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Windows Embedded Industry

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110-431: Windows Embedded Industry , formerly Windows Embedded POSReady and Windows Embedded for Point of Service ( WEPOS ), is an operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows Embedded family of products. Based on Windows NT , Windows Embedded Industry is designed for use in industrial devices such as cash registers , automated teller machines , and self service checkouts . Windows Embedded 8.1 Industry

220-596: A Convair 880 jetliner with no money down, for use on routes between Alaska and the contiguous United States. The company introduced the new jet aircraft in 1961. In 1966 the company received its first Boeing 727-100 jets. They removed the Convair 880 from the fleet as a financing condition by Boeing concerning the purchase of the 727 jetliners. Several of Alaska's first 727s were series 100C models, which could be operated as all-cargo freighters, an all-passenger configuration or as mixed passenger/freight combi aircraft . In

330-498: A US$ 40 million profit the next year. Eight percent of these revenues were generated by record-setting cargo operations. Alaska had more competition in 1993 when low-cost airline Southwest Airlines entered the Pacific Northwest by purchasing Morris Air . Alaska Airlines was able to keep its costs down, but it maintained its high level of customer service. The airline promoted itself as "the last great airline" and with

440-428: A system call to perform a block I/O write operation, then the system call might execute the following instructions: While the writing takes place, the operating system will context switch to other processes as normal. When the device finishes writing, the device will interrupt the currently running process by asserting an interrupt request . The device will also place an integer onto the data bus. Upon accepting

550-403: A 737-800 called Spirit of Seattle with Boeing's house colors painted on the fuselage and the airline's Inuit logo painted on the tail fin. Also in 2005, Alaska Airlines contracted out many of its jobs, including ground crew positions, to Menzies Aviation . In some cases, this resulted in an almost 40% decline in wages. This agreement was found to be a violation of union agreements in 2008 and

660-474: A US$ 700,000 debt owed by the Guinean airline to Alaska Airlines. In 1965, Alaska Airlines turned over some routes between small Alaskan communities, and some smaller aircraft, to Wien Air Alaska . This allowed Alaska to focus on more heavily travelled routes and allowed them to sell off smaller aircraft. Throughout the 1960s, Alaska Airlines worked to promote tourism to Alaska by offering charter flights to

770-565: A branch office in Anchorage. Despite its success, Alaska Airlines' worldwide charter business was short-lived. In 1949, the CAB tightened its regulations and placed heavy fines on the airline and shut it down completely for safety violations. The airline was prohibited from operating worldwide charter flights, and president James Wooten left the company. Also in 1949, Alaska Air began operating five Bell 47B helicopters to support oil exploration on

880-641: A businessman from New York City. In 1942, the airline purchased three other airlines in Alaska, including Lavery Air Service, Mirow Air Service, and Pollack Flying Service. They also purchased a hangar at the Anchorage airport . In 1942, the airline's name was changed to Alaska Star Airlines . When the United States entered World War II in December 1941, Alaska Airlines faced a shortage of pilots. During

990-687: A component of the operating system itself . As with 8 Industry, it is available in Pro, Pro Retail, and Enterprise editions. Windows Embedded 8.1 Industry Update was released on April 16, 2014. Mainstream support for Windows Embedded 8.1 Industry ended on July 10, 2018, and extended support ended on July 11, 2023. This marked the final end of "extended support" for the Windows Embedded Industry subfamily after almost 18 years. Unlike with Windows Embedded POSReady 7, however, Windows Embedded 8.1 Industry (along with all other editions of Windows 8.1)

1100-645: A computer even if they are not compatible with the base operating system. A library operating system (libOS) is one in which the services that a typical operating system provides, such as networking, are provided in the form of libraries and composed with a single application and configuration code to construct a unikernel : a specialized (only the absolute necessary pieces of code are extracted from libraries and bound together ), single address space , machine image that can be deployed to cloud or embedded environments. The operating system code and application code are not executed in separated protection domains (there

1210-585: A development of MULTICS for a single user. Because UNIX's source code was available, it became the basis of other, incompatible operating systems, of which the most successful were AT&T 's System V and the University of California 's Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). To increase compatibility, the IEEE released the POSIX standard for operating system application programming interfaces (APIs), which

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1320-471: A few extra features for use in retail environments, while the Enterprise edition provides embedded-specific features designed to integrate seamlessly with Windows 8 Enterprise. Alaska Airlines uses Windows Embedded 8 Industry in-flight entertainment devices. It is unsupported as of January 12, 2016. Based on Windows 8.1 , Windows Embedded 8.1 Industry was released on October 17, 2013, by Microsoft as

1430-484: A large legal settlement was paid. In the twenty-first century, Windows continues to be popular on personal computers but has less market share of servers. UNIX operating systems, especially Linux, are the most popular on enterprise systems and servers but are also used on mobile devices and many other computer systems. On mobile devices, Symbian OS was dominant at first, being usurped by BlackBerry OS (introduced 2002) and iOS for iPhones (from 2007). Later on,

