Computer Dictionary - What Is An Operating System or OS

A simple, plain English explanation of the computer term "operating system" (or OS) that will actually make sense. This is intended for non-technical audiences who get stumped by typical explanations of computer concepts. This is one of my earliest videos from several years ago, so please excuse the lack of polish. :)


Here's the same explanation in written form if you find it helpful to read not just listen: http://www.worthgodwin.com/basic-comp...

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Closed Caption:

hi this is worth Godwin of worth God
1.com in this lesson I want to talk a
little bit about a basic piece of
computer terminology that most people
don't really understand very well and
i'm going to explain it in a way that is
simple and easy and just makes sense and
the term i'm going to talk about this
time is an OS or operating system now
for those of you who do not know me yet
my name is worth Godwin of worth Godwin
. com and i've been helping people with
their computer problems and challenges
for well over 13 years as professional
and before that I was the guy everybody
came to with their computer challenges
and when they got stuck confused by
something they would come to me and ask
me questions and I turned what was a
hobby into a job about 13 over 13 years
ago and ever since then i have worked
very hard to increase my skills not just
with computers but also as a teacher and
I've learned how to explain things in a
very simple plain English easy way that
makes a lot more sense than most
teachers are able to explain things in
the context of computers so in this
lesson as i mentioned i'm going to talk
about the term operating system this is
a very misunderstood computer term that
a lot of people they just don't get what
what the heck is an operating system
well let me explain this to you i'm
going to start off by giving you a
couple of examples of operating systems
windows XP that is an operating system
Windows Vista is a newer version of this
of the same operating system for OS on
the other hand you've got the mac OS Mac
os10 which is written as mac OS x the
roman numeral 10 actually a lot of
people think it's OS X but it's actually
OS 10
and it's a tenth major version of the
mac OS and that is the software the
operating system software that works on
a Macintosh computer made by apple and
there's other variations there's linux
and unix and there used to be other ones
for the amiga and Commodore and so forth
and daus and uh most of which don't
really exist anymore or at least are
rarely rarely see the two most common
ones are the windows and mac OS so what
is a weapon OS or operating system let
me give you an analogy that will make it
clear to you think about a baby human
baby what is a baby like when they're
first born
well they don't know anything and they
just have a few instincts they know to
eat when food is presented to them and
one of the biggest things though is the
capacity to learn with me i found that
this is a great way to explain operating
system because what a baby does is
they're just sitting there absorbed by
everything
wow what is he going to do next what
she's going to teach me next you know
they're learning language they're
learning how to walk their learning all
out of these things all these basic
skills that will serve them well in
later in life and so as you progress
from an infant to a toddler to some kid
who's in elementary school for example
junior high school high school and up to
adulthood
the kids are learning all these
fundamental underlying basic support of
skills that are needed to be able to do
everything else so talking
reading writing walking arm hand-eye
coordination how to interact with people
and social skills all these things are
fundamental skills that are underlying
all the things and it's a foundation
that built that all the other skills are
built upon so these are just various
examples of the fundamental skills that
are needed to get beyond that to more
advanced skills and even even more
advanced skills beyond that and with a
computer it's really in a lot of ways
very much like a newborn baby every
single time you turn it on
basically we first turned the computer
on it does something called the post or
power-on self-test where it's sort of
like waking up for the first time and
look almost literally like it's the
first time and like it's a newborn baby
and it's kind of you know looking around
so to speak and saying what is this
place i'm in what is this world i don't
understand anything i need to learn
something quickly so what it does is it
then looks at usually the hard drive
inside of the computer that's the part
of the computer that stores everything
including the operating system like
windows of the mac OS and it looks to
that as a source of information much in
the same way that baby looks to his
parents and the people around him or her
to learn things all those basic skills
so what happens is the computer reads
information off the hard drive and goes
through a process called building and
building is actually short for
bootstrapping or pulling yourself up by
your bootstraps which is an old
expression and basically going from
nothing to something and that's what is
happening with so the computer goes it
reads it boots up and it really gets to
that point where you have that desktop
you know with all your icons and
everything on it and so before it gets
to that point it has to know how to talk
so to speak to the computer screen and
display pictures on it it sort of
built-in with the ability to display a
few words you know like Dell or whatever
the name of the company is and it has to
sort of go and learn learn so to speak
how to display the icons
how to understand ok this thing that is
hooked up to it is a mouse and when you
move the mouse around it moves it knows
to move that little arrow and raynaud's
to draw the arrow in the first place and
move it around on the screen and it
knows what to do when you double click
on something and it on knows that if you
start typing on the keyboard it's
supposed to
in most cases print those letters on a
screen that supposed to mean knows that
when you press the letter T that
supposed to put that symbol on the key
on the screen and so on so it is very
much that's very much like being able to
read and write and all those fundamental
skills that i was talking about with a
person so ah when you are then have you
when you then have the operating system
there and it's booted up you then can
have the computer learn quote-unquote
learn new skills more advanced skills
like writing an email or writing a
letter or a drawing something or working
with a photograph all those specific
skills as a little more advanced skills
those are achieved using something
called a program or an application so an
application or program such as for
example Microsoft Word which is part of
microsoft office and by the way a lot of
people confuse microsoft office or word
with microsoft windows they're just made
by the same company but one word that's
a word processor for writing and
microsoft windows again is an operating
system hopefully that clears that up if
you were one of the people who confused
by those two terms and get some
interchange which is common and it's not
a criticism so you know you've got on
itunes for example to listen to music
you have mozilla firefox the web browser
to let you look at web pages or so Apple
Safari to let you look at web pages and
so these are all specific skills that
eat so to speak that you could not have
if you didn't have the fundamental
foundation of those underlying skills
that the operating system essentially
represents so basically in other words
when a person is born and goes through
childhood and grows up essentially
speaking when
getting up to a maybe in their mid-teens
or so effectively speaking to use this
analogy in reverse there booting a
computer a person is booting up for the
for the first time when they're born and
unlike a computer which can do it in a
couple minutes it takes years for a
person so essentially speaking booting
into an operating system is like a baby
learning all the skills and then going
up and reaching its maturity and it's
teenage years all at least maturity in
terms of all the fundamental skills and
hopefully that makes sense and that
basically is what an operating system is
and you also now understand what
building is and what an application or
program is now one last note all those
things saw all our software operating
system applications as our software
those are the intangible things on a
computer that you can't physically touch
so hope that all make sense if you want
more free lessons tips and advice for
the computer go to work God 1.com wor th
g-o-d wisn.com and you can sign up for
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lessons and more so later
this is worth Godwin of worth Godwin .
com