MultiFinder
Sign in to saveMultiFinder is an extension for the Apple Macintosh's classic Mac OS, introduced on August 11, 1987 and included with System Software 5. It adds cooperative multitasking of several applications at once – a great improvement over the previous Macintosh systems, which can only run one application at a time. With the advent of System 7, MultiFinder became a standard integrated part of the operating system and remained so until the introduction of Mac OS X.
~9 min read
Article
9 sectionsContents
- History
- Background
- Desk Accessories
- Switcher
- Multi-Mac
- Servant
- MultiFinder
- Reception
- References
MultiFinder is an extension for the Apple Macintosh's classic Mac OS, introduced on August 11, 1987 and included with System Software 5. It adds cooperative multitasking of several applications at once – a great improvement over the previous Macintosh systems, which can only run one application at a time. With the advent of System 7, MultiFinder became a standard integrated part of the operating system and remained so until the introduction of Mac OS X.
==History== ===Background=== The first Macintosh was released in 1984, and Apple's developers made an early decision that the machine's 128 KB of RAM was so limited that they must abandon the application multitasking functionality that Apple had developed for the Lisa. As the successive Macintosh hardware models were released with much more RAM being the key feature, new programming techniques were developed as workarounds to allow users to run concurrent applications. Desk Accessories became a staple through the lifespan of System 6; and the Switcher would give way to the MultiFinder, which then became directly integrated into System 7.