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Asynchronous System Trap
Asynchronous System Trap (AST) refers to a mechanism used in several computer operating systems designed by the former Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) of Maynard, Massachusetts. Mechanism Various events within these systems can be optionally signalled back to the user processes via the AST mechanism. These ASTs act like subroutine calls but they are delivered asynchronously, that is, without any regard to the context of the main thread. Because of this, care must be taken: * to ensure that any code that is shared between the main thread and the AST must be designed to be reentrant, and * any data that is shared must be safe against corruption if modified at any time by the AST. Otherwise, the data must be guarded by blocking ASTs during critical sections. ASTs are most commonly encountered as a result of issuing QIO calls to the kernel. Completion of the I/O can be signalled by the issuance of an AST to the calling process/task. Certain runtime errors could also be signall ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Operating System
An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also include accounting software for cost allocation of processor time, mass storage, printing, and other resources. For hardware functions such as input and output and memory allocation, the operating system acts as an intermediary between programs and the computer hardware, although the application code is usually executed directly by the hardware and frequently makes system calls to an OS function or is interrupted by it. Operating systems are found on many devices that contain a computer from cellular phones and video game consoles to web servers and supercomputers. The dominant general-purpose personal computer operating system is Microsoft Windows with a market share of around 74.99%. macOS by Apple Inc. is in second place (14.84%), and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
OpenVMS
OpenVMS, often referred to as just VMS, is a multi-user, multiprocessing and virtual memory-based operating system. It is designed to support time-sharing, batch processing, transaction processing and workstation applications. Customers using OpenVMS include banks and financial services, hospitals and healthcare, telecommunications operators, network information services, and industrial manufacturers. During the 1990s and 2000s, there were approximately half a million VMS systems in operation worldwide. It was first announced by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) as VAX/VMS (''Virtual Address eXtension/Virtual Memory System'') alongside the VAX-11/780 minicomputer in 1977. OpenVMS has subsequently been ported to run on DEC Alpha systems, the Itanium-based HPE Integrity Servers, and select x86-64 hardware and hypervisors. Since 2014, OpenVMS is developed and supported by VMS Software Inc. (VSI). OpenVMS offers high availability through clustering — the ability to distribute the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Windows NT
Windows NT is a proprietary graphical operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ... produced by Microsoft, the first version of which was released on July 27, 1993. It is a processor-independent, multiprocessing and multi-user operating system. The first version of Windows NT was Windows NT 3.1 and was produced for workstations and server computers. It was a commercially focused operating system intended to complement consumer versions of Microsoft Windows, Windows that were based on MS-DOS (including Windows 1.0 through Windows 3.1x). Gradually, the Windows NT family was expanded into Microsoft's general-purpose operating system product line for all personal computers, deprecating the Windows 9x family. "NT" was formerly expanded to "New Technology" but no ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Asynchronous Procedure Call
Asynchronous procedure call is a unit of work in a computer. Usually a program works by executing a series of synchronous procedure calls on some thread. But if some data are not ready (for example, a program waits user to reply), then keeping thread in wait state is impractical, as a thread allocates considerable amount of memory for procedure stack, and this memory is not used. So such a procedure call is formed as an object with small amount of memory for input data, and this object is passed to the service which receive user inputs. When the user's reply is received, the service puts it in the object and passes that object to an execution service. Execution service consists of one or more dedicated worker threads and a queue for tasks. Each worker thread reads in a loop task queue and, when a task is retrieved, executes it. When there is no tasks, worker threads are waiting and so their memory is not used, but the number of worker threads is small enough (no sense to have more ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Process Control Block
A process control block (PCB) is a data structure used by computer operating systems to store all the information about a process. It is also known as a process descriptor. When a process is created (initialized or installed), the operating system creates a corresponding process control block. This specifies the process state i.e. new, ready, running, waiting or terminated. Role The role of the PCBs is central in process management: they are accessed and/or modified by most utilities, particularly those involved with scheduling and resource management. Structure In multitasking operating systems, the PCB stores data needed for correct and efficient process management. Though the details of these structures are system-dependent, common elements fall in three main categories: * Process identification * Process state * Process control Status tables exist for each relevant entity, like describing memory, I/O devices, files and processes. Memory tables, for example, contain infor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Race Condition
