An object-oriented operating system is an

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ef ...

that is designed, structured, and operated using

object-oriented programming Object-oriented programming (OOP) is a programming paradigm based on the concept of " objects", which can contain data and code. The data is in the form of fields (often known as attributes or ''properties''), and the code is in the form of ...

principles. An object-oriented operating system is in contrast to an object-oriented

user interface In the industrial design field of human–computer interaction, a user interface (UI) is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. The goal of this interaction is to allow effective operation and control of the machine f ...

or programming framework, which can be run on a non-object-oriented operating system like DOS or

Unix Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, a ...

. There are already object-based language concepts involved in the design of a more typical operating system such as

. While a more traditional language like C does not support object-orientation as fluidly as more recent languages, the notion of, for example, a file, stream, or

device driver In computing, a device driver is a computer program that operates or controls a particular type of device that is attached to a computer or automaton. A driver provides a software interface to hardware devices, enabling operating systems and o ...

(in Unix, each represented as a

file descriptor In Unix and Unix-like computer operating systems, a file descriptor (FD, less frequently fildes) is a process-unique identifier ( handle) for a file or other input/output resource, such as a pipe or network socket. File descriptors typically ...

) can be considered a good example of objects. They are, after all,

abstract data type In computer science, an abstract data type (ADT) is a mathematical model for data types. An abstract data type is defined by its behavior (semantics) from the point of view of a '' user'', of the data, specifically in terms of possible values, po ...

s, with various methods in the form of

system call In computing, a system call (commonly abbreviated to syscall) is the programmatic way in which a computer program requests a service from the operating system on which it is executed. This may include hardware-related services (for example, acc ...

s which behavior varies based on the type of object and which implementation details are hidden from the caller. Object-orientation has been defined as objects +

inheritance Inheritance is the practice of receiving private property, titles, debts, entitlements, privileges, rights, and obligations upon the death of an individual. The rules of inheritance differ among societies and have changed over time. Offici ...

, and inheritance is only one approach to the more general problem of

delegation Delegation is the assignment of authority to another person (normally from a manager to a subordinate) to carry out specific activities. It is the process of distributing and entrusting work to another person,Schermerhorn, J., Davidson, P., Poole ...

that occurs in every operating system. Object-orientation has been more widely used in the

s of operating systems than in their kernels.

Background

An object is an instance of a class, which provides a certain set of functionalities. Two objects can be differentiated based on the functionalities (or methods) they support. In an operating system context, objects are associated with a resource. Historically, the object-oriented design principles were used in operating systems to provide several protection mechanisms. Protection mechanisms in an operating system help in providing a clear separation between different user programs. It also protects the operating system from any malicious user program behavior. For example, consider the case of user profiles in an operating system. The user should not have access to resources of another user. The object model deals with these protection issues with each resource acting as an object. Every object can perform only a set of operations. In the context of user profiles, the set of operations is limited by

privilege level In computer science, hierarchical protection domains, often called protection rings, are mechanisms to protect data and functionality from faults (by improving fault tolerance) and malicious behavior (by providing computer security). Computer ...

of a user. Present-day operating systems use object-oriented design principles for many components of the system, which includes protection.

Examples

; Athene :Athene is an object-based operating system first released in 2000 by Rocklyte Systems. The user environment was constructed entirely from objects that are linked together at runtime. Applications for Athene could also be created using this methodology and were commonly scripted using the object scripting language Dynamic Markup Language (DML). Objects could have been shared between processes by creating them in

shared memory In computer science, shared memory is memory that may be simultaneously accessed by multiple programs with an intent to provide communication among them or avoid redundant copies. Shared memory is an efficient means of passing data between progr ...

and locking them as needed for access. Athene's object framework was multi-platform, allowing it to be used in Windows and Linux environments for developing object-oriented programs. The company went defunct and the project abandoned sometime in 2009. ; BeOS :

BeOS BeOS is an operating system for personal computers first developed by Be Inc. in 1990. It was first written to run on BeBox hardware. BeOS was positioned as a multimedia platform that could be used by a substantial population of desktop users a ...

was an object-oriented operating system released in 1995, which used objects and the C++ language for the application programming interface (API). The kernel was written in C with C++ wrappers in user space. The OS did not see mainstream usage and proved commercially unviable, however it has seen continued usage and development by a small enthusiast community. ; Choices :Choices is an object-oriented operating system developed at the

University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Unive ...

