5 System software

5 System software

In this chapter, you will learn about

★ why computers need an operating system
★ key management tasks, such as memory management, file
management, security management, hardware management and
process management
★ the need for utility software, including disk formatters, virus
checkers, defragmentation software, disk content analyse and repair
software, file compression and back-up software
★ program libraries, software under development using program library
software and the benefits to software developers, including the use of
dynamic link library (DLL) files
★ the need for these language translators: assemblers, compilers and
interpreters
★ the benefits and drawbacks of using compilers or interpreters
★ an awareness that high level language programs may be partially
compiled and partially interpreted (such as Javatm)
★ the features of a typical integrated development environment (IDE) for
– coding (using context-sensitive prompts)
– initial error detection (including dynamic syntax checks)
– presentation (including pretty print, expand and collapse code
blocks)
– debugging (for example, single stepping, use of breakpoints,
variables/expressions report windows).

5.1 Operating systems

WHAT YOU SHOULD ALREADY KNOW
Try these five questions before you read the first b) A manufacturer makes laptop computers,
part of this chapter. mobile phones and tablets.
1 Microprocessors are commonly used to Explain why it is necessary for the
control microwave ovens, washing machines manufacturer to develop different versions
and many other household items. of its operating system for use on its
Explain why it is not necessary for these computers, mobile phones and tablets.
devices to have an operating system. 3 Most operating systems offer a graphic user
2 a) Name three of the most common interface (GUI) as well as a command line
operating systems used in computers and interface (CLI).
other devices, such as mobile phones and a) What are the main differences between the
tablets. two types of interface?

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 b) What are the pros and cons of both types 5 Describe the role of buffers and interrupts
of interface?
c) Who would use each type of interface?
when a printing job is being sent to an inkjet
printer. 5
4 Before the advent of the operating system, Consider the different operational speeds of a
computers relied on considerable human processor and a printer, together with size of
intervention. printing job and interrupt priorities.
Find out the methods used to start up early Describe potential error scenarios – such as
computers to prepare them for the day’s paper jam, out of paper or out of ink – and

5.1
tasks. how these could affect the printing job.

Operating systems
Key terms
CMOS – complementary metal-oxide semiconductor. Hardware management – part of the operating system
Operating system – software that provides an that controls all input/output devices connected to
environment in which applications can run and provides a computer (made up of sub-management systems
an interface between hardware and human operators. such as printer management, secondary storage
management, and so on).
HCI – human–computer interface.
Device driver – software that communicates with the
GUI – graphical user interface.
operating system and translates data into a format
CLI – command line interface. understood by the device.
Icon – small picture or symbol used to represent, for Utility program – parts of the operating system which
example, an application on a screen. carry out certain functions, such as virus checking,
WIMP – windows, icons, menu and pointing device. defragmentation or hard disk formatting.
Post-WIMP – interfaces that go beyond WIMP and use Disk formatter – utility that prepares a disk to allow
touch screen technology rather than a pointing device. data/files to be stored and retrieved.
Pinching and rotating – actions by fingers on a touch Bad sector – a faulty sector on an HDD which can be
screen to carry out tasks such as move, enlarge, soft or hard.
reduce, and so on. Antivirus software – software that quarantines and
Memory management – part of the operating system deletes files or programs infected by a virus (or other
that controls the main memory. malware). It can be run in the background or initiated by
Memory optimisation – function of memory the user.
management that determines how memory is allocated Heuristic checking – checking of software for
and deallocated. behaviour that could indicate a possible virus.
Memory organisation – function of memory Quarantine – file or program identified as being
management that determines how much memory is infected by a virus which has been isolated by
allocated to an application. antivirus software before it is deleted at a later
Security management – part of the operating system stage.
that ensures the integrity, confidentiality and availability False positive – a file or program identified by a virus
of data. checker as being infected but the user knows this
Contiguous – items next to each other. cannot be correct.
Virtual memory systems – memory management (part Disk defragmenter – utility that reorganises the
of OS) that makes use of hardware and software to sectors on a hard disk so that files can be stored in
enable a computer to compensate for shortage of actual contiguous data blocks.
physical memory. Disk content analysis software – utility that checks
Memory protection – function of memory management disk drives for empty space and disk usage by reviewing
that ensures two competing applications cannot use files and folders.
same memory locations at the same time. Disk compression – software that compresses data
Process management – part of the operating system before storage on an HDD.
that involves allocation of resources and permits the Back-up utility – software that makes copies of files on
sharing and exchange of data. another portable storage device.

