Hardware technology continues to evolve rapidly, but the man-machine interface with computer hardware remains both awkward and complex; there must be a more friendly intermediary between the prospective user and the "bare machine." the software, or group of programs, that controls the computer itself and provides this more hospitable user interface is called the "operating system." the operating system controls all the computer resources: processors, main storage, secondary storage, I/O devices, and files. It determines which programs will be in memory at any given time and the order in which programs will run. It handles the administration involved in fetching and releasing files, calling up other user program packages and correcting user errors. The operating system resolves conflicts between users, attempts to optimize the performance of the computer, allows the computer to communicate with other computers, and maintains a record of all actions performed as it goes about its system tasks. This course investigates the basic design issues encountered in order to produce an operating system that can address the above problems in an efficient manner. These concepts are reinforced by a series of programming projects that include both design and implementation.
