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  • This episode is supported by Hover.

  • Hi, I'm Carrie Anne, and welcome to Crash Course Computer Science!

  • Computers in the 1940s and early 50s ran one program at a time.

  • A programmer would write one at their desk, for example, on punch cards.

  • Then, they'd carry it to a room containing a room-sized computer, and hand it to a dedicated

  • computer operator.

  • That person would then feed the program into the computer when it was next available.

  • The computer would run it, spit out some output, and halt.

  • This very manual process worked OK back when computers were slow, and running a program

  • often took hours, days or even weeks.

  • But, as we discussed last episode, computers became faster... and faster... and faster

  • exponentially so!

  • Pretty soon, having humans run around and inserting programs into readers was taking

  • longer than running the actual programs themselves.

  • We needed a way for computers to operate themselves, and so, operating systems were born.

  • INTRO

  • Operating systems, or OS'es for short, are just programs.

  • But, special privileges on the hardware let them run and manage other programs.

  • They're typically the first one to start when a computer is turned on, and all subsequent

  • programs are launched by the OS.

  • They got their start in the 1950s, as computers became more widespread and more powerful.

  • The very first OSes augmented the mundane, manual task of loading programs by hand.

  • Instead of being given one program at a time, computers could be given batches.

  • When the computer was done with one, it would automatically and near-instantly start the next.

  • There was no downtime while someone scurried around an office to find the next program

  • to run.

  • This was called batch processing.

  • While computers got faster, they also got cheaper.

  • So, they were popping up all over the world, especially in universities and government

  • offices.

  • Soon, people started sharing software.

  • But there was a problem

  • In the era of one-off computers, like the Harvard Mark 1 or ENIAC, programmers only

  • had to write code for that one single machine.

  • The processor, punch card readers, and printers were known and unchanging.

  • But as computers became more widespread, their configurations were not always identical,

  • like computers might have the same CPU, but not the same printer.

  • This was a huge pain for programmers.

  • Not only did they have to worry about writing their program, but also how to interface with

  • each and every model of printer, and all devices connected to a computer, what are called peripherals.

  • Interfacing with early peripherals was very low level, requiring programmers to know intimate

  • hardware details about each device.

  • On top of that, programmers rarely had access to every model of a peripheral to test their code on.

  • So, they had to write code as best they could, often just by reading manuals, and hope it

  • worked when shared.

  • Things weren't exactly plug-and-play back thenmore plug-and-pray.

  • This was clearly terrible, so to make it easier for programmers, Operating Systems stepped

  • in as intermediaries between software programs and hardware peripherals.

  • More specifically, they provided a software abstraction, through APIs, called device drivers.

  • These allow programmers to talk to common input and output hardware, or I/O for short,

  • using standardized mechanisms.

  • For example, programmers could call a function likeprint highscore”, and the OS would

  • do the heavy lifting to get it onto paper.

  • By the end of the 1950s, computers had gotten so fast, they were often idle waiting for

  • slow mechanical things, like printers and punch card readers.

  • While programs were blocked on I/O, the expensive processor was just chillin'... not like

  • a villainyou know, just relaxing.

  • In the late 50's, the University of Manchester, in the UK, started work on a supercomputer

  • called Atlas, one of the first in the world.

  • They knew it was going to be wicked fast, so they needed a way to make maximal use of

  • the expensive machine.

  • Their solution was a program called the Atlas Supervisor, finished in 1962.

  • This operating system not only loaded programs automatically, like earlier batch systems,

  • but could also run several at the same time on its single CPU.

  • It did this through clever scheduling.

  • Let's say we have a game program running on Atlas, and we call the functionprint

  • highscorewhich instructs Atlas to print the value of a variable namedhighscore

  • onto paper to show our friends that we're the ultimate champion of virtual tiddlywinks.

  • That function call is going to take a while, the equivalent of thousands of clock cycles,

  • because mechanical printers are slow in comparison to electronic CPUs.

  • So instead of waiting for the I/O to finish, Atlas instead puts our program to sleep, then

  • selects and runs another program that's waiting and ready to run.