. It is written in C++ and uses objects to represent core kernel components like the

central processing unit A central processing unit (CPU), also called a central processor, main processor or just processor, is the electronic circuitry that executes instructions comprising a computer program. The CPU performs basic arithmetic, logic, controlling, an ...

(CPU),

processes A process is a series or set of activities that interact to produce a result; it may occur once-only or be recurrent or periodic. Things called a process include: Business and management *Business process, activities that produce a specific se ...

, and so on.

Inheritance Inheritance is the practice of receiving private property, titles, debts, entitlements, privileges, rights, and obligations upon the death of an individual. The rules of inheritance differ among societies and have changed over time. Offici ...

is used to separate the kernel into portable machine-independent classes and small non-portable dependent classes. Choices has been ported to and runs on

SPARC SPARC (Scalable Processor Architecture) is a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture originally developed by Sun Microsystems. Its design was strongly influenced by the experimental Berkeley RISC system developed ...

, x86, and ARM. ; GEOS : PC/GEOS is a light-weight object-oriented multitasking graphical operating system with sophisticated window and desktop management featuring scalable fonts. It is mostly written in an object-oriented x86 assembly language dialect and some C/C++ and is designed to run on DOS (similar to Microsoft Windows up to

Windows Me Windows Millennium Edition, or Windows Me (marketed with the pronunciation of the pronoun "me"), is an operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of Microsoft Windows operating systems. It is the successor to Win ...

). GEOS was developed originally by Berkeley Softworks in 1990, which later became GeoWorks Corporation, and it is continued to be maintained by BreadBox Computer Company. Related

software suite A software suite (also known as an application suite) is a collection of computer programs (application software, or programming software) of related functionality, sharing a similar user interface and the ability to easily exchange data with eac ...

s were named ''Ensemble'' and ''New Deal Office''. Adaptations exist for various palmtops, and 32-bit systems with non-x86-CPUs. ; Haiku :

Haiku is a type of short form poetry originally from Japan. Traditional Japanese haiku consist of three phrases that contain a ''kireji'', or "cutting word", 17 ''On (Japanese prosody), on'' (phonetic units similar to syllables) in a 5, 7, 5 pattern, ...

(originally named ''OpenBeOS''), is an open-source replacement for BeOS. It reached its first development milestone in September 2009 with the release of Haiku R1/Alpha 1. The x86 distribution is compatible with BeOS at both source and binary level. Like BeOS, it is written primarily in C++ and provides an object-oriented API. It is actively developed. ; IBM i (OS/400, i5/OS) :IBM introduced OS/400 in 1988. This OS ran exclusively on the AS/400 platform. Renamed

IBM i IBM i (the ''i'' standing for ''integrated'') is an operating system developed by IBM for IBM Power Systems. It was originally released in 1988 as OS/400, as the sole operating system of the IBM AS/400 line of systems. It was renamed to i5/OS i ...

in 2008, this operating system and runs exclusively on Power Systems which also can run AIX and

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which i ...

. IBM i uses an object-oriented methodology and integrates a database (

Db2 for i Db2 is a family of data management products, including database servers, developed by IBM. It initially supported the relational model, but was extended to support object–relational features and non-relational structures like JSON and ...

). The IBM i OS has a 128-bit unique identifier for each object. ; IBM OS/2 2.0 :IBM's first priority based pre-emptive multitasking, graphical, windows-based operating system included an object-oriented user shell. It was designed for the Intel 80386 that used

virtual 8086 mode In the 80386 microprocessor and later, virtual 8086 mode (also called virtual real mode, V86-mode, or VM86) allows the execution of real mode applications that are incapable of running directly in protected mode while the processor is running ...

with full 32-bit support and was released in 1992.

ArcaOS ArcaOS is an operating system based on OS/2, developed and marketed by Arca Noae, LLC under license from IBM. It was codenamed Blue Lion during its development. It builds on OS/2 Warp 4.52 by adding support for new hardware, fixing defects and l ...