1540-442: A library with no protection between applications, such as eCos . A hypervisor is an operating system that runs a virtual machine . The virtual machine is unaware that it is an application and operates as if it had its own hardware. Virtual machines can be paused, saved, and resumed, making them useful for operating systems research, development, and debugging. They also enhance portability by enabling applications to be run on

1650-539: A load of cargo, or mail needed passage. The airline struggled financially during the Great Depression . Too many airlines were in Anchorage at the time, with not enough demand to support them. As a result, the airline underwent multiple mergers. The first of these mergers was in 1934, when McGee sold his namesake airline for US$ 50,000 (equivalent to $ 1,138,806 in 2023) to Star Air Service , an airline also located in Anchorage. This allowed McGee to enter

1760-447: A malformed machine instruction . However, the most common error conditions are division by zero and accessing an invalid memory address . Users can send messages to the kernel to modify the behavior of a currently running process. For example, in the command-line environment , pressing the interrupt character (usually Control-C ) might terminate the currently running process. To generate software interrupts for x86 CPUs,

1870-455: A particular application's memory is stored, or even whether or not it has been allocated yet. In modern operating systems, memory which is accessed less frequently can be temporarily stored on a disk or other media to make that space available for use by other programs. This is called swapping , as an area of memory can be used by multiple programs, and what that memory area contains can be swapped or exchanged on demand. Virtual memory provides

1980-466: A potentially negative response from the Soviets. The airline gained permission to fly more than two dozen flights in 1970, 1971, and 1972. Alaska Airlines was also operating Boeing 707 , Boeing 720 , and Boeing 720B jetliners in scheduled passenger service between destinations in Alaska and Seattle during the early and mid-1970s. The airline was not in good financial shape at that time. Like much of

2090-503: A program does not interfere with memory already in use by another program. Since programs time share, each program must have independent access to memory. Cooperative memory management, used by many early operating systems, assumes that all programs make voluntary use of the kernel 's memory manager, and do not exceed their allocated memory. This system of memory management is almost never seen any more, since programs often contain bugs which can cause them to exceed their allocated memory. If

2200-408: A program fails, it may cause memory used by one or more other programs to be affected or overwritten. Malicious programs or viruses may purposefully alter another program's memory, or may affect the operation of the operating system itself. With cooperative memory management, it takes only one misbehaved program to crash the system. Memory protection enables the kernel to limit a process' access to

2310-440: A program tries to access memory that is not accessible memory, but nonetheless has been allocated to it, the kernel is interrupted (see § Memory management ) . This kind of interrupt is typically a page fault . When the kernel detects a page fault it generally adjusts the virtual memory range of the program which triggered it, granting it access to the memory requested. This gives the kernel discretionary power over where

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2420-543: A route network primarily focused on connecting cities along the West Coast of the United States to over 100 destinations in Alaska , Hawaii , the contiguous United States , Bahamas , Belize , Canada , Costa Rica , Guatemala and Mexico . The airline operates out of five hubs. Its primary hub is Seattle–Tacoma International Airport . Alaska Airlines is a member of Oneworld , the third-largest airline alliance in

2530-531: A separate airline, but this proved economically unviable and Jet America's operations were merged into Alaska's. Alaska discontinued all flights to the Midwest and the East coast formerly operated by Jet America. Additional MD-80s entered the fleet via the acquisition of Jet America Airlines in 1987. There was a big seasonal imbalance in travel to Alaska, which mainly took place in the summer. To compensate for this,

2640-470: A significant amount of CPU time. Direct memory access (DMA) is an architecture feature to allow devices to bypass the CPU and access main memory directly. (Separate from the architecture, a device may perform direct memory access to and from main memory either directly or via a bus.) When a computer user types a key on the keyboard, typically the character appears immediately on the screen. Likewise, when

2750-402: A specific moment in time. Hard real-time systems require exact timing and are common in manufacturing , avionics , military, and other similar uses. With soft real-time systems, the occasional missed event is acceptable; this category often includes audio or multimedia systems, as well as smartphones. In order for hard real-time systems be sufficiently exact in their timing, often they are just

2860-544: A springboard to expand into larger, more profitable markets. The airline began the 1990s with plans to lease 24 Boeing 737-400s from International Lease Finance Corporation (ILFC). The first aircraft was delivered in April 1992. In 1991, Alaska Airlines added several routes. In the Russian Far East , it added the cities of Magadan and Khabarovsk , as well as service to Toronto , its first Canadian city and

2970-417: A user moves a mouse , the cursor immediately moves across the screen. Each keystroke and mouse movement generates an interrupt called Interrupt-driven I/O . An interrupt-driven I/O occurs when a process causes an interrupt for every character or word transmitted. Devices such as hard disk drives , solid-state drives , and magnetic tape drives can transfer data at a rate high enough that interrupting

3080-453: A variation of the classic reader/writer problem . The writer receives a pipe from the shell for its output to be sent to the reader's input stream. The command-line syntax is alpha | bravo . alpha will write to the pipe when its computation is ready and then sleep in the wait queue. bravo will then be moved to the ready queue and soon will read from its input stream. The kernel will generate software interrupts to coordinate

3190-418: 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 . In the personal computer market, as of September 2024 , Microsoft Windows holds a dominant market share of around 73%. macOS by Apple Inc. is in second place (15%), Linux is in third place (5%), and ChromeOS