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 Program library – a library on a computer where Library routine – a tested and ready-to-use routine

5 programs and routines are stored which can be freely

accessed by other software developers for use in their
own programs.
available in the development system of a programming
language that can be incorporated into a program.
Dynamic link file (DLL) – a library routine that can
Library program – a program stored in a library for be linked to another program only at the run time
future use by other programmers. stage.

5.1.1 The need for an operating system

5 System software

Early computers had no operating system at all. Control software had to be

loaded each time the computer was started – this was done using either paper
tape or punched cards.
In the 1970s, the home computer was becoming increasingly popular. Early
examples, such as the Acorn BBC B, used an internal ROM chip to store part
of the operating system. A cassette tape machine was also used to load the
remainder of the operational software (see Figure 5.1). This was necessary to
‘get the computer started’ and used a welcome cassette tape which had to be
used each time the computer was turned on.

   
▲ Figure 5.1 An Acorn BBC B (left) and its cassette tape machine (right)

As the hard disk drive (HDD) was developed, operating systems were stored on
the hard disk, and start-up of the motherboard was handled by the basic input/
output system (BIOS). Initially, the BIOS was stored on a ROM chip but, in
modern computers, the BIOS contents are stored on a flash memory chip. The
BIOS configuration is stored in CMOS memory (complementary metal-oxide
semiconductor) which means it can be altered or deleted as required.
The required part of the operating system is copied into RAM – since operating
systems are now so large, it would seriously affect a computer’s performance
if it was all loaded into RAM at once. An operating system provides both the
environment in which applications can be run, and a useable interface between
humans and computer. An operating system also disguises the complexity
of computer hardware. Common examples include Microsoft Windows®, Apple
Mac OS, Google Android and IOS (Apple mobile phones and tablets).
The human–computer interface (HCI) is usually achieved through a graphical
user interface (GUI), although it is possible to use a command line interface
(CLI) if the user wishes to directly communicate with the computer.
A CLI requires a user to type instructions to choose options from menus, open
software, and so on. There are often a number of commands that need to be
typed; for example, to save or load a file. The user, therefore, has to learn a
number of commands (which must be typed exactly with no errors) just to carry
out basic operations. Furthermore, it takes time to key in commands every time
an operation has to be carried out.
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 The advantage of CLI is that the user is in direct communication with the

5
computer and is not restricted to a number of pre-determined options.
For example, the following section of CLI imports data from table A into table B.
It shows how complex it is just to carry out a straightforward operation.
1. SQLPrepare(hStmt,
2. ? (SQLCHAR *) "INSERT INTO tableB SELECT * FROM tableA",
3. ? SQL_NTS):

5.1
4. ? SQLExecute(hStmt);

Operating systems
A GUI allows the user to interact with a computer (or MP3 player, gaming
device, mobile phone, and so on) using pictures or symbols (icons). For
example, the whole of the above CLI code could have been replaced by a single
Table update icon, like the one on the left.
Selecting this icon would execute all of the steps shown in the CLI without the
need to type them.
GUIs use various technologies and devices to provide the user interface.
One of the first commonly used GUI environments was known as windows,
icons, menu and pointing device (WIMP), which was developed for use on
personal computers (PCs). Here, a mouse is used to control a cursor and icons
are selected to open and run windows. Each window contains an application.
Modern computer systems allow several windows to be open at the same time.
An example is shown in Figure 5.2.

▲ Figure 5.2 An example of WIMP

A windows manager looks after the interaction between windows, the

applications and windowing system (which handles the pointing devices and
the cursor’s position).
However, smart phones, tablets and many computers now use a post-WIMP
interaction where fingers are in contact with the screen, allowing actions such
as pinching and rotating which are difficult using a single pointer and device
such as a mouse. Also, simply tapping the icon with a finger (or stylus) will
launch the application. Developments in touch screen technology mean these
flexible HCIs are now readily available.

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 5.1.2 Operating system tasks
5 memory management

file management security management

operating
system
5 System software

hardware management process management

▲ Figure 5.3 Operating system tasks

Memory management
Memory management, as the name suggests, is the management of a
computer’s main memory. This can be broken down into three parts: memory
optimisation, memory organisation and memory protection.
Memory optimisation
Memory optimisation is used to determine how computer memory is allocated
and deallocated when a number of applications are running simultaneously.
It also determines where they are stored in memory. It must, therefore,
keep track of all allocated memory and free memory available for use by
applications. To maintain optimisation of memory, it will also swap data to
and from the HDD or SSD.
Memory organisation
Memory organisation determines how much memory is allocated to an
application, and how the memory can be split up in the most appropriate or
efficient manner.
This can be done with the use of
» a single (contiguous) allocation, where all of the memory is made available
to a single application. This is used by MS-DOS and by embedded systems
» partitioned allocation, where the memory is split up into contiguous
partitions (or blocks) and memory management then allocates a partition
(which can vary in size) to an application
» paged memory, which is similar to partitioned allocation, but each partition
is of a fixed size. This is used by virtual memory systems
» segmented memory, which is different because memory blocks are not
contiguous – each segment of memory will be a logical grouping of data
(such as the data which may make up an array).