, a new OS/2 based operating system initially called Blue Lion is being developed by Arca Noae. The first version was released in May 2017. ; IBM TopView : TopView was an object-oriented operating environment that loaded on a PC on DOS, and then took control from DOS. At that point it effectively became an object-oriented operating system with an object-oriented API (TopView API). It was IBM's first multi-tasking, window based, object-oriented operating system for the PC led by David C. Morrill and released in February 1985. ; Java-based :Given that Oracle's (formerly

Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Sun for short) was an American technology company that sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services and created the Java programming language, the Solaris operating system, ZFS, ...

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's mo ...

is today one of the most dominant object-oriented languages, it is no surprise that Java-based operating systems have been attempted. In this area, ideally, the

kernel Kernel may refer to: Computing * Kernel (operating system), the central component of most operating systems * Kernel (image processing), a matrix used for image convolution * Compute kernel, in GPGPU programming * Kernel method, in machine lea ...

would consist of the bare minimum needed to support a

Java virtual machine A Java virtual machine (JVM) is a virtual machine that enables a computer to run Java programs as well as programs written in other languages that are also compiled to Java bytecode. The JVM is detailed by a specification that formally describ ...

(JVM). This is the only component of such an operating system that would have to be written in a language other than Java. Built on the JVM and basic hardware support, it would be possible to write the rest of the operating system in Java; even parts of the system that are more traditionally written in a lower-level language such as C, for example

s, can be written in Java. :Examples of attempts at such an operating system include

JavaOS JavaOS is an operating system based on a Java virtual machine and predominantly used on SIM cards to run applications on behalf of operators and security services. It was originally developed by Sun Microsystems. Unlike Windows, macOS, Unix, or Un ...

, JOS, JNode, and JX. ; Lisp-based :An object-oriented operating system written in the

Lisp A lisp is a speech impairment in which a person misarticulates sibilants (, , , , , , , ). These misarticulations often result in unclear speech. Types * A frontal lisp occurs when the tongue is placed anterior to the target. Interdental lispi ...

dialect

Lisp Machine Lisp Lisp Machine Lisp is a programming language, a dialect of the language Lisp. A direct descendant of Maclisp, it was initially developed in the mid to late 1970s as the system programming language for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M ...

(and later

Common Lisp Common Lisp (CL) is a dialect of the Lisp programming language, published in ANSI standard document ''ANSI INCITS 226-1994 (S20018)'' (formerly ''X3.226-1994 (R1999)''). The Common Lisp HyperSpec, a hyperlinked HTML version, has been derived fr ...

) was developed at MIT. It was commercialized with

Lisp Machine Lisp machines are general-purpose computers designed to efficiently run Lisp as their main software and programming language, usually via hardware support. They are an example of a high-level language computer architecture, and in a sense, the ...

s from

Symbolics Symbolics was a computer manufacturer Symbolics, Inc., and a privately held company that acquired the assets of the former company and continues to sell and maintain the Open Genera Lisp system and the Macsyma computer algebra system.

, Lisp Machines Inc. and

Texas Instruments Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) is an American technology company headquartered in Dallas, Texas, that designs and manufactures semiconductors and various integrated circuits, which it sells to electronics designers and manufacturers globa ...

. Symbolics called their operating system

Genera Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial ...

. It was developed with the

Flavors Flavor or flavour is either the sensory perception of taste or smell, or a flavoring in food that produces such perception. Flavor or flavour may also refer to: Science * Flavors (programming language), an early object-oriented extension to Lis ...

object-oriented extension of Lisp, then with New Flavors, and then with the Common Lisp Object System (CLOS). :Xerox developed several workstations with an operating system written in

Interlisp-D Interlisp (also seen with a variety of capitalizations) is a programming environment built around a version of the programming language Lisp. Interlisp development began in 1966 at Bolt, Beranek and Newman (renamed BBN Technologies) in Cambridge, ...

. Interlisp-D provided object-oriented extensions like LOOPS and CLOS. :Movitz an
Mezzano
are two more recent attempts at operating systems written in Common Lisp. ; Medos-2 : Medos-2 is a single user, object-oriented operating system made for the

Lilith Lilith ( ; he, לִילִית, Līlīṯ) is a female figure in Mesopotamian and Judaic mythology, alternatively the first wife of Adam and supposedly the primordial she-demon. Lilith is cited as having been "banished" from the Garden of Ed ...

line of

workstation A workstation is a special computer designed for technical or scientific applications. Intended primarily to be used by a single user, they are commonly connected to a local area network and run multi-user operating systems. The term ''worksta ...

s (processor:

Advanced Micro Devices Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) is an American multinational semiconductor company based in Santa Clara, California, that develops computer processors and related technologies for business and consumer markets. While it initially manufa ...

