A / UX
A / UX | |
---|---|
developer | Apple Computer, Inc. |
License (s) | Proprietary |
First publ. | February 1988 |
Current version | 3.1.1 (1995) |
ancestry |
UNIX ↳ UNIX System V ↳ A / UX |
Architecture (s) | 68k |
Others | Development stopped |
A / UX ( A pple U ni x ) is a commercial Unix - Operating system of the company Apple and was designed under the Macintosh produce user interface a user-friendly access to the Unix world.
history
Based on System V Release 2 (partly 4.2BSD ), A / UX was developed in the late 1980s and first launched in 1988. Later the code base was changed to more recent versions of UNIX System V and parts of BSD flowed into the system.
Designed as a POSIX- compatible operating system, A / UX achieved full Unix functionality, but the main feature was the combination of these capabilities with the Macintosh operating system of that time, System 6 and later System 7 . This made it possible to run Macintosh and Unix applications on one computer at the same time . The Unix processes ran with preemptive multitasking , while the Macintosh applications continued to use cooperative multitasking . In order to be able to use Macintosh applications on other computer architectures, a virtual System 7 environment was created with the Macintosh Application Environment (MAE), which was also ported to other Unix operating systems and from which the Blue Box (for Mac OS 8 under Rhapsody ) and from that the Classic environment (for Mac OS 9 under Mac OS X) was created.
Since A / UX could not achieve any market significance, the further development was stopped in 1995. With Mac OS X , Apple has been following the tradition of Unix derivatives again since 2000.
features
Supported computers are based on the Motorola 68000 family with an extended PMMU ( 68020 or newer) and thus on Macintosh models since the Macintosh II . The graphical user interface X11 and Mac OS , which was required as the operating system for the bootloader , were part of the scope of delivery.
A major advantage of A / UX over other Unix systems was a very simplified installation process, the so-called one-click installation.
Version overview
version | Release date | Description / change |
---|---|---|
1.0 | February 1, 1988 | Compatibility with system 6 |
2.0 | June 1, 1990 | Implementation of TCP / IP |
3.0 | April 16, 1992 | System 7 compatibility |
3.1.1 | August 25, 1995 | Update from 3.1, last release from A / UX |