Briefly discuss the significance of each of the following systems mentioned in this chapter:

Question

What will be an ideal response?
a. MS-DOS
b. CTSS
c. Multics
d. OS/360
e. TSS
f. UNIX
g. Macintosh

Answer 1

a. MS-DOS
This is the world’s first truly widely used personal computer operating system. It was developed by Microsoft for the original line of IBM Personal Computers.
b. CTSS
This is the Compatible Time-Sharing System developed at MIT in the early 1960s as one of the first effective timesharing operating systems.
c. Multics
Multics was the successor to CTSS at MIT. Multics evolved CTSS into a virtual memory operating system. In addition, Multics was the first major operating system written primarily in a high-level language.
d. OS/360
This was the operating system developed by IBM for its highly successful Sys- tem/360 family of computers.
e. TSS
TSS was the timesharing operating system developed by IBM (for its System 360/67 virtual memory computer). Although TSS never became a successful commercial product, it gave IBM developers valuable experience in investigat- ing virtual memory operating systems. This expertise proved helpful in the development of IBM’s highly successful VM operating system.
f. UNIX
UNIX is more precisely referred to as UNIX systems. It is not a single operating system, but rather a whole family of operating systems that have evolved from the original system created at Bell Laboratories in the late 1960s.
g. Macintosh
The Apple Macintosh personal computer and its associated operating system popularized the notion of the user-friendly, mouse-oriented, graphical user interface (GUI) originally developed at Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Laborato- ries.