(AMD) 2901), developed in the early 1980s at

ETH Zurich (colloquially) , former_name = eidgenössische polytechnische Schule , image = ETHZ.JPG , image_size = , established = , type = Public , budget = CHF 1.896 billion (2021) , rector = Günther Dissertori , president = Joël Mesot , a ...

by Svend Erik Knudsen with advice from Niklaus Wirth. It is built entirely from modules of the programming language

Modula-2 Modula-2 is a structured, procedural programming language developed between 1977 and 1985/8 by Niklaus Wirth at ETH Zurich. It was created as the language for the operating system and application software of the Lilith personal workstation. It w ...

. It was succeeded at ETH Zurich by the

Oberon Oberon () is a king of the fairies in medieval and Renaissance literature. He is best known as a character in William Shakespeare's play ''A Midsummer Night's Dream'', in which he is King of the Fairies and spouse of Titania, Queen of the Fair ...

system, and a variant named '' Excelsior'' was developed for the Kronos workstation, by the

Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union The Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union was the highest scientific institution of the Soviet Union from 1925 to 1991, uniting the country's leading scientists, subordinated directly to the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union (until 1946 ...

, Siberian branch,

Novosibirsk Novosibirsk (, also ; rus, Новосиби́рск, p=nəvəsʲɪˈbʲirsk, a=ru-Новосибирск.ogg) is the largest city and administrative centre of Novosibirsk Oblast and Siberian Federal District in Russia. As of the 2021 Census, ...

Computing Center, Modular Asynchronous Developable Systems (MARS) project, Kronos Research Group (KRG). ; Microsoft Singularity : Singularity is an experimental operating system based on Microsoft's

.NET Framework The .NET Framework (pronounced as "''dot net"'') is a proprietary software framework developed by Microsoft that runs primarily on Microsoft Windows. It was the predominant implementation of the Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) until bein ...

. It is comparable to Java-based operating systems. ; Microsoft Windows NT :

Windows NT Windows NT is a proprietary graphical operating system produced by Microsoft, the first version of which was released on July 27, 1993. It is a processor-independent, multiprocessing and multi-user operating system. The first version of Wi ...

is a family of operating systems (including

Windows 7 Windows 7 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became generally available on October 22, 2009. It is the successor to Windows Vista, released nearl ...

, 8, Phone 8, 8.1,

Windows 10 Windows 10 is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It is the direct successor to Windows 8.1, which was released nearly two years earlier. It was released to manufacturing on July 15, 2015, and later to retail on ...

, 10 Mobile,

Windows 11 Windows 11 is the latest major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system, released in October 2021. It is a free upgrade to its predecessor, Windows 10 (2015), and is available for any Windows 10 devices that meet the new Windows 11 ...

and

Xbox Xbox is a video gaming brand created and owned by Microsoft. The brand consists of five video game consoles, as well as applications (games), streaming services, an online service by the name of Xbox network, and the development arm by th ...

) produced by

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation, multinational technology company, technology corporation producing Software, computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at th ...

, the first version of which was released in July 1993. It is a

high-level programming language In computer science, a high-level programming language is a programming language with strong abstraction from the details of the computer. In contrast to low-level programming languages, it may use natural language ''elements'', be easier to ...

-based, processor-independent,

multiprocessing Multiprocessing is the use of two or more central processing units (CPUs) within a single computer system. The term also refers to the ability of a system to support more than one processor or the ability to allocate tasks between them. There ar ...

, multi-user operating system. It is best described as object-based rather than object-oriented as it does not include the full inheritance properties of object-oriented languages. :The Object Manager is in charge of managing NT objects. As part of this responsibility, it maintains an internal

namespace In computing, a namespace is a set of signs (''names'') that are used to identify and refer to objects of various kinds. A namespace ensures that all of a given set of objects have unique names so that they can be easily identified. Namespaces ...

where various operating system components, device drivers, and Win32 programs can store and lookup objects. The NT

Native API The Native API is a lightweight application programming interface (API) used by Windows NT and user mode applications. This API is used in the early stages of Windows NT startup process, when other components and APIs are still unavailable. There ...

provides routines that allow

user space A modern computer operating system usually segregates virtual memory into user space and kernel space. Primarily, this separation serves to provide memory protection and hardware protection from malicious or errant software behaviour. Kerne ...

