Thread: Operating system

Just kiddin man, but yea, I have known that base ten was used with earlier computers when they were enourmous, but I didn't know that ENIAC used it.... very interesting.

Grumble Grumble Grumble

To understand why ENIAC used a Base 10 system, you would need to know the purpose that ENIAC was designed for. And it was designed for only one task, the calculation and print out of Artillery Firing Tables during World War II. At the time, theoretical and practical knowledge of binary math was non-existent, and the Scientist, Engineers, and the US Army didn't want to waste time, as they needed the difficult to calculate tables NOW!!!. Also, in the modern sense, the ENIAC wasn't a 'Programable' calculation unit. Instead, it would need to be 'hard wired' for every series of calculations, and re-wired if a different change in inputs and calculations were needed...

Also, in a Modern Sense, Base 10 Electronic Calculations didn't work well, and were wasteful in electronic resources. All Computers since the early 1950s used a 'Binary' representation for Internal Numbers.

Also, as an example of what could happen when changing to a different numbering system. (and you really need to take some Upper Division abstract math to fully understand them...), in Base 10, 1 divided by 3 = 0.33333..... with the results that can never be fully and accuratley displayed in base 10. But in Base 3, 1 divided by 3 = 0.1, which displays the complete and correct value....

Eheheh....im a computer noob...LoL....i dont know much about computers but to know how to abuse it |;D...well....thnx fer the info

LenMiyata's lessons just shows how much I knew tsk tsk tsk

If you really want to define an Operating System, as for it's essential task, it is to basically be a means of communication between user applications/software and the ahrdware, ie: the internal components of your computer. How it does it? Through the means of various device drivers and utilities. Now the applications themselves create an environment which the user can use to change whatever they wish to change or create, without actually seeing what's going on in the background. However the Operating System is always in communication mode with the hardware from the system.

How does it handle all the hardware? Does it have priority for some? There are these things called interrupt requests, which are sent by devices which need attention on the system. If a user presses a key on the keyboard, or clicks the mouse, an interrupt request will be sent to the computer to gain the Operating Systems attention and process that task. Now, the processors today will process things so fast, that you won't notice anything just by looking at the screen, however it's all going on in the background.

Now we have what you call Hyper-Threading Technology, which is technically the term for an application running execution threads in paralle. What this does is that when the Operating system send commands to the procesor for processing, the processor will receive these parallel threads, and process them both and more efficiently use the ressources available. This technology is more widespread throughout the industry now.