System 1

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For other uses, see System One.
System 1
A release of the Mac OS operating system
Apple Macintosh Desktop.png
The original System 1 desktop
Developer Apple Computer
Source model Closed source
Released to
manufacturing
January 24, 1984; 30 years ago (1984-01-24)
Latest release 1.1 / May 5, 1984; 30 years ago (1984-05-05)
Kernel type Monolithic
License Proprietary
Succeeded by System 1.1, then System 2
Support status
Unsupported

System 1, also known as Macintosh System Software was the original Macintosh operating system. It is a part of the Classic Mac OS family. It ran on the 68K processor architecture of the time. It was released on January 24, 1984 along with the original Macintosh (aka Macintosh 128K) and replaced by System 1.1 on May 5, 1984.

Features[edit]

This operating system introduced many features that would appear for years to come, some even still existing in OS X, and a few existing in other graphical operating systems such as Microsoft Windows.

The features of the operating system included a total lack of a command line interface (which was included in Microsoft's Windows 1.0 introduced in 1985), Finder, and the menu bar. In addition to this, it popularized the graphical user interface and desktop metaphor, which was used under license from Xerox PARC.

Due to the limited RAM of early computers, there was no multitasking with multiple applications, however there were small applications that could run while an application was loaded. Also, the Trash lost the contents when the computer was shutdown or an application was loaded (closing Finder).