Systems programming-Research Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Systems programming-Research - Essay Example In other words, the operating system serves as an intermediary component between the user and the application-programs as well as between the application-programs and the hardware of the computer system. Thus, being an intermediary between the users of computer applications and the resources of the computer systems, the OS offers the following three fundamental services to the users: 1. Accepts user requests and processes them from the user’s program-applications and generates or displays the desired output results. 2. Loads, manages, as well as executes programs. 3. Manages the computer hardware resources such as the interfaces to networks and to other peripheral components of the computer system. The figure 1 given below schematically shows the correlation that exists among the various components of a computer system. Figure 1: The relationship of the Modern Operation System to other integrated components of the computer system. ... Management System (FMS)  ¦ Memory Management  ¦ Process Control Management and Inter-process Communication  ¦ Scheduling and Dispatching  ¦ Communication Support, Network Management, and Communication Interfaces  ¦ Secondary Storage Management  ¦ Support for System Administration  ¦ System Protection Management and Security Some OS also offer a program called system manager that is also commonly referred as a monitor or supervisor that not only deals with the competing requests or conflicts but also serves as a general controller and arbiter for the overall computer system. Although some other system functions are oftentimes handled as separate blocks, such as the accounting and error handling, however they are more likely to appear under the blocks already listed. Many modern operating systems offer some features that combine computer commands into pseudo-programs that are known as shell scripts. Moreover, the batch-oriented systems possibly combine the individual comm ands into a set of control statements that are to be executed and interpreted without user intervention one at a time for the purpose of controlling the process of a multi-step ‘‘task.’’ Every step in the task executes an individual job. As for instance, on large IBM systems, the sequence of commands employed for this purpose, developed a language called Job Control Language (JCL). Furthermore to the standard OS commands, the shell scripting languages are conventionally used for providing branch and loop commands as well as for providing other features of the computer language. Shell scripts are used as if they were actual programs. It provides the following common features:  ¦ A way to redirect input/output data to a device that is different from the one used normally such as a disk file rather