Memory protection
Memory protection ensures that two competing applications cannot use the
same memory locations at the same time. If this was not done, data could
be lost, applications could produce incorrect results, there could be security
issues, or the computer may crash.
Memory protection and memory organisation are different aspects of an
operating system. An operating system may use a typical type of memory
organisation (for example, it may use paging or segmentation) but it is always
important that no two applications can occupy the same part of memory.

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 Therefore, memory protection must always be a part of any type of memory

5
organisation used.
Figure 5.4 shows how different applications can be kept separate from each other.
Address Memory
These boundaries mark the 0
upper limits of the operating system
addresses available to each A
application (addresses start
at 0 and end at Z); the Boundary location is at address (A+1)

5.1
boundaries (A + 1, B + 1, A+1
C + 1) are often referred to memory allocated
as a FENCE to application 1

Operating systems
B
Boundary location is at address (B+1)
A FENCE defines the B+1
memory allocated
boundary between the to application 2
operating system and the C
applications; it is not Boundary location is at address (C+1)
possible for an application
to access a memory C+1
memory allocated
location which is lower than to application 3
the FENCE address Z
Upper limit to address value (Z)

▲ Figure 5.4 Memory protection

Security management
Security management is another part of a typical operating system. The
function of security management is to ensure the integrity, confidentiality and
availability of data.
This can be achieved by
» carrying out operating system updates as and when they become available
» ensuring that antivirus software (and other security software) is always up-
to-date
» communicating with, for example, a firewall to check all traffic to and from
the computer
» making use of privileges to prevent users entering ‘private areas’ on a
computer which permits multi-user activity (this is done by setting up user
accounts and making use of passwords and user IDs). This helps to ensure
the privacy of data
» maintaining access rights for all users
» offering the ability for the recovery of data (and system restore) when it has
been lost or corrupted
» helping to prevent illegal intrusion to the computer system (also ensuring
the privacy of data).
Note: many of these features are covered in more depth elsewhere in this
chapter or in other chapters.

EXTENSION ACTIVITY 5A
While working through the remainder of Chapters 5 and 6, find out all of
the methods available to ensure the security, privacy and integrity of data
and how these link into the operating system security management. It is
important to distinguish between what constitutes security, privacy and
integrity of data.

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 Process management

5 A process is a program which is being run on a computer. Process management

involves the allocation of resources and permits the sharing and exchange of
data, thus allowing all processes to be fully synchronised (for example, by the
scheduling of resources, resolution of software conflicts, use of queues and so
on). This is covered in more depth in Chapter 16.

Hardware management
Hardware management involves all input and output peripheral devices.
5 System software

The functions of hardware management include

» communicating with all input and output devices using device drivers
» translating data from a file (defined by the operating system) into a format
that the input/output device can understand using device drivers
» ensuring each hardware resource has a priority so that it can be used and
released as required.

The management of input/output devices is essentially the control and

management of queues and buffers. For example, when printing out a
document, the printer management
» locates and loads the printer driver into memory
» sends data to a printer buffer ready for printing
» sends data to a printer queue (if the printer is busy or the print job has a
low priority) before sending to the printer buffer
» sends various control commands to the printer throughout the printing
process
» receives and handles error messages and interrupts from the printer.

EXTENSION ACTIVITY 5B
Write down the tasks carried out by a keyboard manager when a user types
text using a word processor. Consider the use of buffers and queues in your
answer.

File management
The main tasks of file management include
» defining the file naming conventions which can be used (filename.docx,
where the extension can be .bat, .htm, .dbf, .txt, .xls, and so on)
» performing specific tasks, such as create, open, close, delete, rename, copy,
move
» maintaining the directory structures
» ensuring access control mechanisms are maintained, such as access rights to
files, password protection, making files available for editing, locking files,
and so on
» specifying the logical file storage format (such as FAT or NTFS if Windows
is being used), depending on which type of disk formatter is used
(see Section 5.1.3)
» ensuring memory allocation for a file by reading it from the HDD/SSD and
loading it into memory.

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