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Knowledge Center OPERATING SYSTEMS Informatics
Association
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Web Directory General-purpose computers need an operating system in order to run other programs. American Medical
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The operating system carries out tasks, some of which include: Society
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„ Controlling the computer hardware. Information and
„ Monitoring and recognising keyboard inputs. Management
advertisement „ Sending output to the computer screen. Systems Society
„ Managing software resources and providing a stable and consistent interface for
applications to interact with hardware.

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Hospital Information
Systems The first operating system was developed at Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Software Topics (MIT) in 1963 and was called the Compatible Time Sharing System (CTSS). This was
then followed by the release of the Multics operating system, which came about as of a
Operating Systems
result of the collaboration of General Electric and AT&T Bell Laboratories.
Database
Management AT&T however pulled out of the project in 1969 and went on to produce the Unix
Systems operating system, which has grown to become one of the mostly used operating system.
HL7 There are several versions of Unix now available, thanks mostly to the fact that AT&T
Electronic Medical made the source code available to universities, used in many systems from
Records supercomputers down to desktop personal computers (PCs).
Decision Support
Systems Operating systems for the PCs did not really start till IBM started selling them in 1981.
It offered several choices of operating systems to used on their products, amongst
which was the PC ODS, which was developed by then a small company called Microsoft
Corp. Microsoft has since grown from strength to strength to become the largest
software company worldwide and now produces the most commonly used desktop
operating system – Windows.

Microsoft along with IBM also developed the multitasking PC system, OS/2, in 1987 but
the relationship fell apart in 1990, and Microsoft went on to produce Windows NT, most
of which resulted from the OS/2 work it had done. Windows NT is popular operating
systems for servers running on the Web.

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Biohealthmatics.com - Operating Systems. Page 2 of 3

However Windows is not having it all its way as it is beginning to face competition from
the Linux operating system. Linux was developed in 1991 by Linus Torvaldis, who was
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provides hosted from other programmers on the Internet, Linux is a free full-scale operating system that
CloudCache Web is not only run on more Internet Web servers than any other operating system, but on
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now
www.cloudscape.ws Operating system can generally be classified into the following categories

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„ Real-time operating system (RTOS): Real-time operating systems respond to
Managment
input instantly and are used in computers found in machinery, scientific
One stop
operations
instruments and industrial systems.
consulting and
hospital „ Single-user, single-task operating system: Found in computers that allow the user
management to do only one thing at any one time. A good example is the PalmOS found in
worldwide Palm handheld devices.
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„ Single-user, multitasking operating system: Found in desktop and laptop
computers and allows for one user to do more than one thing concurrently.
DNS, Worldwide
IT Needs Apple’s MacOS is an example.
Leading provider
of Tier One „ Multi-user operating systems: The multi-user operating system allows fro more
computer products than one user to run one than one program at the same time. The operating
at a low cost. systems does a juggling act to maintain each user’s resources, so if there is a
www.definitenetworksolu problem with one user, it does not affect the others. A good example is Unix.

Common Operating Systems

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„ Windows 95 – designed for the workstation, released in August 1995, support was
accurately locate
for it was withdrawn in June 2001.
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„ Windows 98 – designed for the workstation, released in May 1998, support was
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for it was withdrawn in June 2001.

„ Windows NT series– designed for both workstations and servers. Similar in

appearance to Windows 98 but more robust with advanced security and
administration. Released in 1995, supports end in April 2003, coinciding with the
introduction of Microsoft's lastest product Windows Server 2003.

„ Windows 2000 series – Microsoft’s current flagship product. A follow-up to the

Windows NT series. Introduced in February 2000.

„ Windows ME – A follow-up of Windows 98, released in September 2001, Microsoft

stopped shipping copies of it in March 2001.

„ Windows XP – A follow-up to the Windows 2000 series and includes

Microsoft’s .NET initiative.

„ Windows CE – Operating systems targeting handheld devices and other embedded

systems.

Linux Variants

„ Red Hat – a well-rounded version of Linux, includes many applications. First

released in 1994. Targets workstations and servers.

„ Corel – First released in 1998 by Corel. In 2001, Xandros acquired Corel Linux
Business Division, and changed the operating system's name to Xandros. Targets
workstations.

„ Debian Linux – First released in August 1993 and was developed by over 500
developers who volunteered from around the world. Targets workstations and
servers.

„ Mandrake - targets both workstations and servers.

„ Caldera - targets both workstations and servers.

„ SuSE Linux - targets both workstations and servers.

Unix Variants

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Biohealthmatics.com - Operating Systems. Page 3 of 3

„ AIX – AIX is short for Advanced Interactive eXecutive and was introduced by IBM
in February 1990. Designed for medium to large-scale servers and mainframes.
Also works in workstations.

„ BSD – short for Berkeley Software Distribution. The Computer System Research
Group at the University of California at Berkeley developed it in 1977. Comes in
various flavours – BSD Internet Server (BSD/OS), FreeBSD, NetBSD and
OpenBSD. They target all platforms from handhelds to servers.

„ DYNIX/ptx – Developed by IBM and was designed mainly for high-end commercial
database management systems (DBMS) environments.

„ HP-UX – Developed by Hewlett Packard in 1986. Forms the foundation for many
mission critical applications and IT services over the Internet.

„ MINIX – Free Unix clone that does not contain any of AT&T ‘ s code. Due to its
small size, it is ideal for PCs.

„ Sun Solaris – Designed by Sun Microsystems. It runs on both workstations and

servers.

Other Operating Systems

„ MacOS – Developed by Apple Computers to run on its computers, which range

from handhelds to servers. Its desktop version was the first operating systems to
adopt the ‘windows’ format.

„ OS/2 – Originally designed by IBM and Microsoft in 1987. However Microsoft

pulled out of the partnership three years later and only IBM supports the later
versions. Targets servers and workstations.

„ Netware – First released by Novell in 1984. Runs only on servers.

„ Palm OS – Produced by Palm Inc, which was formed in 1992. Designed to run on
the popular Palm handheld devices.

„ Symbian OS – Was previously known by the name of EPOC, which was developed
by Psion in 1981 to run on its handheld devices. However in 1998, Psion formed a
partnership with major mobile makers and Symbian was born. It was to run on
handheld devices and mobiles phones. However in 2001, Psion announced it was
to stop manufacturing of its handheld devices and Symbian OS has now become
one of the driving forces behind the smart phones.

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Last Updated: 10 August 2006.

http://www.biohealthmatics.com/technologies/software/os.aspx 2008/11/02