Computer Systems

Operating System
Collection of programs which deal
directly with the hardware system and
subsystems.
Provides user interfaces and log
activities taking place in the system.
Eg; Linux, MacOS, Windows.

Operating System Functions

Peripheral Communication
Coordinating concurrent processing
Memory management
Resource monitoring
Accounting and security
Program and data management

Peripheral communication
Peripheral devices are hardware outside the
CPU (mouse, keyboard, monitor)
Device driver: software designed to interface
directly with the hardware
Hardware only deals with data coded into
binary machine code
OS keeps track of device drivers and signals
if they dont operate correctly
OS provides standard interface between
hardware devices and applications (<print>)

Coordinating concurrent
processing
Processes or jobs are running on your system
while the computer is on.
OS handles the loading and unloading of these
processes to and from the primary memory

Memory management
OS ensures that each process operates in its
own (virtual) memory and does not use other
processes memory
Virtual memory is the use of secondary
memory as if it was primary memory
Swap file: area of the HD used for virtual
memory purposes.
OS deals with the moving of parts of the
processes to the swap file

Resource monitoring
Running processes can be allocated
resources (eg how much processor time
they have, how much memory they
need )
OS keeps all processes running by
managing the access to resources

Accounting and security

OS designed to be used in multi-user
environments have to try to make sure
that only those users registered can get
access.
Accounts of the activities of the users
are also kept by the OS

Program and data

management
OS must be able to keep track of which
files, ports and other data resources a
prg is using to read or write information.
OS handles the transfer of data and/or
program instructions from files into
primary memory and vice versa.

Different Computer Systems

Computer System are made up of Input,
processing and output devices + application
software required to operate and connect the
components so that they can function and
communicate.
Computer Systems can be PC or network
Computers can also vary in size of memory,
storage, speed of processor and OS.
Single user: can be used by one person at a
time
Multi-tasking: single user to perform more
than one task simultaneously.

PC (Single user, multitasking)

Consists of the following components:
Input devices
Processing device (processor, primary
memory, control unit)
Output and communication devices (printer,
modem)
Backing store (HD)
System software (OS)
Application software (eg. Accounting
package)
Stored Data (data files)

Mainframes (multi users ,

multitasking)

Designed to run a range of application software and

process a considerable volume of transactions for a
range of logged in users all at the same time.
IBM S/390 series can process at 900 MIPS when
configured with 10 microprocessors
Processors are Pentium style, but used in parallel.
Disk farm: very high capacity disk configuration that
can store and access Tbytes of data
Cost millions of dollars and need sophisticated
rooms and extra cooling.

Super Computers
Designed to run very complex
programming tasks that require a very
large amount of processor time to
execute.
Very expensive, more than 10 million
dollars.
US Weather Bureau: 50.000 MIPS with
4 Gbytes of RAM