3300-562: Is remote direct memory access , which enables each CPU to access memory belonging to other CPUs. Multicomputer operating systems often support remote procedure calls where a CPU can call a procedure on another CPU, or distributed shared memory , in which the operating system uses virtualization to generate shared memory that does not physically exist. A distributed system is a group of distinct, networked computers—each of which might have their own operating system and file system. Unlike multicomputers, they may be dispersed anywhere in

3410-484: Is a change away from the currently running process. Similarly, both hardware and software interrupts execute an interrupt service routine . Software interrupts may be normally occurring events. It is expected that a time slice will occur, so the kernel will have to perform a context switch . A computer program may set a timer to go off after a few seconds in case too much data causes an algorithm to take too long. Software interrupts may be error conditions, such as

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3520-422: Is difficult to define, but has been called "the layer of software that manages a computer's resources for its users and their applications ". Operating systems include the software that is always running, called a kernel —but can include other software as well. The two other types of programs that can run on a computer are system programs —which are associated with the operating system, but may not be part of

3630-896: Is in fourth place (2%). In the mobile sector (including smartphones and tablets ), as of September 2023 , Android's share is 68.92%, followed by Apple's iOS and iPadOS with 30.42%, and other operating systems with .66%. Linux distributions are dominant in the server and supercomputing sectors. Other specialized classes of operating systems (special-purpose operating systems), such as embedded and real-time systems, exist for many applications. Security-focused operating systems also exist. Some operating systems have low system requirements (e.g. light-weight Linux distribution ). Others may have higher system requirements. Some operating systems require installation or may come pre-installed with purchased computers ( OEM -installation), whereas others may run directly from media (i.e. live CD ) or flash memory (i.e. USB stick). An operating system

3740-796: Is installed. This edition was released on December 9, 2008, exactly seven months after its Windows XP SP3 counterpart was launched on May 6, 2008. Prior to XP's end of support, some Windows XP users have reported that the Regedit tool on their operating system can be used to 'trick' Windows Update into accepting updates targeting POSReady 2009. POSReady 2009 is also notable as being the last XP derived operating system to receive official support from Microsoft . Starting in 2017, Microsoft announced end of support for POSReady 2009. Mainstream support for Windows Embedded POSReady 2009—the last supported edition of Windows based on Windows XP—ended on April 8, 2014, and extended support ended on April 9, 2019, marking

3850-443: Is only a single application running, at least conceptually, so there is no need to prevent interference between applications) and OS services are accessed via simple library calls (potentially inlining them based on compiler thresholds), without the usual overhead of context switches , in a way similarly to embedded and real-time OSes. Note that this overhead is not negligible: to the direct cost of mode switching it's necessary to add

3960-499: Is supported by most UNIX systems. MINIX was a stripped-down version of UNIX, developed in 1987 for educational uses, that inspired the commercially available, free software Linux . Since 2008, MINIX is used in controllers of most Intel microchips , while Linux is widespread in data centers and Android smartphones. The invention of large scale integration enabled the production of personal computers (initially called microcomputers ) from around 1980. For around five years,

4070-473: Is that they do not load user-installed software. Consequently, they do not need protection between different applications, enabling simpler designs. Very small operating systems might run in less than 10 kilobytes , and the smallest are for smart cards . Examples include Embedded Linux , QNX , VxWorks , and the extra-small systems RIOT and TinyOS . A real-time operating system is an operating system that guarantees to process events or data by or at

4180-435: Is the part of the operating system that provides protection between different applications and users. This protection is key to improving reliability by keeping errors isolated to one program, as well as security by limiting the power of malicious software and protecting private data, and ensuring that one program cannot monopolize the computer's resources. Most operating systems have two modes of operation: in user mode ,

4290-542: The CP/M (Control Program for Microcomputers) was the most popular operating system for microcomputers. Later, IBM bought the DOS (Disk Operating System) from Microsoft . After modifications requested by IBM, the resulting system was called MS-DOS (MicroSoft Disk Operating System) and was widely used on IBM microcomputers. Later versions increased their sophistication, in part by borrowing features from UNIX. Apple 's Macintosh

4400-843: The Convair 240 , de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter and Super Catalina amphibian aircraft as well as two versions of the Grumman Goose amphibian aircraft , one with piston engines and the other model is a conversion to turboprop engines which the airline called the "Turbo-Goose". The Catalina and Grumman amphibian seaplane aircraft joined the fleet when the airline acquired local southeast Alaska operator Alaska Coastal Airlines in 1968. During this time, Alaska Air faced some tough competition from other airlines, such as Northwest Airlines , Pan Am, and Pacific Northern Airlines , an Alaska-based air carrier operating Boeing 720 jetliners that

4510-629: The Gulf of Aqaba to Tel Aviv . After unloading the refugees, crews then immediately continued to Cyprus, afraid to stay on the ground in Tel Aviv for fear of being bombed. Some 49,000 Yemenite Jews were airlifted by Alaska Airlines and other carriers without a single loss of life. Alaska Airlines started the 1950s without its worldwide charter business and operations restricted to the state of Alaska. In 1950, it purchased two smaller Alaskan airlines, Collins Air Service and Al Jones Airways . Though

