OPERATING SYSTEM

The software and the hardware can't work together without something to act as an 'in-between'. The task of co-ordinating all of the software and hardware is given to the Operating System.

What is an operating system?

There are two main categories of software. There is 'application software' with examples such as word processors, spreadsheets and databases. The other main category is called 'system software' which includes the operating system and utility programs.

The operating system is needed to control everything happening in your computer. It controls the memory, the disks, the peripherals and the application software.

Tasks of the operating system:

Sorting out where to store data on disk drives.

Dealing with security – user name and passwords

Organizing files and folders.

Managing data transfer from the CPU to the peripherals eg: printer, monitor, etc

Deals with saving, deleting, opening, closing files.

Example for operating system:

Mac OS, LINUX, WINDOWS XP, WINDOWS 2000, WINDOWS NT, UNIX

Single user operating system

The operating system on your computer only has to deal with the tasks you are giving it. It doesn't need to worry about sharing out memory, hardware or processing time. This is called a single user operating system. Examples of such operating systems are Microsoft Windows 95, 98, 2000, XP and Vista as well as the Mac OS range.

Multi user operating system

“Multiuser software allows several users to access the same data at the same time. A multiuser operating system needs to be used with most networks.”

Multi tasking operating system

Multitasking means the ability of a computer to run two more programs at the same time.