Power Macintosh

What's OS - A Plain English Explanation

In this article I'm going to help you finally make sense of what for most people is one of the most confusing and least understood computer terms around: "operating system", or "OS".

If you find yourself with questions and wonder what is operating system, if so, you’re not alone in wondering about this.

This really is a pretty easy idea to make sense of when it's explained the right way to you, as you're going to discover by the time you finish reading this article that explains Apple Mac basics.

Now an operating system, or OS, is a type of software.

To recap my explanation from a previous article, here's how you can think of software:

"Software" refers to all of the parts of the computer that you really aren't able to observe or handle directly. Software would include things like Microsoft Word, Internet Explorer, Windows or the Mac OS, and all of your own files like individual emails, pictures, MP3s, and so on.

Think about it this way: hardware is like your brain, a physical part of your body, while software is like your mind or your thoughts -- the non-physical part of yourself.

Software runs on hardware, just like your thoughts "run on" your brain.

Does that make sense? So let's look at the OS specifically.

First off, let me give a couple of examples:  the two best known operating systems right now are Windows, and Mac OS X (pronounced "Oh Ess Ten" -- as in the Roman numeral ten).

Windows Vista and Windows XP are two versions of Microsoft Windows.  While Mac OS 10.4 (a.k.a "Tiger") and the newer Mac OS 10.5 (also known as "Leopard") are two examples of versions of Mac OS X.

Alright, so what is an OS?

Just think about it like this: when a person is born, they have the instinct to eat, to breathe, etc., and they also have the instinct to watch, listen and soak up what's going on around them.

Gradually over time, a young child learns to talk and walk by observing others, and as they grow up, they also learn more basic skills like reading and writing, hand-eye coordination, etc.

Another way to say this is, they gradually transition from being able to do not a lot except eat, sleep, and fill diapers, to physical and mental maturity where they have all the general skills a person needs to go on to more specific skills such as driving, playing a sport like football, writing an essay for school, getting a job,etc.

In some ways, when you boot up your PC, it's just like a newborn baby, only having a few built-in "instincts."

It can power on, and display an image on the display, but that's pretty much it.

The only other thing it's able to do is look at the hard drive, and if it finds an operating system there, the computer is able to load the info into memory for use.

This is called "booting", which is what happens between when you turn the computer on, and before you're able to actually start using it.

And the best way to think about it is that it's just like when a child is born and grows up: the operating system contains the "life experiences" and lessons that give a "child" all the basic skills equivalent to walking, talking, reading, writing, etc., that make everything else possible.

So in a sense, it'slike your computer is "born" and "grows up" in the space of thirty to sixty seconds or so (sometimes longer for some computers) that it takes to "boot" the OS.

In other words, the OS is sort of like those basic skills we all have and learned as we grew up. More to the point, it's the software on the computer that creates your desktop, the icons on it, moves the little mouse pointer around on the screen when you move your mouse around,allows you to view files and open them, lets you type, -- you get the idea.

Without the operating system, you couldn't do anything with a PC but push the power button and see useless information like "non system disk or disk error" on a Windows-style computer, or a flashing question mark on a Mac.

So even though many computer users don't really understand what an OS is, or what it's for, you couldn't use your PC without having one.

Finally get it?

Questions about my Power Macintosh G3 (blue) PLEASE READ!!?

Hey yall! I just got an apple G3 (blue) from a friend, because he's moving.. I have no idea what this thing can do - turned it on and it seem OLD.

My question is HOW CAN I BEEF UP THIS COMPUTER? and IS IT WORTH IT??

for instance, what new operating systems can i put in this thing? (I'm apple illiterate, i'm a Windows person)

Thanks everyone! :]

There's very little that can be done. You can toss some old PC100/133 RAM into it. Bear in mind that it can't address high-density DIMMs, so 512MB sticks show up as 256MB and single-sided 256MB will show up as 128MB.

You can put up to a 120GB IDE drive in it. Anything larger than 128GB won't be recognized. If it's a revision 1 B&W then you may not even be able to do that much without bugginess thanks to the awful IDE controller in them. Look up how to distinguish between a rev1 and rev2 B&W board.

Any old IDE optical drive will work, so if you have something better laying around, put it in there.

The B&W can go up to Mac OS 10.4.11, so get ahold of a Mac OS 10.4 retail disc.

PCI video cards will only work if they're specifically Mac compatible or can be flashed with the proper firmware. If you have an old Radeon 7000 or Radeon VE PCI card laying around, that would be ideal for flashing.

USB 2.0 cards may or may not work. They're kind of a crap shoot if not labeled as specifically Mac compatible. If you have one, pop it in and find out. Bear in mind that some may appear to work but will lock up on larger file transfers. Don't plug your keyboard/mouse into it as you won't be able to do startup key combos. You cannot boot from a USB 2.0 PCI card or even the onboard USB, so don't try.

The ONLY upgrades you put in this should be ones you have laying around or can get for next to nothing. The B&W is over 10 years old and is not capable of much at all. It'll choke on websites galore and anything with Flash is a definite no-go. Money dumped into it is money wasted.

★ Getting Steve Jobs Wrong (Daringfireball)

On Malcolm Gladwell's argument that Jobs was a "tweaker" and not a "large-
scale innovator".

Daringfireball

Apple Power Macintosh 6100 (the very first PowerPC Mac) booting Mac OS 9.1