Welcome to Terminology Tuesday! Where we explain some commonly misused or misunderstood terms and phrases!
This week’s term is Operating System (sometimes referred to as OS).
Operating systems (OS) are installed in nearly every consumer computer today. They’re needed to run other programs and applications that we’re familiar with. OS perform the most basic tasks in the computer such as recognizing inputs from the mouse and keyboard as well as sending output signals to the monitor.
There are different types of operating systems, as well. The most popular are Windows by Microsoft and OS X by Apple, but there are a host of others such as Chrome OS by Google and LynxOS by LynuxWorks.
Finally, it’s important that we don’t confuse these operating systems with other programs that these companies make. For example, Microsoft Office is a set of programs that Microsoft makes that are typically associated with the Windows operating system, but these programs can be installed on OS X by Apple as well. In the same way, Google Chrome is a program made by Google, but it is different from their Chrome OS. See what I’m getting at? It’s important to remember these differences so that we can all be on the same page!