The document provides an introduction to operating systems, describing their general definition and history. It defines an OS as a program that acts as an interface between users and computer hardware, managing resources like memory, processors, and I/O devices. Early computers required manual programming, but OS development improved usability. Early systems included ENIAC, which was large and manually programmed. Over time, hardware evolved and new OS features emerged like multiprogramming, time-sharing, and support for networked systems.