Chapter 5 Operating Systems

The Operating System When working with multimedia, the operating system is perhaps the most important, the most complex, and the least visible software that your computer uses.

The Four Layers of a Computer Your computer is a system of four interdependent layers: Hardware BIOS Operating System Application Software

What do the four layers do? Hardware activates the BIOS BIOS (basic input/output system) starts the operating system Operating System loads drivers, networking services, and application software into the computer’s RAM Application Software allows you to create your multimedia project

What are programming languages? Programming languages provide instructions to operating systems.

Types of Programming Languages Machine language: the only language a computer’s CPU can read Assembly language: a programming language that the CPU can quickly encode to machine language Low-level programming language: Programming languages that computers can interpret quickly but are not like human language

More Programming Languages High-level programming languages: Are programming languages that resemble human language Need compilers to convert high-level languages to machine language Examples: C++, Java, Visual Basic

Graphical User Interface (GUI) Microsoft Windows Created in 1985 The most used PC operating system Runs a huge number of applications Apple Mac OS Derived from the first PCs to use GUI Preferred by many designers and multimedia producers Applications are often not compatible with Windows

PDA Operating Systems The two most popular PDA operating systems are: Palm OS Windows CE

Network Operating Systems Network operating systems are designed to allow many users to share files and resources.

Types of Network OS Network operating systems include: UNIX: designed to work with many kinds of computers Linux: a version of UNIX distributed for free Mac OS X: for networks by Apple Windows NT: Microsoft’s network OS Apache: Web server software distributed for free