Networking Self-Teaching Guide: OSI, TCP/IP, LANs, MANs, WANs, Implementation, Management, and Maintenance

Chapter 4. Operating Systems and Networking Software

	Part of the inhumanity of the computer is that, once it is competently programmed and working smoothly, it is completely honest.
	--Isaac Asimov

This quote by Isaac Asimov points out the basic difference between human intelligence and that which is attributed to computers. True computers can be designed and built to calculate, retain, and retrieve vast amounts of data in microseconds and display it in graphics and color beyond what human language is able to relate.^[130] However, computers are programmed devices that are only able to operate on a set of rules designed by humans.

True, there are programs that attempt to give computers a form of artificial intelligence, but being only machines that work within a defined rule set, they can only respond in a completely honest manner. On the other hand, humans are capable of lying at any time and often do. We will not get into the philosophical or psychological reasons for why humans have a tendency toward lying. Whatever their reason may be, humans can be whimsical, whereas when a computer acts in that manner, it usually gets its guts torn out. So, now aren't you happy you are not a computer?

The essential piece of software each computer requires is an operating system. Without it, a computer would just sit and not do a meaningful piece of work, just like some humans we know. It is the basic process that operates on human requests and responds accordingly, if programmed to act in that ...