Editing History of operating systems (section)

===Operating systems in video games and consoles===
Since virtually all video game consoles and [[Video game arcade cabinet|arcade cabinets]] designed and built after 1980 were true digital machines based on [[microprocessor]]s (unlike the earlier ''[[Pong]]'' clones and derivatives), some of them carried a minimal form of [[BIOS]] or built-in game, such as the [[ColecoVision]], the [[Master System|Sega Master System]] and the [[SNK]] [[Neo Geo (system)|Neo Geo]].

Modern-day game consoles and videogames, starting with the [[TurboGrafx-16|PC-Engine]], all have a minimal BIOS that also provides some interactive utilities such as [[memory card]] management, [[Compact Disc Digital Audio|audio]] or [[video CD]] playback, [[copy protection]] and sometimes carry [[libraries]] for developers to use etc. Few of these cases, however, would qualify as a true operating system.

The most notable exceptions are probably the [[Dreamcast]] game console which includes a minimal BIOS, like the [[PlayStation (console)|PlayStation]], but can load the [[Windows CE]] operating system from the game disk allowing easily porting of games from the [[IBM PC compatible|PC]] world, and the [[Xbox (console)|Xbox]] game console, which is little more than a disguised Intel-based [[IBM PC compatible|PC]] running a secret, modified version of [[Microsoft Windows]] in the background. Furthermore, there are [[Linux]] versions that will run on a [[Dreamcast]] and later game consoles as well.

Long before that, [[Sony]] had released a kind of [[Game development kit|development kit]] called the [[Net Yaroze]] for its first PlayStation platform, which provided a series of programming and developing tools to be used with a normal PC and a specially modified "Black PlayStation" that could be interfaced with a PC and download programs from it. These operations require in general a functional OS on both platforms involved.

In general, it can be said that videogame consoles and arcade coin-operated machines used at most a built-in [[BIOS]] during the 1970s, 1980s and most of the 1990s, while from the PlayStation era and beyond they started getting more and more sophisticated, to the point of requiring a generic or custom-built OS for aiding in development and expandability.