System software
- 2. Introduction What is computer and computer software? Types of computer software. System software System management programs System development program
- 3. The technology has driven the world to the next level. And the technology is nothing but the computerization. The computerization is now the need of everyone whether a large system or an individual. They are now fully depend upon the computers for every job, whatsoever it is.
- 4. A computer is a system of various devices that works through electricity. It follows a certain mechanism that takes input from the user, processes the given input and generates output in the form of useful information. All computer system consist of two major components,viz,hardware and software. Hardware refers to a physical equipments that are necessary for performing various operations such as reading and processing data,storing results etc. Software refers to a set of computer programs that are required to enable the hardware to work and perform these operations effectively. Hence computer softwares are the set of programs,procedures and associated documents like flowcharts, manuals etc. describing the programs and how they are to be used.
- 6. Application software includes a variety of programs that are designed to meet the information processing needs of end users.They can be broadly classified into Two groups:- 1.Standard Application Programs 2.Unique Application Programs
- 7. System software consists of many different programs that manage and support different tasks. The system software not only controls the hardware functions but also enables the hardware to interact with the application software as well as the users. There are two groups of system software:- 1.system management programs, 2.system development programs.
- 8. System management programs are those programs that are meant for operating the hardware system and managing their resources effectively. They minimize the human intervention during processing and aid in minimizing the productivity of a computer system. System management program includes :- 1.Operating system 2.Utility programs 3.Device drivers.
- 9. Operating System: Provides an interface between the computer and the user and helps in implementing the application programs in the figure(next slide).Major functions are :- a) Scheduling and execution of all process. b) Allocation and management of main memory and other storage areas to the program c) Interpretation of commands and instructions.etc.
- 10. User interface Program interface Hardware interface User Application Program Operating System Hardware
- 11. Utility programs: utility programs enable an operating system to perform some additional tasks,such as searching and printing the files and scanning the viruses etc. utility programs are added to tan operating system to perform many different tasks,that include: a) Search and replace b) Print c) Disk defragement d) Virus scanner e) Backup of files and folders f) Data recovery g) Encryption h) System profiler
- 12. Device drivers: A computer system is connected with a multiple I/O devices ,so that it can communicate with the end user. In order to interact with the I/O devices it needs special software called device driver. It acts as a translator between the I/O devices and the computer.
- 13. System development program also known as “programming software” allow the users to develop programs in different languages. The process of developing and executing a program involves the following tasks: i. Debugging the program ii. Linking the various variables and objects with the libraries files iii. Translating the code from one language to another iv. Running the machine code to perform the desired task. In order to carry out these tasks, one need the following development tools: 1. Language translators 2. Linkers 3. Debuggers 4. Editors
- 14. Language translators: It is used to convert the program code written in one language to the another language. Compiler, interpreter and assembler are the most common examples of language translators.
- 15. Linkers: Linker arranges the object code of all the modules that have been generated by the language translator into a single program. Linker also includes the links of various objects, which are defined in the runtime libraries.
- 16. Debuggers: It is used to detect the errors and bugs present in the programs. It locates the position of the errors in the program code with the help of the Instruction Set Simulator(ISS) technique, that is capable of stopping the execution of a program at the point where an erroneous statement is encountered. In order to debug the program, a debugger helps us to perform the following task: 1. Step by step execution of a program 2. Back tracking for checking the previous steps 3. Stopping the execution of the program until the errors are corrected.
- 17. Editors: It is a special program that allows the user to work with the text in the computer system. It is used for the documentation purposes and enables us to edit the information present in an existing document or a file. It enables us to perform the various editing operations like copy,cut,paste etc. The editors are divided into the following categories:- i. Text editor ii. Digital audio editor iii. Graphics editor iv. Binary file editor v. HTML editor vi. Source code editor.