A race condition or race hazard is the condition of an electronics, software, or other system where the system's substantive behavior is dependent on the sequence or timing of other uncontrollable events. It becomes a bug when one or more of the possible behaviors is undesirable. The term ''race condition'' was already in use by 1954, for example in David A. Huffman's doctoral thesis "The synthesis of sequential switching circuits". Race conditions can occur especially in logic circuits, multithreaded, or distributed Distribution may refer to: Mathematics *Distribution (mathematics), generalized functions used to formulate solutions of partial differential equations *Probability distribution, the probability of a particular value or value range of a varia ... software programs. In electronics A typical example of a race condition may occur when a logic gate combines signals that have traveled along different paths from the same source. The inputs to the gate can chan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ring (computer Security)
In computer science, hierarchical protection domains, often called protection rings, are mechanisms to protect data and functionality from faults (by improving fault tolerance) and malicious behavior (by providing computer security). Computer operating systems provide different levels of access to resources. A protection ring is one of two or more hierarchical ''levels'' or ''layers'' of privilege within the architecture of a computer system. This is generally hardware-enforced by some CPU architectures that provide different CPU modes at the hardware or microcode level. Rings are arranged in a hierarchy from most privileged (most trusted, usually numbered zero) to least privileged (least trusted, usually with the highest ring number). Ring 0 is the level with the most privileges and allows direct interaction with the physical hardware such as certain CPU functionality and chips on the motherboard. Special call gates between rings are provided to allow an outer ring to acces ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Unix
Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and others. Initially intended for use inside the Bell System, AT&T licensed Unix to outside parties in the late 1970s, leading to a variety of both academic and commercial Unix variants from vendors including University of California, Berkeley (Berkeley Software Distribution, BSD), Microsoft (Xenix), Sun Microsystems (SunOS/Solaris (operating system), Solaris), Hewlett-Packard, HP/Hewlett Packard Enterprise, HPE (HP-UX), and IBM (IBM AIX, AIX). In the early 1990s, AT&T sold its rights in Unix to Novell, which then sold the UNIX trademark to The Open Group, an industry consortium founded in 1996. The Open Group allows the use of the mark for certified operating systems that comply with the Single UNIX Specification (SUS). Unix systems are chara ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
RSTS/E
RSTS () is a multi-user time-sharing operating system developed by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC, now part of Hewlett-Packard) for the PDP-11 series of 16-bit minicomputers. The first version of RSTS (RSTS-11, Version 1) was implemented in 1970 by DEC software engineers that developed the TSS-8 time-sharing operating system for the PDP-8. The last version of RSTS (RSTS/E, Version 10.1) was released in September 1992. RSTS-11 and RSTS/E are usually referred to just as "RSTS" and this article will generally use the shorter form. RSTS-11 supports the BASIC programming language, an extended version called BASIC-PLUS, developed under contract by ''Evans Griffiths & Hart'' of Boston,. Starting with RSTS/E version 5B, DEC added support for additional programming languages by emulating the execution environment of the RT-11 and RSX-11 operating systems. Acronyms and abbreviations *BTSS (Basic Time Sharing System – never marketed) – The first name for RSTS. *CCL (Concise Comm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Digital Equipment Corporation
Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC ), using the trademark Digital, was a major American company in the computer industry from the 1960s to the 1990s. The company was co-founded by Ken Olsen and Harlan Anderson in 1957. Olsen was president until forced to resign in 1992, after the company had gone into precipitous decline. The company produced many different product lines over its history. It is best known for the work in the minicomputer market starting in the mid-1960s. The company produced a series of machines known as the PDP line, with the PDP-8 and PDP-11 being among the most successful minis in history. Their success was only surpassed by another DEC product, the late-1970s VAX "supermini" systems that were designed to replace the PDP-11. Although a number of competitors had successfully competed with Digital through the 1970s, the VAX cemented the company's place as a leading vendor in the computer space. As microcomputers improved in the late 1980s, especially wit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
RSX-11
RSX-11 is a discontinued family of multi-user real-time operating systems for PDP-11 computers created by Digital Equipment Corporation. In widespread use through the late 1970s and early 1980s, RSX-11 was influential in the development of later operating systems such as VMS and Windows NT. As the original ''Real-Time System Executive'' name suggests, RSX was designed (and commonly used) for real time use, with process control a major use, thereof. It was also popular for program development and general computing. History Name and origins RSX-11 began as a port to the PDP-11 architecture of the earlier RSX-15 operating system for the PDP-15 minicomputer, first released in 1971. The main architect for RSX-15 (later renamed XVM/RSX) was Dennis “Dan” Brevik. Commenting on the ''RSX'' acronym, Brevik says: RSX-11D and IAS The porting effort first produced small paper tape based real-time executives (RSX-11A, RSX-11C) which later gained limited support for disks (RSX-11B). R ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
