Computer Systems Flashcards
(16 cards)
What is hardware?
Physical and electrical components of a computer
What is software?
Programs that run on the computer, made up of sequences and instructions.
What are the two main types of software?
- Application software
- System software
What are the different types of system software?
- Operating system
- Utility programs
- Libraries
- Translators
What is the role of the operating system?
Hide the complexity of the computer’s hardware through the use of a virtual machine.
What is a virtual machine?
A model that creates the illusion that each process has all of the machines processing power to itself.
What are the main functions of the operating system?
- Memory Manager
- Process Manager
- Application Manager
- File Manager
- Device Manager
- Security Manager
- Networking Manager
Describe memory management
Controls which areas of memory are allocated to running processes/applications
Describe process management
Controls the allocation of CPU cycles to multiple running applications. More demanding processes are provided more processing resources as well as those which the OS deems of a higher priority.
Describe File Management
Controls the storage of data on physical disks as files and manages their read/write/execute permissions.
Describe device management
Controls interactions with existing hardware devices and handles the installation of device drivers. This is required as each device is designed differently and prevents the programmer from having to know exactly how each one works.
Describe security management
Authenticates users of the computer and controls access to features and files based on user access levels
Describe network management
Provides TCP and UDP sockets for networked applications, handles WiFI connection and manages the computer’s IP address.
What are utility programs?
They allow users to perform system mainantance tasks such as encryption, scanning for viruses, defragmentation and backing up.
What are libraries?
Provide reusable code that software applications require in order to run. Their use can reduce the amount of programming required as they provide access to standard features.
What are translators?
Translate higher-level programming code into low-level machine code
