Lecture Notes for Operating Systems

8 September 1999

1. Computer architecture.

   1. The hardware and its organization.

   2. OS creates an extended machine.

   3. Architectures are your friend or not.

2. CPU

   1. Arithmetic-logic unit (ALU)

   2. Register sets - psw, base and extent registers.

   3. Hardwired vs. microprogrammed control.

   4. Instruction sets - atomic instructions, traps.

   5. Interrupts - address vectors, polling.

   6. Protection - user-kernel, levels, masking

   7. issues - protections, irregularities, concurrency.

   8. os functions - process model, scheduling.

3. Storage

   1. Hierarchies - external storage; main storage; cache storage.

   2. External storage - see below.

   3. Main storage

      1. segmented vs. flat.

      2. addressing - virtual; mmu.

      3. page mapping - tlb;

      4. issues - protection, performance

      5. os function - vm

   4. Cache storage - cache consistency.

4. Input-Output

   1. I-O Devices - part of the address space; hardwired vs. programmable.

   2. Interrupts vs dma.

   3. Disks.

      1. disks, arms, cylinders, sectors.

      2. controller hardware - offload complexity.

      3. issues - high throughput; arm scheduling; error recovery

      4. os functions - buffering, error detection and handling, load balancing.

   4. Clocks

      1. hardware or software clocks.

      2. count-up timers - like wall clocks.

      3. count-down timers - issue alarms.

      4. issues - what is being counted? resolution.

      5. os functions - virtual clocks

   5. Terminals

      1. Slow, character-oriented i-o.

      2. Issues - smart vs. dumb terminals.

      3. os functions - modes (input and output processing)

   6. Networks

      1. fast, block-oriented i-o.

      2. exceptional amounts of processing involved.

      3. issues - driver, kernel, user processing.

      4. os functions - multiplexing-demultiplexing.

5. Busses

   1. Connect I-O to storage; storage to cpu.

   2. issue - cache coherence.

   3. os functions - consistency model.

6. Oddiments.

   1. multi-processor systems - smp, numa.

   2. embedded systems.

This page last modified on 9 September 1999.