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4620-504: The INT assembly language instruction is available. The syntax is INT X , where X is the offset number (in hexadecimal format) to the interrupt vector table . To generate software interrupts in Unix-like operating systems, the kill(pid,signum) system call will send a signal to another process. pid is the process identifier of the receiving process. signum is

4730-510: The North Slope thus becoming the first airline in Alaska to operate rotary-wing aircraft . In 1949, the airline was a major participant in an effort by the newly established state of Israel to airlift Jews out of Yemen to Israel in what became known as Operation Magic Carpet . C-46 or DC-4 aircraft were used for the nearly 3,000-mile flight, made necessary to avoid overflying Arab nations. Planes flew from Eritrea to Aden , then along

4840-420: The transistor in the mid-1950s, mainframes began to be built. These still needed professional operators who manually do what a modern operating system would do, such as scheduling programs to run, but mainframes still had rudimentary operating systems such as Fortran Monitor System (FMS) and IBSYS . In the 1960s, IBM introduced the first series of intercompatible computers ( System/360 ). All of them ran

4950-692: The 1980s, Alaska Airlines began acquiring McDonnell Douglas MD-80s to replace its aging 727s. Alaska was the launch customer for the MD-83, taking delivery of its first MD-80s in 1985. Also in 1985, the Alaska Air Group was formed as a holding company for Alaska Airlines. In 1986 Alaska Air Group acquired regional airline Horizon Air , which remained a separate brand from Alaska Airlines. Since then, both airlines have been subsidiaries of Alaska Air Group. In 1987, Alaska Airlines purchased Jet America Airlines . Alaska initially operated Jet America as

5060-410: The CPU for every byte or word transferred, and having the CPU transfer the byte or word between the device and memory, would require too much CPU time. Data is, instead, transferred between the device and memory independently of the CPU by hardware such as a channel or a direct memory access controller; an interrupt is delivered only when all the data is transferred. If a computer program executes

5170-474: The CPU to re-enter supervisor mode , placing the kernel in charge. This is called a segmentation violation or Seg-V for short, and since it is both difficult to assign a meaningful result to such an operation, and because it is usually a sign of a misbehaving program, the kernel generally resorts to terminating the offending program, and reports the error. Windows versions 3.1 through ME had some level of memory protection, but programs could easily circumvent

5280-617: The airline apart from other ones of the day. Under his leadership, Alaska Airlines became the first to show inflight movies. The company began service with the Douglas DC-6 , the airline's first pressurized plane, enabling flights above clouds and weather disturbances. On these DC-6s, the airline introduced "Golden Nugget" service, which included an on-board saloon and piano. In 1961, competitors began introducing jets on routes Alaska Airlines flew. To counter this competition, Willis negotiated with aircraft manufacturer Convair to purchase

5390-497: The airline became the first U.S. airline to sell tickets on the Internet. By 2000, all the airline's planes carried automated external defibrillators , for use in in-flight emergencies. The airline installed self-service kiosks called "Instant Travel Machines" that printed boarding passes, allowing customers to bypass the traditional ticket counter. An X-ray device, an addition to the unit allowing passengers to check their own baggage

5500-526: The airline had grown much under the ownership of Raymond Marshall, the CAB forced him out in 1951 due to continuing financial troubles. Marshall had owned Alaska Airlines with the intent of getting money for himself and he was not concerned about the long-term stability of the company. In 1951, the CAB awarded Alaska Airlines with a temporary certificate allowing them to operate on routes from the Alaskan cities of Anchorage and Fairbanks to Seattle and Portland in

5610-691: The airline industry, Alaska Airlines was hit with rising fuel and operating costs and was on the verge of bankruptcy. Revenues were significantly reduced when work on the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System was delayed. The airline's cargo aircraft had played a key role in building the pipeline but now sat idle. The airline took another blow on September 4, 1971, when a Boeing 727-100 jetliner crashed on landing in Juneau , killing 111 people and resulting in America's worst single-plane crash at

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5720-578: The airline industry. In 2003, Alaska Airlines won the Technology Leadership Award from the magazine Air Transport World for its pioneering of new technologies both in the airport and within the airplane itself. In 2005, due to the greater efficiency of the Boeing 737 Next Generation and rising costs for maintenance, fuel, and crew training, Alaska Airlines decided to phase out its remaining 26 MD-80s and trained its pilots to fly

5830-457: The airline introduced service to Mexican resorts, where most travel takes place in the winter. In 1988, the airline began servicing the Mexican resort cities of Mazatlán and Puerto Vallarta . By the end of the 1980s, 70 percent of Alaska Airlines' passengers flew south of Seattle and the airline served 30 cities in 6 states outside Alaska. The airline had successfully used the state of Alaska as

5940-523: The airline purchased many surplus military aircraft from the government that had been used during World War II. The airline purchased Douglas DC-3s , Douglas DC-4s , and Curtiss-Wright C-46 Commandos . Alaska Airlines was the first carrier certified to operate DC-3s on skis. Alaska Airlines' large charter business made it profitable, and the airline moved its base of operations to Paine Field , an airport, in Everett, Washington, north of Seattle. It kept

