ML 3 – MIS

INFRASTRUCTURE AND OPERATIONS

2f Operating Systems

Computer Software
Computer software is instructions to operate the hardware. Only hardware will not do the
job, software uses the capabilities of the hardware and performs the operations for users.
Software is needed to accomplish the input, processing, output, storage, and control activities
in a computer system.

Software Interface
According to interface (connection or method of input and output), software can be
categorized as:

 Text/Character based interfaces (T/CBI) or Character User Interface (CUI), in which user
types commands through keyboard to perform a certain job. There are many difficulties
in using this interface.
 Graphical User Interface (GUI) contains commands in the form of menus and icons (small
pictures). User simply selects the command to perform an operation; there is no need of
writing the commands. This is the standard interface today and operator finds this very
user-friendly. A GUI has WIMP (Windows, Icons, Mouse, Pull-down menus).

Broad categories of software are:

1. System Software
2. Application Software
3. Utilities
4. Programming Software

Let us go through the details:

1. System Software
System software is the set of programs that manages and supports the resources and
operations of a computer system as it performs various information processing tasks.

Operating System
The most common system software is Operating System. System software and operating
system terminologies are used interchangeably.

Operating system is the first software needed in a machine. ROM searches for an
operating system and transfers the control to the available operating system. After taking
over control of the machine, operating system boots up the machine. Now machine is
being managed and controlled by this OS, and it is responsible for the overall functions of
the machine. Operating system is like an interface between the user and the machine.
Every operating system contains a language for communication between the machine and
the user. Through this language (commands), a user orders computer, what is to be done,
that is called the job control language (JCL).

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Operating system is a set of programs written to perform different functions. These

programs can be divided into two types: control programs and the service programs.

 Control programs
These types of programs are responsible for controlling function, like; job
management, resource management, and data management. These need to stay in
the main memory during the session.
 Service programs
Service programs do not take part in the controlling of machine, rather they facilitate
user with different services. These services are available to user for performing
routine tasks, like formatting disks, copying disks, and other routine jobs. These are
not loaded automatically, like control programs. User loads them, when needed.

Components of an Operating System

An operating system must have the following essential capabilities / components /
features / characteristics / parts / functions, in order to be declared an operating system:

a. Bootstrap loader program

b. Process management
c. Memory management
d. Secondary storage management
e. File management
f. I/O management
g. Protection system
h. Command interpreter

Other capabilities in OS
Besides having these standard features, operating systems may have several or all
capabilities mentioned below:

a. Multi user processing – handles multiple users.

b. Multitasking – runs more than one task at a time.
c. Multi / Parallel processing – multiple jobs with multiple processors.
d. Context switching – multiple applications loaded, anyone can be brought in
foreground and others run in the background.
e. Multithreading – one copy of a software can run multiple applications.
f. Real time processing – can handle continuous input, process, and output.
g. Virtual machine processing – divides one single physical processor into several logical
processors, each devoted to one user.

2. Application Software
Application software are programs written to direct computer for a particular task. They
are also called packages, because they direct the processing required for a particular use,
or application that end users want to accomplish. Thousands of application software are
available, and can be divided into:

a. General-Purpose Packages
The packages that can be used by variety of end users to accomplish their tasks are
called general-purpose packages. Packages like; Word Processing (Word and Ami Pro),
Spreadsheet programs (Lotus and Excel), Database Management programs (FoxPro
and Access), graphics programs (Harvard Graphics and PowerPoint), and integrated

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packages (MS-Office, Perfect-Office, Open Office, and Star Office), are general-
purpose packages, as these can be used by users belonging to different fields. Their
use at home, education, and businesses significantly increase the productivity of end
users, they are also known as productivity packages.

b. Application-Specific Packages
The packages to support specific applications and specific end users are called
application specific programs. Major categories of such application-specific programs
are:

 Business application programs are for information processing tasks of business

functions or industry requirements. For examples, accounting, marketing,
finance, manufacturing, operations management, and many others.
 Scientific application programs perform information processing tasks for the
natural, physical, social, and behavioral sciences, mathematics, engineering,
experimentation, and development analysis, engineering design, and monitoring
of experimentation.
 Other application programs could be thousands of other application areas of
computer information processing. For example; education, entertainment, music,
art, law enforcement, medicine, and so on.

3. Utility Programs
Utility programs or utilities are a group of miscellaneous programs that perform various
functions. For example, file conversion programs, backup programs, file comparison
programs, printing utilities, anti-viruses, disk doctors, and repair software, and so on.

These days many of utility programs have been built into the operating systems as well.
An operating system can call-up any of these utilities whenever needed to carry out the
needed job.

4. Programming Software / Languages

We know a language is a medium of communication among the people; they can talk to
each other, give instructions to do a job. Same way, computer languages are used to give
instructions to computer systems to perform different data processing operations.
Programming languages allow programmers and end user to develop the programs (set
of instructions) that are executed by a computer.

Every programming language contains some basic types of instructions to define data
types and their specifications, perform the input/output, arithmetic and logic operations,
and controlling to perform different operations. Thousands of different programming
languages have been developed, each with its own unique vocabulary, grammar, and
uses. Programming languages can be grouped as:

 Low level languages or Machine oriented languages

 High level languages or Human oriented languages

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