The simplest answer about an operating system is the set of programs responsible for managing the hardware of a device (e.g., computer) and integrating other programs with that exact hardware through an interface with the user. This definition, like many others, is not 100% enlightening, especially for those who do not know the subject.
Let’s think about your hardware components in isolation. For example, imagine your laptop screen. Would you know how to “light up” a red dot – or any other color – in the center of the screen?
The operating system “knows.” In the same way that it communicates with the screen and knows how to produce what you see, it also plays similar roles to all other components (HD, memory, USB terminals, mouse, keyboard, etc.)
This management can be a middle ground – to use a term that everyone knows – between the user (you) and the hardware. Thanks to it, you don’t need to know how the information contained in the flash drive is located, how it is read, and how this data will be visualized on the screen. All this is the role of the OS (operating system) to do. Yes, because each component’s functioning and correct use in a device only occurs through electrical signals. How each component is “powered” with electricity determines its operation in a very simplified way.
In other words, putting the information read on the flash drive that you inserted into a USB connection into RAM and displaying it on the screen with a certain visual presentation, which is a relatively simple action for most of us, required a large set of actions from the OS in the form of electrical signals between the components involved and sometimes even others that are not imagined, such as the HD (hard disk). But does not stop there.
It does this same middle ground to the various programs you have installed.
When you create and save a text file on your notebook, using a text editor, the action of locating a free area on the HD and recording the corresponding data, as well as information about this file, which among other things, is necessary for its last location, it is not the publisher who does this. It uses the operating system for this action.
The same applies to any program that writes files to the HD, SSD, flash drive, or even to a cloud storage service, which in this case is only possible thanks to a “conversation” between the OS and the system. Cloud computing service.
If this were not the case, every program would need to have a piece of programming specifically designed to “know how to communicate” with every storage component on your device. The same goes for the mouse, keyboard, screen, and everything else on the notebook.
Yes, when you change the font color in the text, you typed in Word, or Excel, or PowerPoint, the color displayed on the screen is at least a result of communication between the operating system, keyboard and mouse, memory RAM, the video card and the screen.
If it weren’t for the operating system, all 3 programs mentioned would need a specific programming snippet to “talk” to all the components involved in a quite simple action. Read more (อ่านต่อ which is the term in Thai)here about the hardware system.