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The operating system in a computer essentially acts as a 'traffic cop' allowing software program access to finite hardware resources according to a priority scheme.

When a computer runs more than one program at a time, sections of all active programs lie resident in the hardware memory, and as transactions are required, the operating system allocates CPU processing cycles, disk space, and so forth to one program, and when the transaction is complete, releases those resources so that other programs can utilize them.


Because computer hardware functions in millisecond time 'slices', humans who employ computers to complete tasks are rarely able to detect the allocation and release by the operating system of the computer hardware resources required to complete a task.

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