Operating System

Improvements
A Graphical User Interface (GUI for short)
allows users to interact with the computer
hardware in a user friendly way.
Operating System
Over the years a range of GUI’s have been
Interface
developed Design
for different operating systems
Between
such 1981-2019
as OS/2, Macintosh, Windowsamiga,
Linux, Symbian OS, and more.

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OS Improvements
Started its business in Seoul Korea in
February 1998 with the fundamental goal
of providing better internet services to
the world. This was the first system that
was referred to as a fully integrated
desktop computer including applications
and a GUI. It was known as “The Xerox
Star”, later renamed “ViewPoint” and
later again renamed to “GlobalView”.d.
Asadal stands for the "morning land“ in
ancient Korean. Asadal stands for the
"morning land“ in ancient Korean.

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OS Improvements
Also referred to as Lisa OS, which in this
case is short for Office System. It was de
veloped by Apple with the intention of bei
ng a document processing workstation.

Unfortunately this workstation didn’t last,

it was killed by Apple’s Macintosh operati
ng system that was more affordable.

There were upgrades to Lisa OS, Lisa O

S 2 in 1983 and Lisa OS 7/7 3.1 in 1984,
that upgraded the system itself, but not t
he graphical user interface.

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OS Improvements

Visi On was the first desktop GUI develo

ped for the IBM PC. This system was tar
geted towards big corporations and cam
e with a high price tag. The GUI made us
e of a mouse, it had a built-in installer an
d help system and it didn’t use icons.

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OS Improvements

System 1.0 was the first operating syste

m GUI developed for the Macintosh. It ha
d several features of a modern operating
system, being windows based with icons.
The windows could be moved around wit
h the mouse and files and folders could b
e copied by dragging and dropping onto t
he target location.

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OS Improvements

When first released, Amiga was ahead of

its time. The GUI included features such
as color graphics (four colors: black, whit
e, blue, orange), preemptive multitasking
, stereo sound and multi-state icons (sele
cted and unselected).

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OS Improvements

In this year Microsoft finally caught up wit

h the whole graphical user interface craz
e and released Windows 1.0, its first GUI
based operating system (although no on
e would dare to refer to it as one). The sy
stem featured 32×32 pixel icons and col
or graphics. The most interesting feature
(which later was omitted) was the icon of
the animated analog clock.

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GEM (Graphical Environment Manager)
was a windowing style GUI created by Di
gital Research, Inc. (DRI). It was initially
created for use with the CP/M operating
system on the Intel 8088 and Motorola 6
8000 microprocessors and was later dev
eloped to run on DOS as well. Most peop
le will remember GEM as the GUI for the
Atari ST computers. It was also used on
a series Amstrad’s IBM compatible comp
uters. It was the core for Ventura Publish
er and a few other DOS programs. The
GUI was also ported to other computers
but did not gain popularity on them. Webdesigner Depot
OS Improvements

The 64-bit IRIX operating system was cr

eated for UNIX. An interesting feature of t
his GUI is the support for vector icons. T
his feature was built into the GUI long bef
ore Mac OS X even existed.

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OS Improvements

The GEOS (Graphic Environment Operat

ing System) operating system was devel
oped by Berkeley Softworks (later GeoW
orks). It was originally designed for the C
ommodore 64 and included a graphical w
ord processor, called geoWrite and a pai
nt program called geoPaint.

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OS Improvements

In this version, the actual management of

the windows had significantly improved.
The windows could be overlapped, resiz
ed, maximized and minimized.

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OS Improvements

OS/2 was originally co-developed by IBM

and Microsoft, but in 1991 the two compa
nies split up, with Microsoft incorporating
the technology in its own Windows GUI a
nd IBM developing OS/2 further. The GUI
used in OS/2 was called “Presentation M
anager”. This version of the GUI only sup
ported monochrome, fixed icons.

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Steve Jobs came up with the idea to create the
perfect research computer for universities and
research labs. This idea later evolved into a st
artup called NeXT Computer Inc.
The first NeXT computer was released in 1988
, however significant advances were made in 1
989 with the release of the NeXTSTEP 1.0 GU
I, which later evolved into OPENSTEP.
The GUI’s icons were bigger (48×48) and it int
roduced more colors. The GUI was initially mo
nochrome, but version 1.0 started supporting c
olor monitors too. This screenshot gives you h
ave a peek into what would become the moder
n GUIs. Webdesigner Depot
OS Improvements

The next minor version upgrade of the G

UI showed slight improvements in many
areas. The icons looked nicer and the wi
ndows were smoother.

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OS Improvements

By this version, Microsoft had realized the real pot

ential in GUI’s and started to significantly improve t
hem.
The operating system itself supported standard an
d 386 enhanced modes, which made use of higher
memory capacity than 640 KB and hard disk spac
e, resulting in the ability to use higher screen resol
utions and better graphics, such as Super VGA 80
0×600 and 1024×768.
Also, Microsoft hired Susan Kare to design the Wi
ndows 3.0 icons and to add a unified style to the G
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UI.