THE COURSE NOTES

The course notes are ( or, at least, will be ) available as world-wide web documents - provided that you're looking at them from the auckland site. That's not because we're shy; it's for reasons connected with our discussions with a publisher of the possibility of publishing a version of the notes as a textbook.

The notes cover the whole of the course. They are still evolving. The set presented here are at the moment ( before the beginning of the semester ) all 1997 versions, so they will mostly change as the course proceeds. We'll try to remember to amend the date give in the list below as we put the new files in.

They are provided as pdf files; if that causes difficulties, let us know. Here's a list ( which might also change ) of the chapters :

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
YearSECTIONTOPIC
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1998INTRODUCTION
1998HISTORY
1998 In the beginning ...
1998 Efficiency: getting the most out of the machine
1998 What's an operating system?
1998 Manual operation
1998 A monitor system
1998 Whither monitor systems?
1998 Doing two- or more- things at once
1998 Memory tricks
1998 Onwards and upwards- operating systems
1998 Batch systems
1998 Usability: getting the most out of the people
1998 Interactive systems
1998 Micros and beyond
1998 Distributed systems
1998 System architecture
1998 Now and henceforth
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1998REQUIREMENTS SPECIFICATION
1998 People and computers
1998 People and computers communicatinmg
1998 People talking to computers
1998 Computers talking to people
1998 Controlling the computer system
1998 Job-control languages
1998 Using terminals
1998 How to use a terminal
1998 Gui : graphical user interface
1998 About graphical user interfaces
1998 Graphics and text - a comparison
1998 Setting conventions
1998 Defining a system interface
1998 Making life easier
1998 Looking after people
1998 Managers are people, too
1998 Sources of information
1998 People : implications
1998 Safety
1998 Reliable systems
1998 Protection
1998 Security
1998 Authentication
1998 Security within the system
1998 Implementing capabilities
1998 Protection and security : implications
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1998WHAT MUST BE DONE
1998 Files
1998 Properties of files
1998 Names of files
1998 Files Ð from the beginning
1998 Streams
1998 Files in the system
1998 Streams in programmes
1998 Streams in operating systems
1998 Sharing files
1998 Distributed file systems
1998 Files, streams, and protection
1998 File generations
1998 Archiving
1998 Files and streams - implications
1998 Doing the work
1998 Programmes
1998 How programmes use storage
1998 Processes
1998 Implications of processes
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1998HOW TO DO IT
1998 Why memory ?
1998 Memory models
1998 Two views of memory management
1998 Memory management : the processes' view
1998 Memory management : the system's view
1998 Virtual memory
1998 Page and segment sizes
1998 Thrashing
1998 The obvious question
1998 Implications of memory
1998 Actually running programmes
1998 Starting a programme
1998 Processes in computers
1998 Life and death among the processes
1998 Keeping track of processes
1998 Processes in action
1998 Clever tricks with processes
1998 Communication between process and system
1998 Communication between processes
1998 Problems of concurrent processing
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1998IMPLEMENTATION
1998 Languages for writing operating systems
1998 Examples of systems programming languages
1998 Linda
1998 A final note on C and Unix
1998 Languages - implications
1998 Devices
1998 Terminals as devices
1998 Implementing a gui
1998 Session logs and command files
1998 Discs as devices
1998 Disc file systems
1998 Discs - the software view
1998 Discs - the hardware view
1998 Disc systems : an example
1998 A "log-structured" file system
1998 Real-time disc systems
1998 Making archives work
1998 Making devices work
1998 Device control software
1998 Device control hardware
1998 Devices : implications
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1998MANAGEMENT
1998 Keeping the system running smoothly
1998 Configuration
1998 Configuring the computer system.
1998 Configuring the operating system.
1998 Changing the configuration.
1998 Scheduling : who can do what, and when.
1998 Dispatchers
1998 The system clock
1998 Interrupts
1998 Scheduling in action
1998 Job scheduling now
1998 When scheduling fails
1998 Starvation
1998 Deadlock
1998 Scheduling - implications.
1998 Starting and stopping
1998 Implications of management
1998 A genuine bootstrap
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1997COLLECTED REFERENCES
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Alan Creak and Robert Sheehan,
July, 1998.

Go to Alan;
Go to Robert;
Go to the 34? course page;
Go to Computer Science.