1.5 Systems Software Flashcards
Operating system
Provides a platform where users can run programs
Utility software
Used to maintain the computer system
What is the user interface?
The way in which you interact with a computer as a human being
What does a Graphical User Interface (GUI) have?
- Windows, icons, menus, pointers (WIMP)
- Visual
- Interactive
- Intuitive
- Optimised for mouse and touch gesture input
What does a command line interface have?
- Text based
- Efficient
- For advanced users
- Usefule for automating processes
- More commands than a GUI
What does a menu interface have?
- Successive menus presented to the user
- Single options chosen at each stage
- Often with buttons on a keypad
Natural language interface
- Resopnds to questions in spoken language
- Not always reliable
- Getting better all the time
What is multitasking?
Running multiple applications at the same time by giving each application a small time-slice of processor time
What can multitasking do?
Allows more than one program to be held in memory at a time, and data shared between them. E.g. Copy and pasting
What is memory management?
When programs are loaded, the operating system decides where they are held in memory
What does the operating system do when the memory is full?
Uses the virtual memory
What is a device driver?
Translates OS instructions into commands that the hardware will understand. Each peripheral needs one
1.5.2
