OS - Loader

About

A loader is the part of the operating system that is responsible for loading :

• programs
• and libraries.

Loading a program involves:

• reading the contents of the executable file containing the program instructions into memory
• carrying out other required preparatory tasks to prepare the executable for running
• starting the program by passing control to the loaded program code.

Embedded systems typically do not have loaders, and instead the code executes directly from ROM.

To load the operating system itself, a specialized boot loader is used.

Articles Related

Loading 8K BASIC into a teletype Altair.

loading_8k_basic_teletype_into_altair.mp4

Documentation / Reference

• wiki/Loader_(computing)