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| As mentioned, the native language of computers consists solely of numbers. Because few of us are able to speak to a computer in this language, we almost never interact with the computer directly. We always "speak" to the computer through an intermediary, namely, a program whose function (among other things) is to translate our requests to the computer. Programs enable the computer, by telling it how to display text or pictures on the screen, produce sounds, or print characters on paper, to "speak" back to us. |
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| There are actually two different types of software: applications software and operating systems. Applications software is the software that you use to actually perform your work. This includes all the types of programs previously described under "What You Can Do with a Computer." |
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| Operating systems are programs that act as the intermediary between you and the hardware and, to some extent, between the hardware and the applications software. |
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| Operating systems serve several functions. For starters, the operating system controls various parts of the machine and allows them to talk to one another; in effect, it operates the hardware. Your operating system is the essential program that makes your computer "go." |
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| Operating systems include various "housekeeping utilities" that allow you to find out what programs and data are stored on a disk, to copy programs and data to and from your computer, and to delete programs and data. |
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| The operating system allows you to start up application programs. If you want to play chess on your computer, for example, you issue a command that tells the operating system, "Go find the chess program and fire it up." Then the operating system acts as an intermediary between the applications and the hardware, by making sure they understand the requests they make of each other. |
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| Different operating systems are designed for different types of computers. If you are running a PC, you will probably use an operating system named Windows 98 (Windows 95, if you haven't upgraded yet) or Windows NT. |
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| The Windows operating system employs pictures and menus to help you manage your application's programs and data. In contrast, DOS, which before the advent of Windows was the most common operating system on PCs, used a command-driven interface-whenever you wanted the computer to do something, you needed to type in a command. Because there were no visual cues on the screen, you needed to either memorize all the commands or look them up in a book as needed. |
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