One Minute Evaluations for 9-11 September

CS 438 - Operating Systems Concepts

• Topic: Grunt work for learning about OSs.

  Question: Do they have laser hard disks?

  One minute response: The problem with optical media is that they're slower to write and write than are magnetic media and their information density is not as great. In the case of write once, read many (WORM) devices, such as CDs and DVDs, the cheapness of the optical medium gives it the edge over magnetic media. When it comes to write many, read many devices, the lack of speed and density doesn't make up for optical medium's economic advantage over magnetic media.

• Topic: Basics of operating systems, components, how they function together; started getting into more specifics.

  Question: Too much info; Do not have a question.

• Topic: Basic operating system fundamentals.

  Question: Why is cache so fast? (What makes it so fast?).

  One minute response: Principally, it's propinquity: things that are near to hand are more quickly retrieved than things that are further away. In addition, when caches are small, the data stored in them have to exhibit a property known as locality, something we'll be looking at when we consider virtual memory.

• Topic: We talked about architecture of computers.

  Question: No questions. Everything was explained well.

  One minute response: Thanks.

• Topic: During the week, we talked about the abstractions created by the operating system and the abstractions that compose the operating system, as well as architecture components of hardware that the operating system is concerned with.

• Topic: Talked about levels of OS control and management in different layers. Also system components.

  Question: Hi.

  One minute response: Hello.

• Topic: We talked about the basic resources involved in the OS.

• Topic: Interrupts, controllers, CPU, devices, memory, PROCESSES, abstractions.

• Topic: Abstractions; how the OS controls them.

• Topic: We talked about the goals of OS and the types of operating systems and everything that uses OS, i.e. files, hardware, etc.

• Topic: Review of architecture and overview of major parts of computers.

• Topic: How OSs manage data; what OSs manage.

  Question: Were are the class notes on the web?

  One minute response: Off the syllabus; go to the Monmouth home page and search for "cs 438 2003 syllabus".

• Topic: Learned about architecture of the system and how and why its important for an operating system to know.

  Question: Like to know how to program change of states, etc.

  One minute response: Soon, soon you'll have your chance.

• Topic: Quick overview of an OS; review of architecture.

  Question: How to read your handwriting.

  One minute response: Ah yes; this one. Complain. Say "Would you write more legibly, or at least larger?".

• Topic: We discussed operating system abstractions, the responsibility of the OS and the relationships among the OS, process and hardware.

  Question: If Windows is so bad, why does everyone [the question ends here; "use it" is what I'm guessing comes next].

  One minute response: For most people, Windows was their first introduction to computers and computing, and they had no conceptions about what it should be like. After they got used to it, crashing once an hour is the way they expected computers to behave. And once people believe that, you can get them to believe anything.

• Topic: Basics of an operating system: its main purpose is to provide useful abstractions. Parts of the computer the operating system manages.

This page last modified on 16 July 2003.