Operating System History and Definition

The first computers were made with intricate gear systems by the Greeks. These computers turned out to be too delicate for the technological capabilities of the time and were abandoned as impractical. The Antikythera mechanism, discovered in a shipwreck in 1900, is an early mechanical analog computer from between 150 BCE and 100 BCE.

An operating system is the part of a computer manages the way different programs use its hardware, and regulates the ways that a user controls the computer. Operating systems are found on almost any device that contains a computer with multiple programs—from cellular phones and video game consoles to supercomputers and web servers, and even automobiles. Some popular modern operating systems for personal computers include Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.

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