The Operating System
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The Operating System is the software that runs the computer, Think of it as the Master Software. Often it is just referred to as the OS. Initially, the OS was a very crude program that allowed the user to enter data on the keyboard, displayed information on the monitor, read and write data to the floppy drive, moved the data in and out of the RAM memory, and stored the data on the hard drive for later retrieval. I know, you Teck-No-Nerds will say that this is an over simplification of the process. Yes it is however, it does illustrate a point. Today's OSs are much more sophisticated. While I know there are many to chose from, currently, the Microsoft product line dominates the market. I will attempt to give a brief overview of several OS products; even non-Microsoft ones. This overview in no way attempts to prioritize the order of
development or sophistication.
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