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Vanguard (microkernel)
Vanguard is a discontinued experimental microkernel developed at Apple Computer, in the research-oriented Apple Advanced Technology Group (ATG) in the early 1990s. Based on the V-System, Vanguard introduced standardized object identifiers and a unique ''message chaining'' system for improved performance. Vanguard was not used in any of Apple's commercial products. Development ended in 1993 when Ross Finlayson, the project's main investigator, left Apple. Basic concepts Vanguard was generally very similar to the V-System, but added support for true object-oriented programming of the operating system. This meant that kernel and server interfaces were exported as objects, which could be '' inherited'' and extended in new code. This change has no visible effect on the system, it is mainly a change in the source code that makes programming easier. For example, Vanguard had an input/output (I/O) class which was supported by several different servers, for example, networking and file ser ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Apple Computer
Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, in Silicon Valley. It is best known for its consumer electronics, software, and services. Founded in 1976 as Apple Computer Company by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne, the company was incorporated by Jobs and Wozniak as Apple Computer, Inc. the following year. It was renamed Apple Inc. in 2007 as the company had expanded its focus from computers to consumer electronics. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue, with billion in the 2024 fiscal year. The company was founded to produce and market Wozniak's Apple I personal computer. Its second computer, the Apple II, became a best seller as one of the first mass-produced microcomputers. Apple introduced the Lisa in 1983 and the Macintosh in 1984, as some of the first computers to use a graphical user interface and a mouse. By 1985, internal company problems led to Jobs leaving to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Interface (computing)
In computing, an interface (American English) or interphase (British English, archaic) is a shared boundary across which two or more separate components of a computer system exchange information. The exchange can be between software, computer hardware, peripheral, peripheral devices, User interface, humans, and combinations of these. Some computer hardware devices, such as a touchscreen, can both send and receive data through the interface, while others such as a mouse or microphone may only provide an interface to send data to a given system. Hardware interfaces Hardware interfaces exist in many components, such as the various Bus (computing), buses, Computer data storage, storage devices, other I/O devices, etc. A hardware interface is described by the mechanical, electrical, and logical signals at the interface and the protocol for sequencing them (sometimes called signaling). See also: A standard interface, such as SCSI, decouples the design and introduction of computing ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Unix-like
A Unix-like (sometimes referred to as UN*X, *nix or *NIX) operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system, although not necessarily conforming to or being certified to any version of the Single UNIX Specification. A Unix-like Application software, application is one that behaves like the corresponding List of POSIX commands, Unix command or Unix shell, shell. Although there are general Unix philosophy, philosophies for Unix design, there is no technical standard defining the term, and opinions can differ about the degree to which a particular operating system or application is Unix-like. Some well-known examples of Unix-like operating systems include Linux, FreeBSD and OpenBSD. These systems are often used on servers as well as on personal computers and other devices. Many popular applications, such as the Apache HTTP Server, Apache web server and the Bash (Unix shell), Bash shell, are also designed to be used on Unix-like systems. Definition The Open ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scheduling (computing)
In computing, scheduling is the action of assigning resources to perform tasks. The resources may be processors, network links or expansion cards. The tasks may be threads, processes or data flows. The scheduling activity is carried out by a mechanism called a scheduler. Schedulers are often designed so as to keep all computer resources busy (as in load balancing), allow multiple users to share system resources effectively, or to achieve a target quality-of-service. Scheduling is fundamental to computation itself, and an intrinsic part of the execution model of a computer system; the concept of scheduling makes it possible to have computer multitasking with a single central processing unit (CPU). Goals A scheduler may aim at one or more goals, for example: * maximizing '' throughput'' (the total amount of work completed per time unit); * minimizing '' wait time'' (time from work becoming ready until the first point it begins execution); * minimizing '' latency'' o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mach (kernel)
Mach () is an operating system kernel developed at Carnegie Mellon University by Richard Rashid and Avie Tevanian to support operating system research, primarily distributed and parallel computing. Mach is often considered one of the earliest examples of a microkernel. However, not all versions of Mach are microkernels. Mach's derivatives are the basis of the operating system kernel in GNU Hurd and of Apple's XNU kernel used in macOS, iOS, iPadOS, tvOS, and watchOS. The project at Carnegie Mellon ran from 1985 to 1994, ending with Mach 3.0, which is a true microkernel. Mach was developed as a replacement for the kernel in the BSD version of Unix, not requiring a new operating system to be designed around it. Mach and its derivatives exist within several commercial operating systems. These include all using the XNU operating system kernel which incorporates an earlier non-microkernel Mach as a major component. The Mach virtual memory management system was also adopted in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Subroutine
