Preferred Executable Format
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Preferred Executable Format
The Preferred Executable Format is a file format that specifies the format of executable files and other object code. PEF executables are also called Code Fragment Manager files (CFM). PEF was developed by Apple Computer for use in its classic Mac OS operating system. It was optimised for RISC processors. In macOS, the Mach-O file format is the native executable format. However, PEF was still supported on PowerPC-based Macintoshes running Mac OS X and was used by some Carbon applications ported from earlier versions for classic Mac OS, so that the same binary could be run on classic Mac OS and Mac OS X. BeOS on PowerPC systems also uses PEF, although x86 systems do not. See also * Comparison of executable file formats * Fat binary A fat binary (or multiarchitecture binary) is a computer executable program or library which has been expanded (or "fattened") with code native to multiple instruction sets which can consequently be run on multiple processor types. This results .. ...
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Apple Computer
Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company by market capitalization, the fourth-largest personal computer vendor by unit sales and second-largest mobile phone manufacturer. It is one of the Big Five American information technology companies, alongside Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft. Apple was founded as Apple Computer Company on April 1, 1976, by Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs and Ronald Wayne to develop and sell Wozniak's Apple I personal computer. It was incorporated by Jobs and Wozniak as Apple Computer, Inc. in 1977 and the company's next computer, the Apple II, became a best seller and one of the first mass-produced microcomputers. Apple went public in 1980 to instant financial success. The company developed computers featuring innovative graphical user interfaces, in ...
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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, and input/output (I/O) operations specified by the instructions in the program. This contrasts with external components such as main memory and I/O circuitry, and specialized processors such as graphics processing units (GPUs). The form, design, and implementation of CPUs have changed over time, but their fundamental operation remains almost unchanged. Principal components of a CPU include the arithmetic–logic unit (ALU) that performs arithmetic and logic operations, processor registers that supply operands to the ALU and store the results of ALU operations, and a control unit that orchestrates the fetching (from memory), decoding and execution (of instructions) by directing the coordinated operations of the ALU, registers and other co ...
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Fat Binary
A fat binary (or multiarchitecture binary) is a computer executable program or library which has been expanded (or "fattened") with code native to multiple instruction sets which can consequently be run on multiple processor types. This results in a file larger than a normal one-architecture binary file, thus the name. The usual method of implementation is to include a version of the machine code for each instruction set, preceded by a single entry point with code compatible with all operating systems, which executes a jump to the appropriate section. Alternative implementations store different executables in different forks, each with its own entry point that is directly used by the operating system. The use of fat binaries is not common in operating system software; there are several alternatives to solve the same problem, such as the use of an installer program to choose an architecture-specific binary at install time (such as with Android multiple APKs), selecting an archi ...
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Comparison Of Executable File Formats
This is a comparison of binary executable file formats which, once loaded by a suitable executable loader, can be directly executed by the CPU rather than being interpreted by software. In addition to the binary application code, the executables may contain headers and tables with relocation and fixup information as well as various kinds of meta data. Among those formats listed, the ones in most common use are PE (on Microsoft Windows), ELF (on Linux and most other versions of Unix), Mach-O (on macOS and iOS) and MZ (on DOS DOS is shorthand for the MS-DOS and IBM PC DOS family of operating systems. DOS may also refer to: Computing * Data over signalling (DoS), multiplexing data onto a signalling channel * Denial-of-service attack (DoS), an attack on a communicat ...). Notes References {{DEFAULTSORT:Comparison Of Executable File Formats Computing comparisons ...
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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 and a competitor to Classic Mac OS and Microsoft Windows. It was ultimately unable to achieve a significant market share, and did not prove commercially viable for Be Inc. The company was acquired by Palm Inc. Today BeOS is mainly used, and derivatives developed, by a small population of enthusiasts. The open-source operating system Haiku is a continuation of BeOS concepts and most of the application level compatibility. The latest version, Beta 4 released December 2022, still retains BeOS 5 compatibility in its x86 32-bit images. History Initially designed to run on AT&T Hobbit-based hardware, BeOS was later modified to run on PowerPC-based processors: first Be's own systems, later Apple Computer's PowerPC Reference Platform and Commo ...
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Carbon (computing)
Carbon was one of two primary C (programming language), C-based application programming interfaces (APIs) developed by Apple Inc., Apple for the macOS (formerly Mac OS X and OS X) operating system. Carbon provided a good degree of backward compatibility for computer program, programs that ran on Mac OS 8 and Mac OS 9, 9. Developers could use the Carbon APIs to port (“carbonize”) their Classic Mac OS, “classic” Mac applications and software to the Mac OS X platform with little effort, compared to porting the app to the entirely different Cocoa (API), Cocoa system, which originated in OPENSTEP. With the release of macOS Catalina, macOS 10.15 Catalina, the Carbon API was officially discontinued and removed, leaving Cocoa as the sole primary API for developing macOS applications. Carbon was an important part of Apple's strategy for bringing Mac OS X to market, offering a path for quick porting of existing software applications, as well as a means of shipping applications that ...
