When you turn on your computer,
it's nice to think that you're in control. There's the trusty computer mouse, which you can move anywhere on
the screen, summoning up your music library or Internet browser at the slightest whim.
Although it's easy to feel like a director in front of your desktop or laptop, there's a lot going on inside,
and the real man behind the curtain handling the necessary tasks is the
operating system.
Most desktop or laptop PCs come pre-loaded with Microsoft
Windows. Macintosh computers come pre-loaded with Mac OS X. Many corporate
servers use the Linux or UNIX operating systems. The operating system (OS) is
the first thing loaded onto the computer -- without the operating system, a
computer is useless.
More recently, operating systems have started to pop up in
smaller computers as well. If you like to tinker with electronic devices,
you're probably pleased that operating systems can now be found on many of the
devices we use every day, from cell
phones to wireless access points.
The computers used in these little devices have gotten so powerful that they
can now actually run an operating system and applications. The computer in a
typical modern cell phone is now more powerful than a desktop computer from 20
years ago, so this progression makes sense and is a natural development.
The purpose of an operating system is to organize and control
hardware and software so that the device it lives in behaves in a flexible but
predictable way. In this article, we'll tell you what a piece of software must
do to be called an operating system, show you how the operating system in your
desktop computer works and give you some examples of how to take control of the
other operating systems around you.
Comments
Post a Comment