PETRA : Let us tell you how operating systems were invented.
REMI : You already know a number of different operating systems.
Windows by Microsoft, macOS or iOS by Apple, Android by Google.
And maybe you have heard of Linux or even Unix.
PETRA: Unix, Linux.
Don't these two names sound very similar to each other?
Unix has been around quite a bit longer than Linux.
But these two operating systems are indeed related.
REMI : Linux is a Unix-like operating system that is open source.
This means that the Linux kernel, created by Linus Torvalds
and enhanced and expanded upon by thousands of programmers,
is available to the world for free.
PETRA : Let's go back to a basic question.
What is an operating system?
An operating system is an intermediary between the hardware--
memory, hard disk, processor, Wi-Fi network cards, et cetera--
and the applications that we all use.
Indeed, you as the user use the services rendered by applications.
Applications use the services provided by the operating system.
And the operating system exploits the hardware resources
that are at its disposal to render these services to the applications.
REMI : Here are some examples of services
provided by the operating system.
File management.
That is, managing the logical tree structure
of files and their physical layout on the storage device,
also known as the hard drive.
Memory management.
Memory can be shared between several running processes.
Also management of running applications.
We are talking about running processes.
You can run an application, kill a running application, et cetera.
Management of inputs and outputs.
For example, network cards to access the internet, sound cards, video cards,
printers, et cetera.
PETRA : Now that you know what an operating system is,
let's talk about the history of the operating system.
In the mid-1940s, the first computers were built using vacuum tubes.
Vacuum tubes are evacuated glass containers
that can control electric current and can therefore
function as on-off switches.
These tubes are rather large.
And each of these first computers used quite a few of them,
resulting in huge machines that filled entire rooms while performing
more slowly than a modern hand-held calculator.
REMI : Programming of these machines had
to be done manually by moving around tubes.
And input-output was very limited.
In fact, the programmer was also in charge
of operating the machine via direct interaction, which
meant a lot of heavy lifting.
So in fact, the designer of the computer was also the builder of the computer,
and at the same time the programmer as well as the operator.
PETRA : Everything changed with the invention of the transistor.
At the same time, this marks the beginning
of operating systems via the appearance of punch cards.
Punch cards are cards with holes, punches, placed in specific locations
so as to encode computer programs and data that
can be loaded via the computer's punch card reader into the computer's memory.
Punch cards can also be used as computer output.
A separation of roles emerged.
A programmer produced punch cards--
programs that input data--
and an operator physically loaded these cards into the computer
and on-loaded the computer's output.
REMI : That is when the operating system
was invented to manage the memory, the processes, programs loaded
while running, and these punch cards, inputs and outputs, reading punch
cards, writing the results.
PETRA : We can therefore say that it was in the mid-1960s
that operating systems were invented.