6050-779: The airline resumed services to the Alaskan cities Nome and Kotzebue , and it introduced service to Palm Springs, California . Burbank and Ontario were added in 1981. In 1979, Alaska studied the possibility of acquiring and merging with Hughes Air West . This never came to fruition. Other cities in the continental US that were added to the airline's route map by 1985 were Oakland and San Jose in California , Spokane in Washington , Boise in Idaho , and Phoenix and Tucson in Arizona . Deregulation also brought challenges to

6160-530: The airline took delivery of its first 737-900. In 2001, the airline was granted slot exemptions by the Department of Transportation to operate a nonstop flight from Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport to Seattle, but it was halted after only a week due to the September 11 attacks . The airline resumed service to Reagan Airport on December 4, 2001, to meet the demand. In January 2002, William Ayer

6270-443: The airline. The airline was faced with increased competition and inflation that put tremendous pressure on costs, profits, and salaries. By 1979, competitors Northwest Airlines and Western Airlines were both flying wide-body McDonnell Douglas DC-10 jets on the core Anchorage–Seattle nonstop route. Additional competition came from Wien Air Alaska , which had begun flying nonstop jet service between Anchorage and Seattle. Northwest

6380-495: The aisles, and having bingo games on board while en route. In December 1962, Air Guinée signed a contract with Alaska Airlines, which had Alaska Airlines providing management expertise, in addition to two Douglas DC-4s. The deal would have had Alaska Airlines contracting with the airline over seven years. The contract ended after six months, leading to the United States Agency for International Development paying

6490-538: The application program, which then interacts with the user and with hardware devices. However, in some systems an application can request that the operating system execute another application within the same process, either as a subroutine or in a separate thread, e.g., the LINK and ATTACH facilities of OS/360 and successors . An interrupt (also known as an abort , exception , fault , signal , or trap ) provides an efficient way for most operating systems to react to

6600-406: The attempted acquisition. Wien Air was liquidated in 1984, and never merged into Alaska Airlines. At the time of deregulation, Alaska Airlines served ten cities in Alaska and one in the contiguous US—the city of Seattle—and it had only ten planes in its fleet. Immediately after deregulation, the airline began to expand, adding the cities of Portland and San Francisco to its network. Soon later,

6710-453: The computer's memory. Various methods of memory protection exist, including memory segmentation and paging . All methods require some level of hardware support (such as the 80286 MMU), which does not exist in all computers. In both segmentation and paging, certain protected mode registers specify to the CPU what memory address it should allow a running program to access. Attempts to access other addresses trigger an interrupt, which causes

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6820-409: The contiguous United States. This award became permanent in 1957. In 1952, the CAB appointed Nelson David as president, and he began to improve the financial stability of the airline. By 1957, with the carrier in a better financial situation, David left and Charles Willis Jr., became the company's new president and CEO. A pilot during World War II, Willis introduced several marketing gimmicks that set

6930-479: The continental United States. In an attempt to increase the state's appeal, Alaska Airlines conducted a promotional tour of Japan in 1963. In 1967, as the state of Alaska celebrated its centennial, Alaska Airlines introduced a promotional "Gay Nineties" theme with stewardesses dressed in Edwardian outfits. That year, Alaska Airlines expanded to southeast Alaska with the introduction of service to Sitka . This led to

7040-471: The details of how interrupt service routines behave vary from operating system to operating system. However, several interrupt functions are common. The architecture and operating system must: A software interrupt is a message to a process that an event has occurred. This contrasts with a hardware interrupt — which is a message to the central processing unit (CPU) that an event has occurred. Software interrupts are similar to hardware interrupts — there

7150-422: The environment. Interrupts cause the central processing unit (CPU) to have a control flow change away from the currently running program to an interrupt handler , also known as an interrupt service routine (ISR). An interrupt service routine may cause the central processing unit (CPU) to have a context switch . The details of how a computer processes an interrupt vary from architecture to architecture, and

7260-438: The final end of all support for the Windows Embedded Industry subfamily after more than 19 years. Based on Windows 8 , Windows Embedded 8 Industry was released on April 2, 2013 and is available in Pro, Pro Retail, and Enterprise editions. The Pro and Pro Retail editions are only available pre-installed on OEM devices, while the Enterprise edition is available through the volume licensing channel only. The Pro Retail edition adds

7370-564: The final end of extended support for the Windows 7 codebase after more than 12 years. Windows Embedded POSReady 7 was eligible for the paid Extended Security Updates (ESU) program. This service was available via OEMs , in yearly installments. Security updates were available for the operating system until October 8, 2024. This marked the final end of IA-32 updates on the Windows NT 6.1 product line after more than 15 years, as well as marking

7480-622: The first city east of the Rocky Mountains . Toronto was later dropped in 1992 and the Russian destinations were discontinued in 1998. As the airline marked its 19th consecutive year of profits in a turbulent industry and racked up many awards for customer service, Bruce Kennedy retired in May 1991 and was succeeded by Raymond J. Vecci. Alaska Airlines faced increased competition from low-cost carriers . One carrier that competed with Alaska

