To my children, Lemar, Sivan, and Aaron - Webs

6 Chapter 1
1.2
STORAGE DEFINITIONS AND NOTATION
A is the basic unit of computer storage. It can contain one of two values,
zero and one. All other storage in a computer is based on collections of bits.
Given enough bits, it is amazing how many things a computer can represent:
numbers, letters, images, movies, sounds, documents, and programs, to name
a few. A is 8 bits, and on most computers it is the smallest convenient
chunk of storage. For example, most computers don't have an instruction
to move a bit but do have one to move a byte. A less common term is
which is a given computer architecture's native storage unit. A word is
generally made up of one or more bytes. For example, a computer may have
instructions to move 64-bit (8-byte) words.
A kilobyte, or KB, is 1,024 bytes; a megabyte, or MB, is 1,0242 bytes; and
a gigabyte, or GB, !s 1,024 3 bytes. Computer manufacturers often round off
these numbers and say that a megabyte is 1 million bytes and a gigabyte is 1
billion bytes.
problems easier. Toward this goal, computer hardware is constructed. Since
bare hardware alone is not particularly easy to use, application programs are
developed. These programs require certain common operations, such as those
controlling the II 0 devices. The common functions of controlling and allocating
resources are then brought together into one piece of software: the operating
system.
In addition, we have no universally accepted definition of what is part of the
operating system. A simple viewpoint is that it includes everything a vendor
ships when you order "the operating system." The features included, however,
vary greatly across systems. Some systems take up less than 1 megabyte of
space and lack even a full-screen editor, whereas others require gigabytes of
space and are entirely based on graphical windowing systems. A more common
definition, and the one that we usually follow, is that the operating system
is the one program running at all times on the computer-usually called
the . (Along with the kernel, there are two other types of programs:
which are associated with the operating system but are not
part of the kernel, and which include all programs not
associated with the operation of the system.)
The matter of what constitutes an operating system has become increasingly
important. In 1998, the United States Deparhnent of Justice filed suit
against Microsoft, in essence claiming that Microsoft included too much functionality
in its operating systems and thus prevented application vendors from
competing. For example, a Web browser was an integral part of the operating
systems. As a result, Microsoft was found guilty of using its operating-system
monopoly to limit competition.
Before we can explore the details of how computer systems operate, we need
general knowledge of the structure of a computer system. In this section,
we look at several parts of this structure. The section is mostly concerned