(mode) programs to browse the namespace and query the status of objects located there, but the interfaces are undocumented. NT supports per-object (file, function, and role)

access control list In computer security, an access-control list (ACL) is a list of permissions associated with a system resource (object). An ACL specifies which users or system processes are granted access to objects, as well as what operations are allowed on giv ...

s allowing a rich set of security permissions to be applied to systems and services. WinObj is a Windows NT program that uses the NT Native API (provided by NTDLL.DLL) to access and display information on the NT Object Manager's name space. :; Component Object Model ::On the

user mode A modern computer operating system usually segregates virtual memory into user space and kernel space. Primarily, this separation serves to provide memory protection and hardware protection from malicious or errant software behaviour. Kernel ...

side of Windows, the Component Object Model (COM) is an

application binary interface In computer software, an application binary interface (ABI) is an interface between two binary program modules. Often, one of these modules is a library or operating system facility, and the other is a program that is being run by a user. An ...

standard for

software components Component-based software engineering (CBSE), also called component-based development (CBD), is a branch of software engineering that emphasizes the separation of concerns with respect to the wide-ranging functionality available throughout a giv ...

introduced by

in 1993. It is used to enable

interprocess communication In computer science, inter-process communication or interprocess communication (IPC) refers specifically to the mechanisms an operating system provides to allow the processes to manage shared data. Typically, applications can use IPC, categoriz ...

and dynamic object creation in a large range of

programming languages A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer program, computer programs. Most programming languages are text-based formal languages, but they may also be visual programming language, graphical. They are a kind of computer ...

. COM is the basis for several other Microsoft technologies and frameworks, including

Object Linking and Embedding Object Linking & Embedding (OLE) is a proprietary technology developed by Microsoft that allows embedding and linking to documents and other objects. For developers, it brought OLE Control Extension (OCX), a way to develop and use custom user ...

(OLE),

OLE Automation In Microsoft Windows applications programming, OLE Automation (later renamed to simply Automation) is an inter-process communication mechanism created by Microsoft. It is based on a subset of Component Object Model (COM) that was intended for use ...

ActiveX ActiveX is a deprecated software framework created by Microsoft that adapts its earlier Component Object Model (COM) and Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) technologies for content downloaded from a network, particularly from the World Wide Web. ...

COM+ Com or COM may refer to: Computing * COM (hardware interface), a serial port interface on IBM PC-compatible computers * COM file, or .com file, short for "command", a file extension for an executable file in MS-DOS * .com, an Internet top-level d ...

Distributed Component Object Model Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM) is a proprietary Microsoft technology for communication between software components on networked computers. DCOM, which originally was called "Network OLE", extends Microsoft's COM, and provides the comm ...

(DCOM), the

Windows shell The Windows shell is the graphical user interface for the Microsoft Windows operating system. Its readily identifiable elements consist of the desktop, the taskbar, the Start menu, the task switcher and the AutoPlay feature. On some versions o ...

DirectX Microsoft DirectX is a collection of application programming interfaces (APIs) for handling tasks related to multimedia, especially game programming and video, on Microsoft platforms. Originally, the names of these APIs all began with "Direc ...

, and Windows Runtime. OLE is a proprietary technology developed by

that allows embedding and linking to

document A document is a written, drawn, presented, or memorialized representation of thought, often the manifestation of non-fictional, as well as fictional, content. The word originates from the Latin ''Documentum'', which denotes a "teaching" o ...

s and other objects. On a technical level, an OLE object is any object that implements the ''IOleObject'' interface, possibly along with a wide range of other interfaces, depending on the object's needs. Its primary use is for managing compound documents, but it is also used for transferring data between different

applications Application may refer to: Mathematics and computing * Application software, computer software designed to help the user to perform specific tasks ** Application layer, an abstraction layer that specifies protocols and interface methods used in a c ...

using drag and drop and clipboard operations. :; Compound File Binary Format :: Compound File Binary Format (CFBF) is a file format for storing many files and streams within one file on a disk. CFBF is developed by Microsoft and is an implementation of Microsoft

COM Structured Storage COM Structured Storage (variously also known as ''COM structured storage'' or '' OLE structured storage'') is a technology developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows operating system for storing hierarchical data within a single file. Stri ...

