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For example, in a single computer system, this would be the computer's architecture, operating system (OS), and runtime libraries. [2] In the case of an application program or a computer video game , the most relevant layer is the operating system, so it can be called a platform itself (hence the term cross-platform for software that can be ...
The operating system provides an interface between an application program and the computer hardware, so that an application program can interact with the hardware only by obeying rules and procedures programmed into the operating system. The operating system is also a set of services which simplify development and execution of application programs.
It provides a platform (hardware abstraction layer) to run high-level system software and application software. A kernel is the core part of the operating system that defines an application programming interface for applications programs (including some system software) and an interface to device drivers.
The application software layer interfaces with the operating system, which in turn communicates with the hardware. The arrows indicate information flow. There are two main types of software: Operating systems are "the layer of software that manages a computer's resources for its users and their applications". [9]
Systems programming, or system programming, is the activity of programming [1] computer system software.The primary distinguishing characteristic of systems programming when compared to application programming is that application programming aims to produce software which provides services to the user directly (e.g. word processor), whereas systems programming aims to produce software and ...
An operating environment is not a full operating system, but is a form of middleware that rests between the OS and the application. For example, the first version of Microsoft Windows , Windows 1.0 , was not a full operating system, but a GUI laid over DOS albeit with an API of its own.
A software platform can be either an operating system (OS) or programming environment, though more commonly it is a combination of both. An exception is Java, which uses an OS-independent virtual machine (VM) to execute Java bytecode. Some software platforms are: Android (ARM64) ChromeOS (ARM32, ARM64, IA-32, x86-64)
A hardware abstraction layer (HAL) is an abstraction layer, implemented in software, between the physical hardware of a computer and the software that runs on that computer. . Its function is to hide differences in hardware from most of the operating system kernel, so that most of the kernel-mode code does not need to be changed to run on systems with different hardwa