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A computer system that allows only one user to use the computer at a given time is known as a single-user  system. The goals of such systems are maximizing user convenience and responsiveness, instead of maximizing the utilization of the CPU and peripheral devices. Single-user systems use I/O devices such as keyboards, mice, display screens, scanners, and small printers. They can adopt technology developed for larger operating systems. Often individuals have sole use of computer and do not need advanced CPU utilization and hardware protection features. They may run different types of operating systems, including DOS, Windows, and MacOS. Linux and UNIX operating systems can also be run in single-user mode.

Batch Systems

Early computers were large machines run from a console with card readers and tape drives as input devices and line printers, tape drives, and card punches as output devices. The user did not interact directly with the system; instead the user prepared a job, (which consisted of the program, data, and some control information about the nature of the job in the form of control cards) and submitted this to the computer operator. The job was in the form of punch cards, and at some later time the output was generated by the system— user didn’t get to interact with his/her job. The output consisted of the result of the program, as well as a dump of the final memory and register contents for debugging.

To speed up processing, operators batched together jobs with similar needs, and ran them through the computer as a group. For example, all FORTRAN programs were complied one after the other. The major task of such an operating system was to transfer control automatically from one job to the next. In this execution environment, the CPU is often idle because the speeds of the mechanical I/O devices such as a tape drive are slower than that of electronic devices. Such systems in which the user does not get to interact with his/her jobs and jobs with similar needs are executed in a “batch”, one after the other, are known as batch  systems. Digital Equipment Corporation’s VMS is an example of a batch operating system.

Figure 2.1 shows the memory layout of a typical computer system, with the system space  containing operating system code and data currently in use and the user  space containing user programs (processes). In case of a batch system, the user space contains one process at a time because only one process is executing at a given time.

Figure 2.1 Memory partitioned into user and system spaces

 Multi-programmed Systems

Multi-programming increases CPU utilization by organizing jobs so that the CPU always has one to execute. The operating system keeps several jobs in memory simultaneously, as shown in Figure 2.2. This set of jobs is a subset of the jobs on the disk which are ready to run but cannot be loaded into memory due to lack of space. Since the number of jobs that can be kept simultaneously in memory is usually much smaller than the number of jobs that can be in the job pool; the operating system picks and executes one of the jobs in the memory. Eventually the job has to wait for some task such as an I/O operation to complete. In a non multi-programmed system, the CPU would sit idle. In a multi- programmed system, the operating system simply switches to, and executes another job. When that job needs to wait, the CPU simply switches to another job and so on.

Figure 2.3 illustrates the concept of multiprogramming by using an example system with two processes, P1 and P2. The CPU is switched from P1 to P2 when P1 finishes its CPU burst and needs to wait for an event, and vice versa when P2 finishes it CPU burst and has to wait for an event. This means that when one process is using the CPU, the other is waiting for an event (such as I/O to complete). This increases the utilization of the CPU and I/O devices as well as throughput of the system. In our example below, P1 and P2 would finish their execution in 10 time units if no multiprogramming is used and in six time units if multiprogramming is used.

Figure 2.3  Illustration of the multiprogramming concept

All jobs that enter the system are kept in the job pool. This pool consists of all processes residing on disk awaiting allocation of main memory. If several jobs are ready to be brought into memory, and there is not enough room for all of them, then the system must choose among them. This decision is called job scheduling. In addition if several jobs are ready to run at the same time, the system must choose among them.

Time-sharing systems

A time-sharing system is multi-user, multi-process, and interactive system. This means that it allows multiple users to use the computer simultaneously. A user can run one or more processes at the same time and interact with his/her processes. A time-shared system uses multiprogramming and CPU scheduling to provide each user with a small portion of  a  time-shared computer. Each user  has  at  least one separate program in memory. To obtain a reasonable response time, jobs may have to be swapped in and out of main memory. UNIX, Linux, Widows NT server, and Windows 2000 server are time- sharing systems. We will discuss various elements of time-sharing systems throughout the course.