EBook - MODERN OPERATING SYSTEMS

MODERN OPERATING SYSTEMS 

SECOND EDITION 

by Andrew S. Tanenbaum

Publisher: Prentice Hall PTR ISBN 0-13-031358-0, 976 pages

INTRODUCTION

A modern computer system consists of one or more processors, some main memory, disks, printers, a keyboard, a display, network interfaces, and other input/output devices. All in all, a complex system. Writing programs that keep track of all these components and use them correctly, let alone optimally, is an extremely difficult job. For this reason, computers are equipped with a layer of software called the operating system, whose job is to manage all these devices and provide user programs with a simpler interface to the hardware. These systems are the subject of this book.

The placement of the operating system is shown in Fig. 1-1. At the bottom is the hardware, which, in many cases, is itself composed of two or more levels (or layers). The lowest level contains physical devices, consisting of integrated circuit chips, wires, power supplies, cathode ray tubes, and similar physical devices. How these are constructed and how they work are the provinces of the electrical engineer.

Next comes the microarchitecture level, in which the physical devices are grouped together to form functional units. Typically this level contains some registers internal to the CPU (Central Processing Unit) and a data path containing an arithmetic logic unit. In each clock cycle, one or two operands are fetched from the registers and combined in the arithmetic logic unit (for example, by addition or Boolean AND). The result is stored in one or more registers. On some machines, the operation of the data path is controlled by software, called the microprogram. On other machines, it is controlled directly by hardware circuits.

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