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Mach-O
Mach-O, short for Mach object file format, is a file format for executables, object code, shared libraries, dynamically-loaded code, and core dumps. It was developed to replace the a.out format. Mach-O is used by some systems based on the Mach kernel. NeXTSTEP, macOS, and iOS are examples of systems that use this format for native executables, libraries and object code. Mach-O file layout Each Mach-O file is made up of one Mach-O header, followed by a series of load commands, followed by one or more segments, each of which contains between 0 and 255 sections. Mach-O uses the REL relocation format to handle references to symbols. When looking up symbols Mach-O uses a two-level namespace that encodes each symbol into an 'object/symbol name' pair that is then linearly searched for, first by the object and then the symbol name. The basic structure—a list of variable-length "load commands" that reference pages of data elsewhere in the file—was also used in the executable ...
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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 computers. Within the market of desktop and laptop computers it is the second most widely used desktop OS, after Microsoft Windows and ahead of ChromeOS. macOS succeeded the classic Mac OS, a Mac operating system with nine releases from 1984 to 1999. During this time, Apple cofounder Steve Jobs had left Apple and started another company, NeXT, developing the NeXTSTEP platform that would later be acquired by Apple to form the basis of macOS. The first desktop version, Mac OS X 10.0, was released in March 2001, with its first update, 10.1, arriving later that year. All releases from Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard and after are UNIX 03 certified, with an exception for OS X 10.7 Lion. Apple's other operating systems (iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, tvOS, audioOS) are derivatives of macOS. A promi ...
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Reduced Instruction Set Computer
In computer engineering, a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) is a computer designed to simplify the individual instructions given to the computer to accomplish tasks. Compared to the instructions given to a complex instruction set computer (CISC), a RISC computer might require more instructions (more code) in order to accomplish a task because the individual instructions are written in simpler code. The goal is to offset the need to process more instructions by increasing the speed of each instruction, in particular by implementing an instruction pipeline, which may be simpler given simpler instructions. The key operational concept of the RISC computer is that each instruction performs only one function (e.g. copy a value from memory to a register). The RISC computer usually has many (16 or 32) high-speed, general-purpose registers with a load/store architecture in which the code for the register-register instructions (for performing arithmetic and tests) are separate fr ...
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Executable
In computing, executable code, an executable file, or an executable program, sometimes simply referred to as an executable or binary, causes a computer "to perform indicated tasks according to encoded instruction (computer science), instructions", as opposed to a data (computing), data file that must be interpreted (parser, parsed) by a program to be meaningful. The exact interpretation depends upon the use. "Instructions" is traditionally taken to mean machine code instructions for a physical central processing unit, CPU. In some contexts, a file containing scripting instructions (such as bytecode) may also be considered executable. Generation of executable files Executable files can be hand-coded in machine language, although it is far more convenient to develop software as source code in a high-level language that can be easily understood by humans. In some cases, source code might be specified in assembly language instead, which remains human-readable while being close ...
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Operating System
An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also include accounting software for cost allocation of processor time, mass storage, printing, and other resources. For hardware functions such as input and output and memory allocation, the operating system acts as an intermediary between programs and the computer hardware, although the application code is usually executed directly by the hardware and frequently makes system calls to an OS function or is interrupted by it. Operating systems are found on many devices that contain a computer from cellular phones and video game consoles to web servers and supercomputers. The dominant general-purpose personal computer operating system is Microsoft Windows with a market share of around 74.99%. macOS by Apple Inc. is in second place (14.84%), and ...
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Classic Mac OS
Mac OS (originally System Software; retronym: Classic Mac OS) is the series of operating systems developed for the Macintosh family of personal computers by Apple Computer from 1984 to 2001, starting with System 1 and ending with Mac OS 9. The Macintosh operating system is credited with having popularized the graphical user interface concept. It was included with every Macintosh that was sold during the era in which it was developed, and many updates to the system software were done in conjunction with the introduction of new Macintosh systems. Apple released the Macintosh 128K, original Macintosh on January 24, 1984. The System 1, first version of the system software, which had no official name, was partially based on the Lisa OS, which Apple previously released for the Apple Lisa, Lisa computer in 1983. As part of an agreement allowing Xerox to buy Share (finance), shares in Apple at a favorable price, it also used concepts from the Xerox PARC Xerox Alto, Alto computer, which ...
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