. Structured storage is widely used as main file format in Microsoft Office applications including

Microsoft Word Microsoft Word is a word processing software developed by Microsoft. It was first released on October 25, 1983, under the name ''Multi-Tool Word'' for Xenix systems. Subsequent versions were later written for several other platforms includi ...

Microsoft Excel Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet developed by Microsoft for Windows, macOS, Android and iOS. It features calculation or computation capabilities, graphing tools, pivot tables, and a macro programming language called Visual Basic for ...

, Microsoft

PowerPoint Microsoft PowerPoint is a presentation program, created by Robert Gaskins and Dennis Austin at a software company named Forethought, Inc. It was released on April 20, 1987, initially for Macintosh computers only. Microsoft acquired PowerPoi ...

Microsoft Access Microsoft Access is a database management system (DBMS) from Microsoft that combines the relational Access Database Engine (ACE) with a graphical user interface and software-development tools (not to be confused with the old Microsoft Access ...

and is the basis of

Advanced Authoring Format The Advanced Authoring Format (AAF) is a file format for professional cross-platform data interchange, designed for the video post-production and authoring environment. It was created by the Advanced Media Workflow Association (AMWA), and is now ...

. :; Object Linking and Embedding ::Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) was part of a grander plan named

Cairo Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo met ...

, the code name for a project at Microsoft from 1991 to 1996. Its charter was to build technologies for a next generation operating system that would fulfill

Bill Gates William Henry Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American business magnate and philanthropist. He is a co-founder of Microsoft, along with his late childhood friend Paul Allen. During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions ...

' vision of "''information at your fingertips''". Cairo never shipped, although parts of its technologies have since appeared in other products. The

Windows 95 Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of operating systems. The first operating system in the 9x family, it is the successor to Windows 3.1x, and was released to manufactu ...

graphical user interface The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows User (computing), users to Human–computer interaction, interact with electronic devices through graphical icon (comp ...

was based on the initial design work that was done on the Cairo user interface. The remaining component is the

object-based file system Object storage (also known as object-based storage) is a computer data storage that manages data as objects, as opposed to other storage architectures like file systems which manages data as a file hierarchy, and block storage which manages data as ...

. It was once planned to be implemented in the form of Windows Future Storage ( WinFS) as part of

Windows Vista Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, which was released five years before, at the time being the longest time span between successive releases of ...

. WinFS is the code name for data storage and

management Management (or managing) is the administration of an organization, whether it is a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government body. It is the art and science of managing resources of the business. Management includes the activities ...

system project based on

relational database A relational database is a (most commonly digital) database based on the relational model of data, as proposed by E. F. Codd in 1970. A system used to maintain relational databases is a relational database management system (RDBMS). Many relatio ...

s, running on the Windows NT

file system In computing, file system or filesystem (often abbreviated to fs) is a method and data structure that the operating system uses to control how data is stored and retrieved. Without a file system, data placed in a storage medium would be one lar ...

(

NTFS New Technology File System (NTFS) is a proprietary journaling file system developed by Microsoft. Starting with Windows NT 3.1, it is the default file system of the Windows NT family. It superseded File Allocation Table (FAT) as the preferred f ...

), which is object-oriented in that it can store the NT objects including its NT object identifier. Each NTFS object has an object identifier; a shortcut with a target that's on an NTFS volume also records the object identifier of the shortcut target, and the object identifier of the drive. WinFS was first demonstrated in 2003 as an advanced storage subsystem for the Microsoft Windows

, designed for persistence and management of structured, semi-structured, and

unstructured data Unstructured data (or unstructured information) is information that either does not have a pre-defined data model or is not organized in a pre-defined manner. Unstructured information is typically text-heavy, but may contain data such as dates, n ...

. WinFS development was cancelled in June 2006, with some of its technologies merged into other Microsoft products such as

Microsoft SQL Server Microsoft SQL Server is a relational database management system developed by Microsoft. As a database server, it is a software product with the primary function of storing and retrieving data as requested by other software applications—which ...

