WEEK TEN Learning Outcome for this week The historical development of operating system. The importance and uses of operating system The system commands of MS-DOS, Unix, Windows operating systems. OPERATING SYSTEMS When a brand new computer comes off the factory assembly line, it can do nothing. The hardware needs software to make it work. Figure 10.2 : System Software An application software package does not communicate directly with the hardware. As shown in the Figure above between the applications software and the hardware is a software interface - an operating system.