In computer programming, a function (also procedure, method, subroutine, routine, or subprogram) is a callable unit of software logic that has a well-defined interface and behavior and can be invoked multiple times. Callable units provide a powerful programming tool. The primary purpose is to allow for the decomposition of a large and/or complicated problem into chunks that have relatively low cognitive load and to assign the chunks meaningful names (unless they are anonymous). Judicious application can reduce the cost of developing and maintaining software, while increasing its quality and reliability. Callable units are present at multiple levels of abstraction in the programming environment. For example, a programmer may write a function in source code that is compiled to machine code that implements similar semantics. There is a callable unit in the source code and an associated one in the machine code, but they are different kinds of callable units with different impl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Asynchronous Communication
In telecommunications, asynchronous communication is transmission of data, generally without the use of an external clock signal, where data can be transmitted intermittently rather than in a steady stream. Any timing required to recover data from the communication symbols is encoded within the symbols. The most significant aspect of asynchronous communications is that data is not transmitted at regular intervals, thus making possible variable bit rate, and that the transmitter and receiver clock generators do not have to be exactly synchronized all the time. In asynchronous transmission, data is sent one byte at a time and each byte is preceded by start and stop bits. Physical layer In asynchronous serial communication in the physical protocol layer, the data blocks are code words of a certain word length, for example octets ( bytes) or ASCII characters, delimited by start bits and stop bits. A variable length space can be inserted between the code words. No bit syn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Monolithic Kernel
A monolithic kernel is an operating system software architecture, architecture with the entire operating system running in kernel space. The monolithic model differs from other architectures such as the microkernel in that it alone defines a high-level virtual interface over computer hardware. A set of primitives or system calls implement all operating system services such as Process (computing), process management, Concurrency (computer science), concurrency, and memory management. Device drivers can be added to the kernel as loadable kernel modules. Examples *Most BSD kernels **FreeBSD **OpenBSD **NetBSD *Linux kernel **Android (operating system), Android *Other Unix/Unix-like kernels **AIX **Oracle Solaris *MS-DOS **Windows 9x *OpenVMS *Palm OS (version ≤ 5.0) Loadable modules Modular operating systems such as OS-9 and most modern monolithic-kernel operating systems such as OpenVMS, Linux kernel, Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, DragonFly BSD, Oracle Solaris, Solaris, and AIX can d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Client (computing)
is a computer that gets information from another computer called server in the context of client–server model of computer networks. The server is often (but not always) on another computer system, in which case the client accesses the service by way of a network. A client is a program that, as part of its operation, relies on sending a request to another program or a computer hardware or software that accesses a service made available by a server (which may or may not be located on another computer). For example, web browsers are clients that connect to web servers and retrieve web pages for display. Email clients retrieve email from mail servers. Online chat uses a variety of clients, which vary on the chat protocol being used. Multiplayer video games or online video games may run as a client on each computer. The term "client" may also be applied to computers or devices that run the client software or users that use the client software. A client is part of a cl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Remote Procedure Call
In distributed computing, a remote procedure call (RPC) is when a computer program causes a procedure (subroutine) to execute in a different address space (commonly on another computer on a shared computer network), which is written as if it were a normal (local) procedure call, without the programmer explicitly writing the details for the remote interaction. That is, the programmer writes essentially the same code whether the subroutine is local to the executing program, or remote. This is a form of server interaction (caller is client, executor is server), typically implemented via a request–response message passing system. In the object-oriented programming paradigm, RPCs are represented by remote method invocation (RMI). The RPC model implies a level of location transparency, namely that calling procedures are largely the same whether they are local or remote, but usually, they are not identical, so local calls can be distinguished from remote calls. Remote calls are usually o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Trap (computing)
In digital computers, an interrupt (sometimes referred to as a trap) is a request for the processor to ''interrupt'' currently executing code (when permitted), so that the event can be processed in a timely manner. If the request is accepted, the processor will suspend its current activities, save its state, and execute a function called an ''interrupt handler'' (or an ''interrupt service routine'', ISR) to deal with the event. This interruption is often temporary, allowing the software to resume normal activities after the interrupt handler finishes, although the interrupt could instead indicate a fatal error. Interrupts are commonly used by hardware devices to indicate electronic or physical state changes that require time-sensitive attention. Interrupts are also commonly used to implement computer multitasking and system calls, especially in real-time computing. Systems that use interrupts in these ways are said to be interrupt-driven. History Hardware interrupts were ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
System Call
In computing, a system call (syscall) is the programmatic way in which a computer program requests a service from the operating system on which it is executed. This may include hardware-related services (for example, accessing a hard disk drive or accessing the device's camera), creation and execution of new processes, and communication with integral kernel services such as process scheduling. System calls provide an essential interface between a process and the operating system. In most systems, system calls can only be made from userspace processes, while in some systems, OS/360 and successors for example, privileged system code also issues system calls. For embedded systems, system calls typically do not change the privilege mode of the CPU. Privileges The architecture of most modern processors, with the exception of some embedded systems, involves a security model. For example, the '' rings'' model specifies multiple privilege levels under which software may be e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
