Jason Huang

The two main jobs of a computer are I/O and computing. In many cases, the main job is I/O, and the computing or processing is merely incidental. For instance, when we browse a web page or edit a file, our immediate interest is to read or enter some information, not... [Read More]

In Chapter 9, we discussed various memory-management strategies used in computer systems. All these strategies have the same goal: to keep many processes in memory simultaneously to allow multiprogramming. However, they tend to require that an entire process be in memory before it can execute. [Read More]

In Chapter 5, we showed how the CPU can be shared by a set of processes. As a result of CPU scheduling, we can improve both the utilization of the CPU and the speed of the computer’s response to its users. To realize this increase in performance, however, we must... [Read More]

The process model introduced in Chapter 3 assumed that a process was an executing program with a single thread of control. Virtually all modern operat- ing systems, however, provide features enabling a process to contain multiple threads of control. Identifying opportunities for parallelism through the use of threads is becoming... [Read More]

Early computers allowed only one program to be executed at a time. This pro- gram had complete control of the system and had access to all the system’s resources. In contrast, contemporary computer systems allow multiple pro- grams to be loaded into memory and executed concurrently. This evolution required firmer... [Read More]