Available online
Description
A great deal of expensive computer time can be wasted in running programs. Dick Housden and Jim Burrows show where this time is wasted and how it can be saved by use of Operating Systems. The progr...amme includes filmed demonstrations of the operator action required to set up and run 3 jobs with and without a simple batch operating system. Slow motion film of Card Reader and Line Printer mechanisms reveal that a major source of time wasting is in input/output operations. The programme ends using a special model to show the principle behind a multi-programming operating system.
A great deal of expensive computer time can be wasted in running programs. Dick Housden and Jim Burrows show where this time is wasted and how it can be saved by use of Operating Systems. The progr...amme includes filmed demonstrations of the operator action required to set up and run 3 jobs with and without a simple batch operating system. Slow motion film of Card Reader and Line Printer mechanisms reveal that a major source of time wasting is in input/output operations. The programme ends using a special model to show the principle behind a multi-programming operating system.
| Module code and title: | PM951, Computing and computers |
|---|---|
| Item code: | PM951; 08 |
| First transmission date: | 1973 |
| Published: | 1973 |
| Rights Statement: | |
| Restrictions on use: | |
| Duration: | 00:24:27 |
| + Show more... | |
| Producer: | John Richmond |
| Contributors: | Jim Burrows; Dick Housden |
| Publisher: | BBC Open University |
| Keyword(s): | Batch operating system; Card reader; Computer time; Input/output operations; Line printer; Multi-programming operating system; Operating systems; Running programs |
| Footage description: | Dick Housden outlines the type of software needed to run a set of computer programs. A film shows the operator actions required in running three simple jobs with just a loader program in the computer. Shots of punched cards being stacked and run in a card reader; tapes being loaded and run; instructions to the computer being typed, and the response; and general shots of the computer room. Jim Burrows uses a chart to indicate where computer time is wasted during operator actions both between and within jobs. Dick Housden explains how many operator actions can be automated using a supervisor program. Using the punched card batches for the three jobs in the example, he shows how control cards are inserted for each operation. Housden uses an animated diagram to show the working of the supervisor program. Back in the computer room the same three jobs are run using the supervisor program. Housden explains how the operator actions are reduced. Housden then explains that much time is wasted by the slow operation of card readers and line printers, relative to the speed of the central processor. Slow motion shot of punched cards passing under reading head and the chain of print characters in a line printer in action. Jim Burrows demonstrates the relative speeds of the operations involved in running a program, using an animated diagram. Dick Housden uses a model to show how better use can be made of the central processor by overlapping two simple jobs. In conclusion he explains that, in reality, overlapping of many jobs can be performed by a multi-programming supervisor system. |
| Master spool number: | 6HT/70965 |
| Production number: | 00525_4075 |
| Videofinder number: | 662 |
| Available to public: | no |
