1. Chapter 5
Operating Systems

2. 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.

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

4. 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

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

6. 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

7. 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

8. 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

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

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

11. 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