7590-734: The first edition of Windows Embedded that could use the Windows Update Agent to update an installed and deployed image. Service Pack 3 (SP3) for WEPOS was released on October 8, 2008. Mainstream support ended on April 12, 2011, and extended support ended on April 12, 2016. When the new Microsoft Lifecycle Support policy for Internet Explorer went into effect on January 12, 2016, IE6 support was dropped from not only WEPOS, but all other supported platforms. Windows Embedded POSReady 2009 offers more features over Windows Embedded for Point of Service such as Full Localization, Internet Explorer 7 and XPS support if .NET Framework 3.5 or higher

7700-577: The first time in 20 years, it posted a loss of US$ 121 million. To save money, the airline canceled two proposed maintenance facilities and deferred a large aircraft purchase worth US$ 2 billion. Deferred maintenance from this period of cost-cutting would ultimately cause the crash of Flight 261 in 2000 . It was able to increase utilization on its existing planes, though. The airline cut labor costs, but this ended up making relations with unions tense. The cost reductions produced quick results. In 1993, their losses decreased to US$ 45 million and they made

7810-487: The first time on the American Stock Exchange . The name Alaska Airlines was adopted on May 2, 1944, having narrowly beaten a competitor who was applying for the name. In the 1940s, Alaska's headquarters were in Anchorage. In 1945, Alaska Airlines hired its first stewardesses. In 1947, James Wooten became president of the airline and began an effort to expand the company. Under his leadership,

7920-410: The hardware checks that the software is only executing legal instructions, whereas the kernel has unrestricted powers and is not subject to these checks. The kernel also manages memory for other processes and controls access to input/output devices. The operating system provides an interface between an application program and the computer hardware, so that an application program can interact with

8030-493: The hardware only by obeying rules and procedures programmed into the operating system. The operating system is also a set of services which simplify development and execution of application programs. Executing an application program typically involves the creation of a process by the operating system kernel , which assigns memory space and other resources, establishes a priority for the process in multi-tasking systems, loads program binary code into memory, and initiates execution of

8140-418: The indirect pollution of important processor structures (like CPU caches , the instruction pipeline , and so on) which affects both user-mode and kernel-mode performance. The first computers in the late 1940s and 1950s were directly programmed either with plugboards or with machine code inputted on media such as punch cards , without programming languages or operating systems. After the introduction of

8250-404: The interrupt request, the operating system will: When the writing process has its time slice expired, the operating system will: With the program counter now reset, the interrupted process will resume its time slice. Among other things, a multiprogramming operating system kernel must be responsible for managing all system memory which is currently in use by the programs. This ensures that

8360-431: The kernel—and applications—all other software. There are three main purposes that an operating system fulfills: With multiprocessors multiple CPUs share memory. A multicomputer or cluster computer has multiple CPUs, each of which has its own memory . Multicomputers were developed because large multiprocessors are difficult to engineer and prohibitively expensive; they are universal in cloud computing because of

8470-400: The memory allocated to a different one. Around the same time, teleprinters began to be used as terminals so multiple users could access the computer simultaneously. The operating system MULTICS was intended to allow hundreds of users to access a large computer. Despite its limited adoption, it can be considered the precursor to cloud computing . The UNIX operating system originated as

8580-421: The mining industry. With a fleet of 15 aircraft, Star Air Service was a dominant airline in Alaska, but the airline continued to struggle financially because of high maintenance costs for its wood-and-fabric planes. In 1937, McGee came back to the airline and opened a liquor store, and the airline began flying liquor to remote Alaskan communities. That year, Star Air Service purchased Alaska Interior Airlines and

8690-526: The motto "For the same price, you just get more". Analysts felt that Alaska Air needed deeper cost cuts. At the same time, the company had many strikes by the flight attendants' union. Alaska continued to take delivery of new MD-83s during the 1990s, both to meet the demands of a growing route system and to replace its aging and fuel inefficient 727 fleets. Their last 727 was retired in March 1994. The airline's MD-80 fleet peaked at 44 aircraft in 1996. Vecci

8800-408: The need to use it. A general protection fault would be produced, indicating a segmentation violation had occurred; however, the system would often crash anyway. The use of virtual memory addressing (such as paging or segmentation) means that the kernel can choose what memory each program may use at any given time, allowing the operating system to use the same memory locations for multiple tasks. If

8910-535: The newer Boeing 737-800s that were being ordered to replace them. According to the airline, the MD-80 burned 1,100 US gallons (4,200 L) of fuel per hour, while the 737-800 burned just 850 US gallons (3,200 L) per hour. The last MD-80 flights flew in August 2008, with one flight from San Jose to Seattle and another from Sacramento to Seattle. To mark its transition to an all-Boeing fleet, Alaska Airlines unveiled

9020-598: The next 25 years. It became the first carrier to fly the Lockheed L-100 Hercules L382 model, the civil version of the military C-130 cargo turboprop, which was used to transport oil drilling rigs to Alaska's North Slope and later to Ecuador . Alaska also owned Lockheed Constellation propliners including two Lockheed L-1649A Starliners from 1962 to 1968, and three L-1049's which were used for Military Air Transport Service operations. Smaller prop and turboprop aircraft were operated, including

