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Question
What is the role of an operating system?
Answer
It sits between programs and hardware doing two jobs: abstraction — giving programs one standard way to ask for anything — and resource management, deciding who gets the CPU, memory and devices, and when.
Question
What does abstraction mean for an operating system?
Answer
Programs ask for what they need in one standard way whatever hardware is underneath. A program says 'save this file' without knowing which drive it is or how that drive works.
Question
Why do programs not talk to hardware directly?
Answer
Because every program would then need to know every model of disk, printer and network card, and adding new hardware would mean rewriting all of them. With an OS, only a driver is added.
Question
How does the OS stop two programs interfering with each other?
Answer
It gives each program its own region of memory, queues their requests for shared devices, and refuses direct access to hardware or to its own memory — programs have to ask.
Question
What happens when a new model of printer is added?
Answer
A driver is added to the operating system, teaching it how to speak to that model. Every existing program keeps making the same standard request, so all of them work with it immediately.
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Topic 1.3 hub
Operating and control systems
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