Reference: Slide - Overview

Key Discussion Points:

  • Abstractly, OS is connecting layer between the applications and the hardware.
  • Need for OS is process scheduling, memory management, file systems, networking.
  • History
    • First commercial systems - Only one program per computer
    • Batch processing - group of jobs ordered efficiently and run one at a time
    • Spooling - improve performance by overlapping i/o with cpu execution.
    • Multiprogrammed Batch systems - improve performance by always running a job
    • Current trend - multiprocessors,network systems, virtual machines