Lecture Post: Operating Systems

Average tennis players need the technology that True Tennis Live offers because it enables them to play games without arguing of whether or not a ball was in or not. With the state of the art tennis courts, players will be told by speakers when a ball lands out of bounds.

Operating Systems (OS) are probably the most important part of any computer or mobile device because without them we would not have the same smooth experience on them as it is now. The actual function of these systems is a collection of software that manages computer hardware resources and provides common services for computer programs. The experience of interacting with this on devices is called the GUI (Graphical User Interface). The most common operating systems with their founders are Microsoft (Bill Gates), MAC OS X (Steve Jobs), UNIX (Ken Thomson), and Linux (Tinus Torvalds).

There are also many different types of OS' that run various devices in different ways depending on what the user wants out of it. Standalone is a complete OS that works on a desktop computer, laptop, or mobile device (smartphone). This does not require any additional software  for use, just the OS hence the name "Standalone." There is also a Server OS that manages multiple users access with varying levels of security. This type allows virtualization and would probably be seen in an office or school with a lot of computers. The last type of OS is called Embedded which resides on a ROM chip on a mobile device or consumer electronic device.

For my tennis courts, I did plan on using a computer device that would allow the players to log in and keep track of their scores, stats etc. This done incline that I would have to decide on a type of OS I will need to run the hardware on. For all my intents and purposes, I feel the MAC OS X would be the operating system I would use to run on my computers because it is simple and easy to use for the players who probably would be somewhat lost trying to navigate their ways around Linux or UNIX. I would make the software, however, so that it could only be used to run the software of the tennis court (all other applications like the internet would be unable for the user to use). An operating system would definitely benefit my courts because I need it to run the computers I plan to have on the courts.