What is Operating System? (OS)

Hello friends, today we are going to talk about Operating system. What actually Operating System is? As you know we always keep it simple for you to understand easily, so it is very easy to understand about operating system.

An Operating System, referred to as an OS, is actually a set of programs that manage all the functions of computer. It works as a brain of computer. As our body needs brain to do various functions just like that operating system or OS work as a brain of the computer which tells the computer how to work and how to interact. Like, without brain our body isn’t capable of doing anything so without operating system we are not able to do anything on computer. It manages the hardware and software.

We can also describe an OS as a principal of the school. A principal of a school has various responsibilities like supervising students, teachers etc. If there is no principal in school everything become unorganized, similarly, an OS organized everything in a computer system.

Operating System is also known as system software. Computer requires specific instruction and these instructions are converted into a machine language so the computer can understand the requirements of the users. Operating system helps us (user) to interact with software and hardware to perform the specific function.

In computer system, we have a bunch of hardware like monitor, keyboard, CPU etc. and Operating System organizes files and let hardware know what it should do. Operating System acts as a coordinator between the Hardware and Software of a computer system. Operating System also performs some basic tasks like controlling inputs and outputs. Nowadays, operating system gives us a graphical user interface, popularly known as GUI, for higher functions. We can also say that the OS forms a platform for other system and application software.

In early days of computer, there was only one OS but time to time, when the computer progressed, the Operating System turned into Microsoft Disc Operating System, known as MS-DOS. But, also MS-DOS was not capable of doing many tasks without the software.

What is the need of an Operating System?

I hope you are already understands about the need of an Operating System in computer system in above discussion. Now, we will provide you some more knowledge about the need of an OS in just three points:

• What to do?
• When to do?
• How to do?

To explain these points let’s take an example of gaming. I hope you all play games on computers, Sony PlayStation, X-Box etc. While playing the games you used game board, joysticks, remotes, monitors or disk holder – hardware. And the sound and animation effects – software.

What to do?

To perform a set of moves in the game for the game characters.

When to do?

All the things or moves in a specific character done when we pressed the required buttons in a correct sequence.

How to do?

Through proper communication with application software, and instructing it about the correct motion of the players which we see in our screen.

Why it is a System Software?

This is also a very common that why OS is system software not application. So let’s see… if you want to run any application software you required an Operating System, without OS any application software cannot run on computer. Operating System does some important tasks for you to give a best result like, taking an input from keyboard, processing the instruction and giving the output from the computer screen.

Application program is run on OS but an application program must be written in that way so it can run on any specific operating system.

 I hope you understand everything about Operating System. Still, if you have any doubts related to anything you can feel free to comment below and please share to your friends...

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