  • Eventually, the printer will report back to Atlas that it finished printing the value

  • ofhighscore”.

  • Atlas then marks our program as ready to go, and at some point, it will be scheduled to

  • run again on the CPU, and continue onto the next line of code following the print statement.

  • In this way, Atlas could have one program running calculations on the CPU, while another

  • was printing out data, and yet another reading in data from a punch tape.

  • Atlas' engineers doubled down on this idea, and outfitted their computer with 4 paper

  • tape readers, 4 paper tape punches, and up to 8 magnetic tape drives.

  • This allowed many programs to be in progress all at once, sharing time on a single CPU.

  • This ability, enabled by the Operating System, is called multitasking.

  • There's one big catch to having many programs running simultaneously on a single computer, though.

  • Each one is going to need some memory, and we can't lose that program's data when

  • we switch to another program.

  • The solution is to allocate each program its own block of memory.

  • So, for example, let's say a computer has 10,000 memory locations in total.

  • Program A might get allocated memory addresses 0 through 999, and Program B might get 1000

  • through 1999, and so on.

  • If a program asks for more memory, the operating system decides if it can grant that request,

  • and if so, what memory block to allocate next.

  • This flexibility is great, but introduces a quirk.

  • It means that Program A could end up being allocated non-sequential blocks of memory,

  • in say addresses 0 through 999, and 2000 through 2999.

  • And this is just a simple example - a real program might be allocated dozens of blocks

  • scattered all over memory.

  • As you might imagine, this would get really confusing for programmers to keep track of.

  • Maybe there's a long list of sales data in memory that a program has to total up at

  • the end of the day, but this list is stored across a bunch of different blocks of memory.

  • To hide this complexity, Operating Systems virtualize memory locations.

  • With Virtual Memory, programs can assume their memory always starts at address 0, keeping

  • things simple and consistent.

  • However, the actual, physical location in computer memory is hidden and abstracted by

  • the operating system.

  • Just a new level of abstraction.

  • Let's take our example Program B, which has been allocated a block of memory from

  • address 1000 to 1999.

  • As far as Program B can tell, this appears to be a block from 0 to 999.

  • The OS and CPU handle the virtual-to-physical memory remapping automatically.

  • So, if Program B requests memory location 42, it really ends up reading address 1042.

  • This virtualization of memory addresses is even more useful for Program A, which in our

  • example, has been allocated two blocks of memory that are separated from one another.

  • This too is invisible to Program A.

  • As far as it can tell, it's been allocated a continuous block of 2000 addresses.

  • When Program A reads memory address 999, that does coincidentally map to physical memory

  • address 999.

  • But if Program A reads the very next value in memory, at address 1000, that gets mapped

  • behind the scenes to physical memory address 2000.

  • This mechanism allows programs to have flexible memory sizes, called dynamic memory allocation,

  • that appear to be continuous to them.

  • It simplifies everything and offers tremendous flexibility to the Operating System in running

  • multiple programs simultaneously.

  • Another upside of allocating each program its own memory, is that they're better isolated

  • from one another.

  • So, if a buggy program goes awry, and starts writing gobbledygook, it can only trash its

  • own memory, not that of other programs.

  • This feature is called Memory Protection.

  • This is also really useful in protecting against malicious software, like viruses.

  • For example, we generally don't want other programs to have the ability to read or modify

  • the memory of, let say, our email, with that kind of access, malware could send emails

  • on your behalf and maybe steal personal information.

  • Not good!

  • Atlas had both virtual and protected memory.

  • It was the first computer and OS to support these features!

  • By the 1970s, computers were sufficiently fast and cheap.

  • Institutions like a university could buy a computer and let students use it.

  • It was not only fast enough to run several programs at once, but also give several users

  • simultaneous, interactive access.

  • This was done through a terminal, which is a keyboard and screen that connects to a big

  • computer, but doesn't contain any processing power itself.

  • A refrigerator-sized computer might have 50 terminals connected to it, allowing up to

  • 50 users.

  • Now operating systems had to handle not just multiple programs, but also multiple users.

  • So that no one person could gobble up all of a computer's resources, operating systems

  • were developed that offered time-sharing.