9130-408: The open-source Android operating system (introduced 2008), with a Linux kernel and a C library ( Bionic ) partially based on BSD code, became most popular. The components of an operating system are designed to ensure that various parts of a computer function cohesively. With the de facto obsoletion of DOS , all user software must interact with the operating system to access hardware. The kernel

9240-613: The overall end of all security updates for the Windows XP codebase after almost 18 years. Windows Embedded POSReady 7, which is based on Windows 7 with SP1 , was released on July 1, 2011, nearly two years after Windows 7 debuted. It is the last supported edition of Windows based on Windows 7 to receive official support from Microsoft . Mainstream support for Windows Embedded POSReady 7 ended on October 11, 2016  ( 2016-10-11 ) and extended support ended on October 12, 2021  ( 2021-10-12 ) . That date marked

9350-421: The piping. Signals may be classified into 7 categories. The categories are: Input/output (I/O) devices are slower than the CPU. Therefore, it would slow down the computer if the CPU had to wait for each I/O to finish. Instead, a computer may implement interrupts for I/O completion, avoiding the need for polling or busy waiting. Some computers require an interrupt for each character or word, costing

9460-650: The programmer or the user with the perception that there is a much larger amount of RAM in the computer than is really there. Alaska Airlines Alaska Airlines is a major American airline headquartered in SeaTac, Washington , within the Seattle metropolitan area . It is the sixth-largest airline in North America when measured by scheduled passengers carried, as of 2023. Alaska, together with its regional partners Horizon Air and SkyWest Airlines operates

9570-428: The proposed merger and declined to file a lawsuit to block it. The merger received the approval of the U.S. Department of Transportation on September 17, 2024, and was completed the following day. McGee Airways , a precursor to Alaska Airlines, was established by Linious "Mac" McGee and flew its first service between Anchorage and Bristol Bay . Service was unscheduled, with flights taking off when passengers,

9680-532: The purchase of two smaller airlines, Alaska Coastal Airlines and Cordova Airlines, in 1968. In the beginning of the 1970s, Alaska Airlines began Boeing 707 charter flights to Siberia in the Soviet Union. This was the result of three years of secret negotiations between Alaska Airlines and Soviet authorities, in which the US Department of State reluctantly chose not to block the plan for fear of

9790-418: The same operating system— OS/360 —which consisted of millions of lines of assembly language that had thousands of bugs . The OS/360 also was the first popular operating system to support multiprogramming , such that the CPU could be put to use on one job while another was waiting on input/output (I/O). Holding multiple jobs in memory necessitated memory partitioning and safeguards against one job accessing

9900-400: The signal number (in mnemonic format) to be sent. (The abrasive name of kill was chosen because early implementations only terminated the process.) In Unix-like operating systems, signals inform processes of the occurrence of asynchronous events. To communicate asynchronously, interrupts are required. One reason a process needs to asynchronously communicate to another process solves

10010-400: The size of the machine needed. The different CPUs often need to send and receive messages to each other; to ensure good performance, the operating systems for these machines need to minimize this copying of packets . Newer systems are often multiqueue —separating groups of users into separate queues —to reduce the need for packet copying and support more concurrent users. Another technique

10120-430: The spring of 1967, greatly increased passenger loads required a quick addition of fleet aircraft. Alaska purchased a Convair 990 jetliner, formerly operated by Brazilian air carrier Varig as PP-VJE, which then became Alaska Airlines N987AS. This aircraft remained in service along with an increased fleet of Boeing 727-100s. They were joined by stretched Boeing 727-200s which became Alaska Airlines' signature aircraft for

10230-442: The system and may also include accounting software for cost allocation of processor time , mass storage , peripherals, 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

10340-498: The time. Because the airline was struggling financially, the airline's board ousted president and CEO Charles Willis. Former board member Ronald Cosgrave succeeded him. The airline was US$ 22 million in debt when Cosgrave took over, so Cosgrave began to make major cuts. The airline's cargo business was dropped completely, as were many flights and employees. Cosgrave also sought to improve the airline's tarnished image of "Elastic Airlines", referring to its poor schedule keeping. The logo

10450-467: The war, the airline lacked funds and equipment, and pilots were often forced to buy fuel for their planes out of their own pockets. The company, which was frequently subjected to lawsuits, also went through many different presidents during this time. In 1943, Alaska Airlines purchased the Lockheed Model 18 Lodestar , its first multi-engine aircraft. That same year, the company's stock was traded for

10560-473: The world. Middleware , an additional software layer between the operating system and applications, is often used to improve consistency. Although it functions similarly to an operating system, it is not a true operating system. Embedded operating systems are designed to be used in embedded computer systems , whether they are internet of things objects or not connected to a network. Embedded systems include many household appliances. The distinguishing factor

10670-408: The world. As of 2020, the airline employs over 16,000 people and has been ranked by J. D. Power and Associates as having the highest customer satisfaction of the traditional airlines for twelve consecutive years. In December 2023, Alaska Airlines announced plans to buy Hawaiian Airlines in a $ 1.9 billion deal. On August 19, 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice completed its regulatory review of

