Chapter 5

Operating Systems

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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.

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The Four Layers of a ComputerYour computer is a system of four interdependent layers:

Hardware

BIOS

Operating System

Application Software

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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

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

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Types of Programming Languages

Machine language: the only language a computer’s CPU can readAssembly language: a programming language that the CPU can quickly encode to machine languageLow-level programming language: Programming languages that computers can interpret quickly but are not like human language

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More Programming LanguagesHigh-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

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Graphical User Interface (GUI)Microsoft Windows

Created in 1985The most used PC operating systemRuns a huge number of applications

Apple Mac OS Derived from the first PCs to use GUIPreferred by many designers and multimedia producersApplications are often not compatible with Windows

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PDA Operating Systems The two most popular PDA operating

systems are:Palm OS

Windows CE

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Network Operating Systems Network operating systems are

designed to allow many users to share files and resources.

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Types of Network OSNetwork 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