console devices. CP/M would also run on based on the Zilog Z80 processor since the Z80 was compatible with 8080 code. CP/M used the 7-bit ASCII set, the other 128 characters made possible by the 8-bit byte were not standardized. For example, one Kaypro used them for Greek characters, WordStar used the 8th bit as an end-of-word marker. The BIOS and BDOS were memory-resident, while the CCP was memory-resident unless overwritten by an application, a number of transient commands for standard utilities were also provided. The transient commands resided in files with the extension. COM on disk, the BIOS directly controlled hardware components other than the CPU and main memory. It contained functions such as input and output and the reading and writing of disk sectors. The BDOS implemented the CP/M file system and some input/output abstractions on top of the BIOS, the CCP took user commands and either executed them directly or loaded and started an executable file of the given name. Third-party applications for CP/M were also essentially transient commands, the BDOS, CCP and standard transient commands were the same in all installations of a particular revision of CP/M, but the BIOS portion was always adapted to the particular hardware. Adding memory to a computer, for example, meant that the CP/M system had to be reinstalled with an updated BIOS capable of addressing the additional memory, a utility was provided to patch the supplied BIOS, BDOS and CCP to allow them to be run from higher memory. Once installed, the system was stored in reserved areas at the beginning of any disk which would be used to boot the system. On start-up, the bootloader would load the system from the disk in drive A. By modern standards CP/M was primitive, owing to the constraints on program size. With version 1.0 there was no provision for detecting a changed disk, if a user changed disks without manually rereading the disk directory the system would write on the new disk using the old disks directory information, ruining the data stored on the disk
11.
RT-11
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RT-11 is a discontinued small, single-user real-time operating system for the Digital Equipment Corporation PDP-11 family of 16-bit computers. RT-11 was first implemented in 1970 and was used for real-time systems, process control. RT-11 systems did not support preemptive multitasking, but most versions could run multiple simultaneous applications, all variants of the monitors provided a background job. The FB, XM and ZM monitors also provided a foreground job and these tasks had fixed priorities, with the background job lowest and the foreground job highest. It was possible to switch jobs from the system console user interface, and SYSGEN could generate a monitor that provided a single background job. RT-11 was written in assembly language, developers documentation included a kernel listing that included comments. In RT-11, device drivers were loadable, except that prior to V4.0 the device driver for the device was built into the kernel at configuration time. Because RT-11 was commonly used for control and data acquisition. A third-party favorite was the Tektronix 4010 family, the Keyboard Monitor interpreted commands issued by the user and would invoke various utilities with Command String Interpreter forms of the commands. RT-11 command language had many features that can be later in DOS line of operating systems which heavily borrowed from RT-11. The CSI form expected input and output filenames and options in a precise order, the command-line switches were separated by / sign rather than - used in Unix-like operating systems. All commands had full form and a one to which it could be contracted. For example, RENAME command could be contracted to REN, batch files and the batch processor could be used to issue a series of commands with some rudimentary control flow. In later releases of RT-11, it was possible to invoke a series of using a. COM command file. Even later, it was possible to execute a series of commands with great control through use of the Indirect Command File Processor, files with the extension. SAV were a sort of executables. The SAVE command, along with GET, START, REENTER, EXAMINE, some commands and utilities were later borrowed in DOS-line of operating systems. These commands include DIR, COPY, RENAME, ASSIGN, CLS, DELETE, TYPE, HELP, FORMAT command was used for physical disk formatting, although it was not capable of creating file system, for which purpose INIT command was used. Most commands supported use of wildcards in file names, physical device names were specified in the form dd, where dd was a two-character alphabetic device name and the optional n was the unit number
12.
Microsoft Windows
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Microsoft Windows is a metafamily of graphical operating systems developed, marketed, and sold by Microsoft. It consists of families of operating systems, each of which cater to a certain sector of the computing industry with the OS typically associated with IBM PC compatible architecture. Active Windows families include Windows NT, Windows Embedded and Windows Phone, defunct Windows families include Windows 9x, Windows 10 Mobile is an active product, unrelated to the defunct family Windows Mobile. Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20,1985, Microsoft Windows came to dominate the worlds personal computer market with over 90% market share, overtaking Mac OS, which had been introduced in 1984. Apple came to see Windows as an encroachment on their innovation in GUI development as implemented on products such as the Lisa. On PCs, Windows is still the most popular operating system, however, in 2014, Microsoft admitted losing the majority of the overall operating system market to Android, because of the massive growth in sales of Android smartphones. In 2014, the number of Windows devices sold was less than 25% that of Android devices sold and this comparison however may not be fully relevant, as the two operating systems traditionally target different platforms. As of September 2016, the most recent version of Windows for PCs, tablets, smartphones, the most recent versions for server computers is Windows Server 2016. A specialized version of Windows runs on the Xbox One game console, Microsoft, the developer of Windows, has registered several trademarks each of which denote a family of Windows operating systems that target a specific sector of the computing industry. It now consists of three operating system subfamilies that are released almost at the time and share the same kernel. Windows, The operating system for personal computers, tablets. The latest version is Windows 10, the main competitor of this family is macOS by Apple Inc. for personal computers and Android for mobile devices. Windows Server, The operating system for server computers, the latest version is Windows Server 2016. Unlike its clients sibling, it has adopted a strong naming scheme, the main competitor of this family is Linux. Windows PE, A lightweight version of its Windows sibling meant to operate as an operating system, used for installing Windows on bare-metal computers. The latest version is Windows PE10.0.10586.0, Windows Embedded, Initially, Microsoft developed Windows CE as a general-purpose operating system for every device that was too resource-limited to be called a full-fledged computer. The following Windows families are no longer being developed, Windows 9x, Microsoft now caters to the consumers market with Windows NT. Windows Mobile, The predecessor to Windows Phone, it was a mobile operating system
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