Operating systems

Charlie is about to study a computer games design course at university. He needs to purchase a computer to allow him to design and edit the graphics in his games, including video files.

Charlie’s computer contains a data bus, an address bus and a control bus.

State the purpose of each of these three buses.

Charlie will need to use input and output devices when designing and editing his computer games.

State one input device and one output device that Charlie could use and give an example use of each.

Input device

Output device

Charlie will need to store a large collection of files containing high definition images and high definition videos that he will use during his course.

State a type of secondary storage device that Charlie could use and give a reason why.

In addition to the Central Processing Unit (CPU), Charlie will purchase a Graphical Processing Unit (GPU) that will be used to process and display the graphics in his games.

Tick (✓) one box on each row to indicate if each statement is referring to a CPU or a GPU.

State two benefits of using a GPU to process and display the graphics in computer games.

Charlie will require an operating system that will allow him to have several applications open at the same time.

State which type of operating system Charlie will need to install.

An operating system that Charlie is thinking about installing uses a multi-level feedback queue.

Describe how a multi-level feedback queue works.

An operating system manages and installs device drivers.

Explain why hardware devices require a device driver.

Once Charlie has installed an operating system he will need to install utility software.

State two utilities that Charlie could install and state the purpose of each.

An embedded system is often a small device that is designed to carry out a limited number of specialised tasks. Professional athletes sometimes wear small embedded systems called fitness trackers in their shirts. These can be used to track their speed, position, heart rate and other performance data during an event. The tracker transmits this data to a pitch-side server which collates the data from all the athletes.

State the name of one input device that might be used in this embedded system and state what it would be used for.

The fitness tracker manufacturers had to decide which type of secondary storage to use.

Explain two reasons why flash (solid state) storage would be the best type of secondary storage for the fitness tracker system.

One use of ROM is to store the Basic Input Output System (BIOS). The BIOS is used when the computer is first turned on.

Describe what the BIOS will do to start up the computer.

Apart from storing the BIOS, ROM can also be used in other ways.

Describe how the embedded system can make a different use of ROM and why it is an advantage.

The embedded system will have an operating system. Two roles of an operating system are to handle interrupts and manage scheduling.

Describe two other roles of an operating system.

Draw a line to match each scheduling algorithm to the correct description.

* The fitness trackers will send athletes’ performance data to a pitch-side server. A program needs to be developed to analyse this data and display the results.

Different words, colours and charts will be displayed to indicate how well athletes are performing.

The program will be used by athletes from different cultures all over the world.

Discuss the layout considerations that the programmer needs to consider when creating the program user interface for different cultures.

You should include the following in your answer:

• layout considerations

• colour considerations

• character set considerations.

Imogen buys a desktop computer. It comes with an operating system installed.

Describe two ways that an operating system could manage physical memory.

Explain one benefit of memory management to the user.

Describe how virtual memory allows a user to run programs when physical memory is full.

Operating systems make use of device drivers.

Define what is meant by the term ‘device driver’, giving one example of a device driver that a home user would need.

Operating systems usually come with utility software pre-installed.

Give two examples of utility software, explaining the purpose of both.

Imogen installs a compiler for a high-level programming language onto her computer and makes use of an open source IDE (Integrated Development Environment).

State what is meant by the term ‘open source software’.

Give one benefit to Imogen of using an open source IDE rather than a closed source IDE.

When Imogen creates programs in a high-level language, she makes use of libraries.

Explain what is meant by a library, giving one example of when one may be used.

Describe one advantage of the use of library files to programmers.

Describe one disadvantage of the use of library files to programmers.

Explain how linkers are used during the compilation process.

Traditionally films have been distributed on optical media such as DVDs.

Giving an example other than DVDs, describe what is meant by the term ‘optical media’.

Give one advantage of films being distributed using optical media.

Adding a DVD drive to a computer would often require the installation of a piece of software called a device driver.

State the purpose of a device driver.

It is now common for people to purchase films which, rather than having a physical copy of, they can stream or download over the internet whenever they want.

Explain the advantages and disadvantages of owning films that are streamed or downloaded on demand rather than owning a physical copy.

Being able to stream high resolution films is only possible due to improvements in compression.

Explain why compression is important for the streaming of high resolution films.

A software company decides to build an operating system for OCR smart watches.

Memory management is one of the functions of an operating system.

List three functions, other than memory management, of an operating system.

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Part of a computer’s memory is represented below (Fig. 2). The operating system divides the memory into equally sized chunks.

State the name of the type of memory management used in Fig. 2.

The operating system needs to load program C into memory but there is not enough space. Describe how the operating system would use virtual memory to load program C.

Write the HTML to produce the extract from the webpage above. You can assume it will be placed within the <body> tags of a pre-existing page. You do not need to specify the font.

Explain what happens when a search engine indexes the page. You do not need to discuss ranking.

Explain why using a RISC processor rather than a CISC processor is likely to result in increased battery life.