10780-516: Was MarkAir . Since it began operating in 1984, competition had been reduced because it had worked out feeder agreements with Alaska Airlines. However, after Alaska Air declined to buy the airline in the fall of 1991, it intensified competition with Alaska. Mark Air offered low-cost service on the Anchorage-Seattle route and other routes in Alaska, where Alaska Airlines earned almost one-third of its revenues. This hurt Alaska Airlines. For

10890-470: Was acquired by and merged into Western Airlines in 1967. Northwest and Pan Am at different times operated Boeing 747 wide-body jetliners on their services to Alaska with Northwest flying Seattle–Anchorage nonstop with the jumbo jet and Pan Am flying Seattle–Fairbanks nonstop with the 747. To set itself apart from the competition, Alaska Air turned to some cheap but imaginative gimmicks such as having safety instructions read as rhymes, staging fashion shows in

11000-475: Was being tested in 1999 at Anchorage. This concept, known as "Airport of the Future" by the airline, was first tested in Anchorage and was later brought to its Seattle hub, and it drew attention from other airlines. The airline was the first airline in the world to integrate GPS and Enhanced Ground Proximity Warning System (EGPWS) technology, adding a real-time, three-dimensional display of terrain. The system

11110-455: Was changed to an image of a smiling Inuk man, which remains today. Although the exact identity of the man is unknown, some believe it to be the face of either Chester Seveck, a reindeer herder in Kotzebue, or Oliver Amouak, an Inupiat man. Both were Alaskan natives. As a result of these efforts, the airline made a profit in 1973 and continued to be profitable thereafter. Alaska Airlines

11220-458: Was dismissed in 1995 and replaced with John Kelly, the former Horizon Air CEO. The airline soon expanded West Coast routes to take advantage of an "open skies" agreement between the US and Canada. Alaska Airlines pioneered some new technologies through the 1990s. It added a heads-up guidance system in 1989 to operate better in foggy conditions, becoming the first airline to use this technology. In 1995,

11330-491: Was incorporated as Star Air Lines. Star was again sold later that year to a group of miners. In 1938, federal regulation began when Congress created the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB), which awarded the airline most of the routes that it wanted in Alaska, but the coveted route between Seattle and Fairbanks was awarded to Pan American Airways . In 1941, Star Air Service was purchased by Raymond Marshall,

11440-424: Was named CEO of Alaska Airlines. Ayer had been serving as president under Kelly since 1997, having come to Alaska from Horizon two years earlier after spending 13 years with the smaller airline. Ayer took over as chairman and CEO of the Alaska in 2002 upon Kelly's retirement. He led the company through a transformation called Alaska 2010 that was intended to insulate the airline from the traditional boom-bust cycle of

11550-661: Was not eligible for the Extended Security Updates (ESU) program, despite its server counterpart was eligible for ESU. Microsoft rebranded "Windows Embedded" to "Windows IoT" starting with the release of embedded editions of Windows 10. Windows IoT Enterprise acts as the successor to Windows Embedded Industry. Operating system An operating system ( OS ) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common services for computer programs . Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of

11660-567: Was one of only three US carriers that supported the 1978 Airline Deregulation Act , knowing that it would reap significant growth and other benefits from deregulation. After deregulation, the company's real-estate division was spun off into its own company, with Cosgrave becoming its chairman. The leadership of the airline was passed to Bruce Kennedy, a close associate of Cosgrave. Cosgrave allied with Alaska Airlines to purchase competitor Wien Air Alaska . This ultimately failed and resulted in fines for Alaska Air and its leaders for improprieties during

11770-544: Was operating nonstop DC-10 service on the Fairbanks–Seattle route at this time as well. There were tensions with unions, particularly mechanics and flight attendants. In 1985, the company had a three-month-long strike with its machinists . By June 1985, it was able to end the strike by promising to reduce labor costs and maintain peace with unions. In November 1985, the airline introduced a daily air-freight service called Gold Streak , with service to and from Alaska. In

11880-694: Was operational in all the carrier's Boeing 737-400s by April 1999. The late 1990s saw the carrier recording much profitability. The airline added new training and maintenance facilities. The airline began buying new 737s, ordering three Boeing 737-700s and became the launch customer for the Boeing 737-900 when it placed an order for ten of the jets in November 1997. With the delivery of Boeing 737 Next Generation aircraft starting in 1999, Alaska began launching more medium-haul flights. In 2000, Alaska started service between Anchorage and Chicago. In May 2001,

11990-406: Was the first popular computer to use a graphical user interface (GUI). The GUI proved much more user friendly than the text-only command-line interface earlier operating systems had used. Following the success of Macintosh, MS-DOS was updated with a GUI overlay called Windows . Windows later was rewritten as a stand-alone operating system, borrowing so many features from another ( VAX VMS ) that

12100-400: Was the last release, with Windows IoT Enterprise superseding Windows Embedded Industry, Windows Embedded Standard, and Windows For Embedded Systems (FES). Windows Embedded for Point of Service was released on May 24, 2005, nearly a year after its Windows XP SP2 counterpart was launched by Microsoft in August 2004. WEPOS expanded Microsoft 's Windows Embedded family of products. It was

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