  • With time-sharing each individual user was only allowed to utilize a small fraction of

  • the computer's processor, memory, and so on.

  • Because computers are so fast, even getting just 1/50th of its resources was enough for

  • individuals to complete many tasks.

  • The most influential of early time-sharing Operating Systems was Multics, or Multiplexed

  • Information and Computing Service, released in 1969.

  • Multics was the first major operating system designed to be secure from the outset.

  • Developers didn't want mischievous users accessing data they shouldn't, like students

  • attempting to access the final exam on their professor's account.

  • Features like this meant Multics was really complicated for its time, using around 1 Megabit

  • of memory, which was a lot back then!

  • That might be half of a computer's memory, just to run the OS!

  • Dennis Ritchie, one of the researchers working on Multics, once said:

  • One of the obvious things that went wrong with Multics as a commercial success was just

  • that it was sort of over-engineered in a sense.

  • There was just too much in it.”

  • T his lead Dennis, and another Multics researcher,

  • Ken Thompson, to strike out on their own and build a new, lean operating systemcalled Unix.

  • They wanted to separate the OS into two parts:

  • First was the core functionality of the OS, things like memory management, multitasking,

  • and dealing with I/O, which is called the kernel.

  • The second part was a wide array of useful tools that came bundled with, but not part

  • of the kernel, things like programs and libraries.

  • Building a compact, lean kernel meant intentionally leaving some functionality out.

  • Tom Van Vleck, another Multics developer, recalled:

  • “I remarked to Dennis that easily half the code I was writing in Multics was error recovery

  • code."

  • He said, "We left all that stuff out of Unix.

  • If there's an error, we have this routine called panic, and when it is called, the machine

  • crashes, and you holler down the hall, 'Hey, reboot it.'"”

  • You might have heard of kernel panics, This is where the term came from.

  • It's literally when the kernel crashes, has no recourse to recover, and so calls a

  • function calledpanic”.

  • Originally, all it did was print the wordpanicand then enter

  • an infinite loop.

  • This simplicity meant that Unix could be run on cheaper and more diverse hardware, making

  • it popular inside Bell Labs, where Dennis and Ken worked.

  • As more developers started using Unix to build and run their own programs, the number of

  • contributed tools grew.

  • Soon after its release in 1971, it gained compilers for different programming languages

  • and even a word processor, quickly making it one of the most popular OSes of the 1970s

  • and 80s.

  • At the same time, by the early 1980s, the cost of a basic computer had fallen to the

  • point where individual people could afford one, called a personal or home computer.

  • These were much simpler than the big mainframes found at universities, corporations, and governments.

  • So, their operating systems had to be equally simple.

  • For example, Microsoft's Disk Operating System, or MS-DOS, was just 160 kilobytes,

  • allowing it to fit, as the name suggests, onto a single disk.

  • First released in 1981, it became the most popular OS for early home computers, even

  • though it lacked multitasking and protected memory.

  • This meant that programs could, and would, regularly crash the system.

  • While annoying, it was an acceptable tradeoff, as users could just turn their own computers

  • off and on again!

  • Even early versions of Windows, first released by Microsoft in 1985 and which dominated the

  • OS scene throughout the 1990s, lacked strong memory protection.

  • When programs misbehaved, you could get the blue screen of death, a sign that a program

  • had crashed so badly that it took down the whole operating system.

  • Luckily, newer versions of Windows have better protections and usually don't crash that often.

  • Today, computers run modern operating systems, like Mac OS X, Windows 10, Linux, iOS and

  • Android.

  • Even though the computers we own are most often used by just a single person, you! their

  • OSes all have multitasking and virtual and protected memory.

  • So, they can run many programs at once: you can watch YouTube in your web browser, edit

  • a photo in Photoshop, play music in Spotify and sync Dropbox all at the same time.

  • This wouldn't be possible without those decades of research and development on Operating

  • Systems, and of course the proper memory to store those programs.

  • Which we'll get to next week.

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作業系統。計算機科學速成班 #18 (Operating Systems: Crash Course Computer Science #18)

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    黃柏鈞 發佈於 2021 年 01 月 14 日
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