Boot-up
Happy New Year
Your Computing or Digital Resolutions? These were received and will prove very useful in framing the programme for the next few months. I’ll try and get a pretty copy of it prepared and provide a link to it so that you can all see what you wanted to achieve!
News and other issues raised
Last time I showed you Ookla’s Speedtest to find out the bandwidth (speed) of your home internet connections from wired and WiFi connections to your Router. We’ve got some Speedtest results posted on WhatsApp, but could do with some more. Any comments from David, Jim, Marilyn and Paul?
Anyone on Virgin, who’s seen an improvement in their bandwidth? They’re upgrading all their customers (pre 1st Dec 2019) to 100Mbps download.
End of life for Windows 7 (with video)
What does this mean? What should you do? Further reading with suggested alternatives should you not wish to upgrade to Windows 10.
Gear Guide
Has anyone bought, or obtained anything recently they’d like to tell us about? It doesn’t have to be a computer, laptop, tablet or phone – just something that’s digital, ie used a computer processor in some way?
Did anyone buy (or was given) anything interesting for Christmas
What about the Turing Tumble – Build Marble-Powered Computers
I bought an Apple HomePod and we’re delighted with it, although Siri does seem to be selective in what it finds from our Music Library, preferring to search Apple Music rather than look for our locally installed tracks. I’ve linked it to our Sonos Play:5 system – which has very good sound quality and through our Apple TV I can also play the Siri selected music through the HiFi system. It’s been an interesting project!
Apps Galore
That slot in the meeting where members are encouraged to share their experience (and possibly excitement) at a new app they’ve started using for their smartphone, tablet, laptop or desktop machine.
Mario told us about an App that he’s found very useful in getting vertical lines for door frames, etc – or even getting the coffee table level! It is called Clinometer HD (on Android) and I think the same app is called Clinometer + bubble level (on iOS) where it costs £1.99.
Renee told us about iNaturalist which is Free on iOS (not sure whether it’s available on Android) which is helpful in identifying matters natural (plants, etc.)
I added there was an app called iGeology which gives you an idea of the geology of anywhere in the UK through maps.
What’s IT all about?
What’s an Operating System?
I thought given the immediacy of the Windows 7 “end-of-life” date, that discussing and talking about Operating Systems might be appropriate, and thanks Paul for planting the seed of the idea!
First a set of videos to set the scene …
An introduction (see Reference List below for text accompanying this video) …
… and the place of Operating Systems in a historical context …
… and then the beginnings of a technical information fo what they do …
[If you want to learn more you can follow the later videos in the series of the last one.]
So … some of important functions of an Operating System that originated and still exist in multi-user computers – the ones we may connect to when doing online banking, or shopping, are:
- Memory Management
- Processor Management
- Device Management
- File Management
- Security
- Control over system performance
- Job accounting
- Error detecting aids
- Coordination between other software (applications) and users including the provision of application program interfaces to allow applications access to core OS functions
… and some of the important activities that an Operating System performs on a shared multi-user mainframe-like computer are:
- Security − By means of password and similar other techniques, it prevents unauthorised access to programs and data.
- Control over system performance − Recording delays between request for a service and response from the system.
- Job accounting − Keeping track of time and resources used by various jobs and users.
- Error detecting aids − Production of dumps, traces, error messages, and other debugging and error detecting aids.
- Coordination between other softwares and users − Coordination and assignment of compilers, interpreters, assemblers and other software to the various users of the computer systems.
Of course Operating Systems have evolved from being programs that manage multi-user access to a shared computer, to being the program that controls (manages) a single-user’s access to their personal computer or mobile device through a User Interface – perhaps the feature most users equate with an Operating System – but that’s not where it ends.
The OS is critically involved in the way that computers are connected to networks, and in the way that computers (devices) are connected to each other. This extension of the Operating System (the incorporation of the way personal computing devices connect together using a LAN, dial-up or WiFi into the code of the OS) is where we are today. Together they work effectively as the brain of the computer.
From the second reference below …
An operating system is the core set of software on a device that keeps everything together. Operating systems communicate with the device’s hardware. They handle everything from your keyboard and mice to the Wi-Fi radio, storage devices, and display. In other words, an operating system handles input and output devices. Operating systems use device drivers written by hardware creators to communicate with their devices.
Operating systems also include a lot of software—things like common system services, libraries, and application programming interfaces (APIs) that developers can use to write programs that run on the operating system.
The operating system sits in between the applications you run and the hardware, using the hardware drivers as the interface between the two. For example, when an application wants to print something, it hands that task off to the operating system. The operating system sends the instructions to the printer, using the printer’s drivers to send the correct signals. The application that’s printing doesn’t have to care about what printer you have or understand how it works. The OS handles the details.
The OS also handles multi-tasking, allocating hardware resources among multiple running programs. The operating system controls which processes run, and it allocates them between different CPUs if you have a computer with multiple CPUs or cores, letting multiple processes run in parallel. It also manages the system’s internal memory, allocating memory between running applications.
The operating system is the one big piece of software running the show, and it’s in charge of everything else. For example, the operating system also controls the files and other resources these programs can access.
Most software applications are written for operating systems, which lets the operating system do a lot of the heavy lifting. For example, when you run Minecraft, you run it on an operating system. Minecraft doesn’t have to know exactly how each different hardware component works. Minecraft uses a variety of operating system functions, and the operating system translates those into low-level hardware instructions. This saves the developers of Minecraft—and every other program that runs on an operating system—a lot of trouble.
In complex control systems such as a power station, or weapons system there will be elements of a stripped down operating system at the core of the dedicated task the system is programmed to carry out. It is important that there is at the heart of every system some core code that interacts with the basic components of the system – its processor, its memory, the resources it calls upon and the devices it controls. That is the Operating System.
A selected reading list:
What is an Operating System (with the first video)
What is an Operating System (a bit more technical, and informative)
How Operating Systems Work (the more or less complete guide for those who have difficulty sleeping)
… and here with a little history for those that have an Apple bent …
… and for a bit of fun, back to 1998 when personal computers first became a piece of equipment that you’d consider having in your living room …
… by the way, I have a friend who still has a working G3 iMac. I’m moving his work on it on to a new iMac in the next couple of weeks.