2008 and

Microsoft SharePoint SharePoint is a web-based collaborative platform that integrates natively with Microsoft Office. Launched in 2001, SharePoint is primarily sold as a document management and storage system, but the product is highly configurable and its usage v ...

. It was subsequently confirmed in an interview with Bill Gates that Microsoft planned to migrate applications like

Windows Media Player Windows Media Player (WMP) is the first media player and media library application that was developed by Microsoft for playing audio, video and viewing images on personal computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system, as well as ...

, Windows Photo Gallery,

Microsoft Office Outlook Microsoft Outlook is a personal information manager software system from Microsoft, available as a part of the Microsoft Office and Microsoft 365 software suites. Though primarily an email client, Outlook also includes such functions as cale ...

, etc., to use WinFS as the data storage back-end. ; NeXTSTEP :During the late 1980s,

Steve Jobs Steven Paul Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) was an American entrepreneur, industrial designer, media proprietor, and investor. He was the co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Apple; the chairman and majority shareholder of Pixar; ...

formed the computer company

NeXT Next may refer to: Arts and entertainment Film * ''Next'' (1990 film), an animated short about William Shakespeare * ''Next'' (2007 film), a sci-fi film starring Nicolas Cage * '' Next: A Primer on Urban Painting'', a 2005 documentary film Lit ...

. One of NeXT's first tasks was to design an object-oriented operating system,

NeXTSTEP NeXTSTEP is a discontinued object-oriented, multitasking operating system based on the Mach kernel and the UNIX-derived BSD. It was developed by NeXT Computer in the late 1980s and early 1990s and was initially used for its range of proprieta ...

. They did this by adding an object-oriented framework on

Mach Mach may refer to Mach number, the speed of sound in local conditions. It may also refer to: Computing * Mach (kernel), an operating systems kernel technology * ATI Mach, a 2D GPU chip by ATI * GNU Mach, the microkernel upon which GNU Hurd is bas ...

and BSD using the

Objective-C Objective-C is a general-purpose, object-oriented programming language that adds Smalltalk-style messaging to the C programming language. Originally developed by Brad Cox and Tom Love in the early 1980s, it was selected by NeXT for its N ...

language as a basis. It achieved a niche status in the computing market, notably used by

Tim Berners-Lee Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee (born 8 June 1955), also known as TimBL, is an English computer scientist best known as the inventor of the World Wide Web. He is a Professorial Fellow of Computer Science at the University of Oxford and a profe ...

developing the first implementation of the

World Wide Web The World Wide Web (WWW), commonly known as the Web, is an information system enabling documents and other web resources to be accessed over the Internet. Documents and downloadable media are made available to the network through web se ...

. :NeXTStep later evolved into

OpenStep OpenStep is a defunct object-oriented application programming interface (API) specification for a legacy object-oriented operating system, with the basic goal of offering a NeXTSTEP-like environment on non-NeXTSTEP operating systems. OpenStep wa ...

and the

Cocoa API Cocoa is Apple's native object-oriented application programming interface (API) for its desktop operating system macOS. Cocoa consists of the Foundation Kit, Application Kit, and Core Data frameworks, as included by the Cocoa.h header file, ...

macOS macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. Within the market of ...

and iOS (

iPadOS iPadOS is a mobile operating system developed by Apple Inc. for its iPad line of tablet computers. It is a rebranded variant of iOS, the operating system used by Apple's iPhones, renamed to reflect the diverging features of the two product ...

watchOS watchOS is the operating system of the Apple Watch, developed by Apple Inc. It is based on iOS, the operating system used by the iPhone, and has many similar features. It was released on April 24, 2015, along with the Apple Watch, the only ...

). :OpenStep was provided as an API layer on many operating systems, namely

HP-UX HP-UX (from "Hewlett Packard Unix") is Hewlett Packard Enterprise's proprietary implementation of the Unix operating system, based on Unix System V (initially System III) and first released in 1984. Current versions support HPE Integrit ...

, NextStep, Solaris, and Windows. ; Oberon :

is a single user, object-oriented operating system made for the Ceres line of

s (processor:

National Semiconductor National Semiconductor was an American semiconductor manufacturer which specialized in analog devices and subsystems, formerly with headquarters in Santa Clara, California. The company produced power management integrated circuits, display dr ...

