Defining Operating Systems

Defining Operating Systems

Operating system is said to be playing many roles and functions because

of the various versatile designs and uses of the computers.
Computers are present everywhere.
Computers are present within toasters, cars, ships, spacecraft, homes,
and businesses. They are the basis for game machines, music players,
cable TV tuners, and industrial control systems, military uses, such as
code breaking and trajectory plotting, and governmental uses, such as
census calculation.
Although computers have a relatively short history, they have evolved
rapidly.
Defining Operating Systems
• The fundamental goal of computer systems is to execute user
programs and to make solving user problems easier.
• Computer hardware is constructed toward this goal.
• Since bare hardware alone is not particularly easy to use,
application programs are developed.
• These programs require certain common operations, such as those
controlling the I/O devices.
• The common functions of controlling and allocating resources are
then brought together into one piece of software:
THE OPERATING SYSTEM
KERNEL

• the operating system is the one program running at all times on

the computer—usually called the kernel.
Along with the kernel, there are two other types of programs:
• System programs, which are associated with the operating system
but are not necessarily part of the kernel, and
• Application programs, which include all programs not associated
with the operation of the system.
Computer-System Organization
Computer-System Organization

• A computer system is made up of various components. The

components can be hardware or software. Because these systems
are so massively complex, the components are organized in layers.
 Layers of Organization
Modern computer systems have a layered organization, which each layer either using the services of, or
being physically built from, entities on the level directly below it.

Layer People Domain

Application Programs Application Programmers Software
System Utility Programs System Programmers
Operating System
I/O System (BIOS)
Computer System Computer Engineers Hardware
CPU Computer Architects
Memories, Logic Circuits, Logic Designers
Flip-Flops, Gates
Transistors, Diodes, Materials Scientists
Resistors, Power Supplies
The Computer System Layer

The computer systems we build

today feature
programmable processing
units which interact with a number
of devices, each controlled by an I/O
controller, and using memory.
Devices are roughly classified into input devices, output
devices and storage devices. Examples include:

Devices
Input Devices Output Devices Storage Devices
Keyboard , Mouse Screen Disk Drive
Light Pen ,Joystick Television
Joyswitch ,Trackball CD Drive
Printer (2D or 3D)
Tablet, Track Pad
Plotter
DVD Drive
Surface ,Digitizer
Film Recorder USB Flash Drive
Microphone, Voice Recognizer
Scanner, Fingerprint Scanner Projector Solid State Drive (SSD)
Card Reader ,Paddle Hologram Generator Tape Drive
Game Controller ,Data Glove Robot Arm
Wand ,Video Camera Speaker
Eye Tacker , Motion Sensor Headphones
Voice Synthesizer
Card Punch
Software Layers: Software can be roughly divided into systems
software and applications software. The dividing line is fuzzy, but the basic
concepts are:
Computer-System Organization
 MEMORY UNITS
• Memory unit is the amount of data that can be stored in the storage unit.
This storage capacity is expressed in terms of Bytes.
Bit (Binary Digit) A binary digit is logical 0 and 1 representing a passive or an active state of a
component in an electric circuit.
Nibble A group of 4 bits is called nibble.
Byte A group of 8 bits is called byte. A byte is the smallest unit, which can represent a
data item or a character.
Word A computer word, like a byte, is a group of fixed number of bits processed as a
unit, which varies from computer to computer but is fixed for each computer.
The length of a computer word is called word-size or word length. It may be as
small as 8 bits or may be as long as 96 bits. A computer stores the information in
the form of computer words.
Storage Structure