This course provides the student with a view of hardware/software configurations as integrated systems, giving students a basic understanding of what an operating system is and how it works. In addition, fundamental concepts and constraints of computer architecture are presented. Compilation and execution concepts are examined in detail. Specific examples of single-user and multi-user operating systems (such as MS-DOS and Windows, Windows NT, UNIX, and IBM mainframe operating systems) are used to illustrate the range of tasks that an operating system accomplishes. The approach taken is the system designers and the system administrators views of the hardware together with the operating system software.