SLR 1.7 Systems software

Question 1

What is an input device?

Answer 1

Any peripheral device that can accept data, presented in the appropriate machine-readable form, decode it and transmit it as electrical pulses to the CPU

Question 2

Name three input devices

Answer 2

keyboard, mouse, keypad, card reader, barcode scanner, proximity sensor, foot-mouse, puff-suck switch,, etc.

Question 3

What is an output device?

Answer 3

Any peripheral device that translates signals from the computer into a human-understandable form, into a physical action, or into a form suitable for reprocessing by the computer at a later stage.

Question 4

Name three output devices

Answer 4

screen, printer, speaker, plotter, motor, actuator, etc.

Question 5

What does OS stand for?

Answer 5

Operating System

Question 6

What is an Operating System?

Answer 6

A collection of systems software that manages the computer. Usually supplied with the computer. Most common operating systems are Windows, Linux, Unix, MacOS, iOS.

Question 7

What is ‘main memory’?

Answer 7

Random Access Memory (RAM)

Question 8

What is memory management?

Answer 8

The process of organising the flexible use of the computer’s main memory (RAM).

Question 9

What is a utility?

Answer 9

A systems program that performs some specific task in the operation of the computer, for example file backup, virus checking or a compression program.

Question 10

What is the purpose of systems software?

Answer 10

To provide a platform on which users can run programs to accomplish tasks, and maintain the computer system.

Question 11

What are the two types of systems software?

Answer 11

The operating system and utility software

Question 12

What is a user interface?

Answer 12

A user interface is the means by which the user and a computer system interact, in particular the use of input devices and software.

Question 13

What does GUI stand for?

Answer 13

Graphical User Interface

Question 14

What are the features of a Graphical User Interface?

Answer 14

Windows
Icons
Menus
Pointers
Easy to use
Visual
Intuitive
Optimised for mouse or touch gesture input

Question 15

What is a natural language interface?

Answer 15

A spoke user interface such as those provided by Siri, Cortona, Alexa etc.

Question 16

What are the features of a natural language interface?

Answer 16

Answer questions spoken in natural language.

Becoming (but not always) reliable.

Question 17

What does CLI stand for?

Answer 17

Command Line Interface

Question 18

What are the features of a Command Line Interface?

Answer 18

Text based
Less resource heavy than a GUI
For advanced users
Efficient
More commands than a GUI
Automate processes using scripts

Question 19

What are the features of a menu interface?

Answer 19

Successive menus presented to the user

Single option chosen at each stage

Question 20

What is multitasking?

Answer 20

multitasking is running multiple applications at the same time by giving each a small time-slice of processor time.

• Programs are loaded from secondary storage, usually a hard disk, into Random Access Memory.
• Programs are held by the Operating System in a queue.
• The program at the front of the queue runs its code on the processor.
• After a small amount of time, the program stops running and is moved to the back of the queue.
• The next program at the front of the queue then starts running.
• The cycle continues with newly loaded programs joining the queue, and programs that are closed leaving the queue.

Question 21

What is fragmentation?

Answer 21

When programs are loaded into RAM and closed over time the memory become fragmented which means the sections of memory that programs are loaded into are split up into small sections.

Question 22

What is virtual memory?

Answer 22

When the main memory (RAM) becomes full programs which are loaded but not currently running are moved out into secondary storage (often the Hard Disk Drive) so that other programs can be loaded into RAM to run. This moving around of programs is slow.

Question 23

What are pages?

Answer 23

Memory that is used for programs is split into equal sized chunks called pages. This makes it easier to move the information between RAM and virtual memory.

Question 24

What are peripherals?

Answer 24

Devices such as printers that connect to the computer

Question 25

What are device drivers?

Answer 25

Device drivers are device specific software that translates commands from the operating system into hardware specific commands that only that device understands. For example each printer will have its own driver. Drivers also allow communication back from the device to the operating system.

Question 26

How does a laser printer work?

Answer 26

A laser printer attracts toner particles to magnetised areas of the paper. Heat is used to fuse the toner to the page.

Question 27

How does an inkjet printer work?

Answer 27

An Inkjet printer sprays different coloured inks onto the page one row at a time.

Question 28

What is user management?

Answer 28

User management allows different users to log in to a computer. The operating system will retain individual settings for each user.

Different users may have different access rights to files and peripherals.

Question 29

What is a file extension?

Answer 29

The file extension appears after the name in Windows e.g. file.txt is a text file, file.csv is a comma separated file, file.docx is a Word document and file.html is an HTML (HyerperText Markup Language) file which is a webpage.

Question 30

Name four types of utility software

Answer 30

Encryption, Data compression, Defragmentation, Backup

Question 31

What is the purpose of encryption software?

Answer 31

Encryption uses an algorithm to scramble plain text into cipher text. The text can only be decrypted and made readable again with a key.

Question 32

What is the purpose of compression software?

Answer 32

Compression software reduces the size of a file so it takes up less disk space, and is quicker to download over the internet. Compressed files must be extracted before they can be read.

Question 33

What is the purpose of defragmentation software?

Answer 33

Defragmentation reorganises files on a hard disk to put fragments of files back together, and to collect free space. This reduces the movement of a read/write head across the surface of the disk speeding up file access.

Question 34

Why should Solid State Drives (SSDs) never be defragmented?

Answer 34

Solid state drives do not need to be defragmented because they contain no moving parts. Defragmenting an SSD actually reduces their lifespan.

Question 35

What is backup software?

Answer 35

Backup software takes a copy of files to protect against data loss and malware attacks.

Question 36

Name two types of backup

Answer 36

Backups can either be full backups where every file is copied, or incremental where only the files that have changed since the last backup are copied.