What Are the Basic Functions of an Operating System? Please Discuss Each Function in a Separate Paragraph.

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ob Management: Job management controls the order and time in which programs are run and is more sophisticated in the mainframe environment where scheduling the daily work has always been routine. IBM's job control language (JCL) was developed decades ago. In a desktop environment, batch files can be written to perform a sequence of operations that can be scheduled to start at a given time. Task Management: Multitasking, which is the ability to simultaneously execute multiple programs, is available in all operating systems today. Critical in the mainframe and server environment, applications can be prioritized to run faster or slower depending on their purpose. In the desktop world, multitasking is necessary for keeping several applications open at the same time so you can bounce back and forth among them. See http://www.answers.com/main/ntq-sname-GuruNet+Library-dsid-2635-dekey-multitasking. Data Management: Data management keeps track of the data on disk, tape and optical storage devices. The application program deals with data by file name and a particular location within the file. The operating system's file system knows where that data are physically stored (which sectors on disk) and interaction between the application and operating system is through the programming interface. Whenever an application needs to read or write data, it makes a call to the operating system (see http://www.answers.com/main/ntq-sname-GuruNet+Library-dsid-2635-dekey-API). Device Management: Device management controls peripheral devices by sending them commands in their own proprietary language. The software routine that knows how to deal with each device is called a "driver," and the OS requires drivers for the peripherals attached to the computer. When a new peripheral is added, that device's driver is installed into the operating system. User Interface: All graphics based

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