What exactly is a computer operating system and what role does it play in a computer?
2007-01-23 07:34:56 · 9 answers · asked by master chief 2 in Computers & Internet ➔ Software
In simple terms it acts as an interface between the user (that's you!) and the hardware.
Without the OS all you have is a bunch of hardware and you have to give instructions in binary. With the OS you can interact with the hardware by just clicking or typing and the OS converts your request to Binary instructions and gives you the output. Thats about as simple as I can put it!
In other words...
The most important program that runs on a computer. Every general-purpose computer must have an operating system to run other programs. Operating systems perform basic tasks, such as recognizing input from the keyboard, sending output to the display screen, keeping track of files and directories on the disk, and controlling peripheral devices such as disk drives and printers.
2007-01-23 07:43:53 · answer #1 · answered by Sooraj 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
A computer operating system is the main instructor to the computer machine and instructs it to get tasks done. Its role is that of an interpreter who translates what the user is trying to get the computer to do into a language that the computer can understand, and therefore obey the user.
As such, an operating system usually appears in the form of a computer program that needs to be installed onto the computer before users can begin to use the computer.
This program is called operating system software. An example of this software is Windows XP.
2007-01-23 16:18:28 · answer #2 · answered by jerrio76 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
An operating system a software that basically handles the low level operations of the computer along with allowing ease of use to the user. By low level operations I am talking about performing reads and writes to the hard disk, initializing hardware, etc. It abstracts the low level functions so users do no have to remember command lines
2007-01-23 15:50:34 · answer #3 · answered by Belron 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The first popular PC operating system was called DOS (or Disk Operating System). It basically provided the framework for loading programs from disk, interpreting keystrokes from a keyboard, and presenting text and pixelized graphics to a monitor (and sending print jobs to a printer, basic file system storage to disk too).
So you get the basic idea. The operating system is the basic framework for computer-based operations. It gets more complicated than that when you get to multi-tasking, shared memory i/o and stuff like that (depending on OS, can be some purpose driven capabilities).
2007-01-23 15:48:46 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
An operating system is the software that initializes all of the computer hardware and provides you an environment to run applications from.
At least that was the case until Windows Vista - it is a resource hog that everyone is going to run out and buy, which will require them to upgrade their computers - just to run the O/S....
morons...
2007-01-23 15:47:59 · answer #5 · answered by superfunkmasta 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It operates the computer. Windows XP is an operating system.
2007-01-23 15:38:47 · answer #6 · answered by Fester Frump 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
its a system that operates computers
2007-01-23 15:38:22 · answer #7 · answered by that guy you are going to report 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It provides application software a way to interface with the hardware of the machine.
2007-01-23 15:39:25 · answer #8 · answered by scruffy 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Think of it as the director between you, the software and hardware
2007-01-23 16:09:31 · answer #9 · answered by Steve M 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