NS32000), developed in the later 1980s at

by Niklaus Wirth and Jürg Gutknecht. It is built entirely from modules of the programming language

. A later evolution was named ''Active Object System'' (AOS), then renamed ''Bluebottle'', then renamed '' A2''. ; OOSMOS :The Object-Oriented State Machine Operating System (OOSMOS), written in C, promotes object-oriented encapsulation and implements a full table-driven hierarchical state machine architecture. It generates C code directly from state charts drawn with the open source tool

UMLet UMLet is an open-source Java-based UML tool designed for teaching the Unified Modeling Language and for quickly creating UML diagrams. It is a drawing tool rather than a modelling tool as there is no underlying dictionary or directory of reusabl ...

. OOSMOS also supports a unique feature call 'state threads' which allows a thread of execution per state. OOSMOS operates on a bare board or in cooperation with an existing operating system. ; ReactOS :

ReactOS ReactOS is a free and open-source operating system for amd64/ i686 personal computers intended to be binary-compatible with computer programs and device drivers made for Windows Server 2003 and later versions of Windows. ReactOS has been noted ...

is an open-source operating system intended to be binary compatible with application software and

s made for Microsoft Windows NT versions. Written from scratch, it aims to follow the

architecture of Windows NT The architecture of Windows NT, a line of operating systems produced and sold by Microsoft, is a layered design that consists of two main components, user mode and kernel mode. It is a preemptive, reentrant multitasking operating system, whi ...

designed by Microsoft from the hardware level right through to the application level. This is ''not'' a Linux-based system, and shares ''none'' of the unix architecture.Filby, J. "ReactOS: An open-source alternative to NT?." ''IEEE Software'' 16.1 (1999): 35–35. ; Self :

Self (programming language) is an object-oriented programming language based on the concept of '' prototypes''. Self began as a dialect of Smalltalk, being dynamically typed and using just-in-time compilation (JIT) as well as the prototype-based approach to objects: it was ...

was invented at

Xerox PARC PARC (Palo Alto Research Center; formerly Xerox PARC) is a research and development company in Palo Alto, California. Founded in 1969 by Jacob E. "Jack" Goldman, chief scientist of Xerox Corporation, the company was originally a division of Xer ...

. It was then developed at Stanford University and

. ; Smalltalk :

Smalltalk Smalltalk is an object-oriented, dynamically typed reflective programming language. It was designed and created in part for educational use, specifically for constructionist learning, at the Learning Research Group (LRG) of Xerox PARC by ...

was invented at

Xerox Xerox Holdings Corporation (; also known simply as Xerox) is an American corporation that sells print and digital document products and services in more than 160 countries. Xerox is headquartered in Norwalk, Connecticut (having moved from St ...

in the 1970s. The Smalltalk system is fully object-oriented and needs very little support by

BIOS In computing, BIOS (, ; Basic Input/Output System, also known as the System BIOS, ROM BIOS, BIOS ROM or PC BIOS) is firmware used to provide runtime services for operating systems and programs and to perform hardware initialization during the ...

and the

run-time system In computer programming, a runtime system or runtime environment is a sub-system that exists both in the computer where a program is created, as well as in the computers where the program is intended to be run. The name comes from the compile t ...

. ; Syllable : Syllable makes heavy use of C++ and for that reason is often compared to

. ; Symbolics Genera :

from

is an operating system for

Lisp machine Lisp machines are general-purpose computers designed to efficiently run Lisp as their main software and programming language, usually via hardware support. They are an example of a high-level language computer architecture, and in a sense, the ...

s written in ZetaLisp and Symbolics

. It makes heavy use of

(an early object-oriented extension to Lisp) and the Common Lisp Object System (CLOS). Development began in the mid 70s at MIT. ; Taligent : Taligent was an object-oriented operating system project, begun by Apple Inc. and jointly developed with IBM in the 1990s. It was later spun off to an IBM subsidiary and transformed from an operating system to a programming environment.

References

External links

ApertosChoices
former IBM project
OOSMOSRebol
aspirations to displace the OS with the language environment {{Operating system Object-oriented programming Operating system technology

Background

Examples

See also

References

External links