Windows 98

- Windows 98 is a widely-installed product in Microsoft's evolution of the Windows operating system for personal computers. Windows 98 was code named "Memphis" during development and was, at one point, called "Windows 97" based on an earlier production schedule. Windows 98 expressed Microsoft's belief that users want and should have a global view of their potential resources and that Web technology should be an important part of the user interface. Although building Microsoft's own Web browser into the user desktop was one of the defining issues in the U.S. Justice Department's antitrust suit against Microsoft in the 1990s, Windows 98 was released as planned with its tightly integrated browser. Microsoft's Internet Explorer was designed to be considerably more with the operating system than previous versions. With Active Desktop, users can view and access desktop objects online as well as local files and applications. The Windows 98 desktop is, in fact, a Web page with HTML links and features that exploit Microsoft's ActiveX control. Windows 98 and Windows 95 (with Internet Explorer 4.0 or another web browser installed) had early versions push technology installed, the ability to have news and other content delivered automatically by specified Web sites. RSS is a more current example of this functionality. Windows 98 also provides a 32-bit file allocation table (FAT) that allows users to have a single-partition disk drive larger than 2 G-bytes. Other features in Windows 98 include:

Support for Universal Serial Bus (USB), which makes it easy to plug in new devices Support for Digital Versatile Disc (DVD) Support for a new industry-standard form of power management called Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI)

Windows 98 was by followed Windows 2000, an evolution of the Windows OS designed for personal or professional use. Windows Me (Windows Millennium) was oriented towards the home user. Both operating systems have since been made obsolete by Windows XP, which will in turn be followed by Windows Vista, formerly code-named "Longhorn." Microsoft officially ended support for Windows 98 on July 11, 2006.

operating system
- An operating system (sometimes abbreviated as "OS") is the program that, after being initially loaded into the computer by a boot program, manages all the other programs in a computer. The other programs are called applications or application programs. The application programs make use of the operating system by making requests for services through a defined application program interface (API). In addition, users can interact directly with the operating system through a user interface such as a command language or a graphical user interface (GUI). An operating system performs these services for applications:

In a multitasking operating system where multiple programs can be running at the same time, the operating system determines which applications should run in what order and how much time should be allowed for each application before giving another application a turn. It manages the sharing of internal memory among multiple applications. It handles input and output to and from attached hardware devices, such as hard disks, printers, and dial-up ports. It sends messages to each application or interactive user (or to a system operator) about the status of operation and any errors that may have occurred. It can offload the management of what are called batch jobs (for example, printing) so that the initiating application is freed from this work. On computers that can provide parallel processing, an operating system can manage how to divide the program so that it runs on more than one processor at a time.

All major computer platforms (hardware and software) require and sometimes include an operating system. Linux, Windows 2000, VMS, OS/400, AIX, and z/OS are all examples of operating systems.

Acronym for disk operating system. The term DOS can refer to any operating system, but it is most often used as shorthand for MS-DOS (Microsoft disk operating system). Originally developed by Microsoft for IBM, MS-DOS was the standard operating system for IBM-compatible personal computers. The initial versions of DOS were very simple and resembled another operating system called CP/M. Subsequent versions have become increasingly sophisticated as they incorporated features of minicomputer operating systems. However, DOS is still a 16-bit operating system and does not support multiple users or multitasking. For some time, it has been widely acknowledged that DOS is insufficient for modern computer applications. Microsoft Windows helped alleviate some problems, but still, it sat on top of DOS and relied

on DOS for many services. Even Windows 95 sat on top of DOS. Newer operating systems, such as Windows NT and OS/2 Warp, do not rely on DOS to the same extent, although they can execute DOSbased programs. It is expected that as these operating systems gain market share, DOS will eventually disappear. In the meantime, Caldera, Inc. markets a version of DOS called DR-OpenDOS that extends MSDOS in significant ways

GUI
Also see HCI (human-computer interaction).

A GUI (usually pronounced GOO-ee) is a graphical (rather than purely textual) user interface to a computer. As you read this, you are looking at the GUI or graphical user interface of your particular Web browser. The term came into existence because the first interactive user interfaces to computers were not graphical; they were text-and-keyboard oriented and usually consisted of commands you had to remember and computer responses that were infamously brief. The command interface of the DOS operating system (which you can still get to from your Windows operating system) is an example of the typical user-computer interface before GUIs arrived. An intermediate step in user interfaces between the command line interface and the GUI was the non-graphical menubased interface, which let you interact by using a mouse rather than by having to type in keyboard commands. Today's major operating systems provide a graphical user interface. Applications typically use the elements of the GUI that come with the operating system and add their own graphical user interface elements and ideas. A GUI sometimes uses one or more metaphors for objects familiar in real life, such as the desktop, the view through a window, or the physical layout in a building. Elements of a GUI include such things as: windows, pull-down menus, buttons, scroll bars, iconic images, wizards, the mouse, and no doubt many things that haven't been invented yet. With the increasing use of multimedia as part of the GUI, sound, voice, motion video, and virtual reality interfaces seem likely to become part of the GUI for many applications. A system's graphical user interface along with its input devices is sometimes referred to as its "look-and-feel." The GUI familiar to most of us today in either the Mac or the Windows operating systems and their applications originated at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Laboratory in the late 1970s. Apple used it in their first Macintosh computers. Later, Microsoft used many of the same ideas in their first version of the Windows operating system for IBMcompatible PCs.

When creating an application, many object-oriented tools exist that facilitate writing a graphical user interface. Each GUI element is defined as a class widget from which you can create object instances for your application. You can code or modify prepackaged methods that an object will use to respond to user stimuli.

HCI
Also see GUI (graphical user interface).

HCI (human-computer interaction) is the study of how people interact with computers and to what extent computers are or are not developed for successful interaction with human beings. A significant number of major corporations and academic institutions now study HCI. Historically and with some exceptions, computer system developers have not paid much attention to computer ease-of-use. Many computer users today would argue that computer makers are still not paying enough attention to making their products "user-friendly." However, computer system developers might argue that computers are extremely complex products to design and make and that the demand for the services that computers can provide has always outdriven the demand for ease-of-use. One important HCI factor is that different users form different conceptions or mental models about their interactions and have different ways of learning and keeping knowledge and skills (different "cognitive styles" as in, for example, "left-brained" and "right-brained" people). In addition, cultural and national differences play a part. Another consideration in studying or designing HCI is that user interface technology changes rapidly, offering new interaction possibilities to which previous research findings may not apply. Finally, user preferences change as they gradually master new interfaces. CONTRIBUTORS