Illustrate a simple operating system for a security control system.

 Q. Illustrate a simple operating system for a security control system.

Ans=>   

1)    The advantage of having a multi-user operating system is that normally the hardware is very expensive, and it lets a number of users share this expensive resource. This means the cost is divided amongst the users. It also makes better use of the resources. Since the resources are shared, they are more likely to be in use than sitting idle being unproductive.

One limitation with multi-user computer systems is that as more users access it, the performance becomes slower and slower. Another limitation is the cost of hardware, as a multi-user operating system requires a lot of disk space and memory. In addition, the actual software for multi-user operating systems tend to cost more than single-user operating systems.

2)    A multi-tasking operating system provides the ability to run more than one program at once. For example, a user could be running a word processing package, printing a document, copying files to the floppy disk and backing up selected files to a tape unit. Each of these tasks the user is doing appears to be running at the same time.

A multi-tasking operating system has the advantage of letting the user run more than one task at once, so this leads to increased productivity. The disadvantage is that more programs that are run by the user, the more memory is required.

3)    An operating system for a security control system (such as a home alarm system) would consist of a number of programs. One of these programs would gain control of the computer system when it is powered on, and initialise the system. The first task of this initialise program would be to reset (and probably test) the hardware sensors and alarms. Once the hardware initialisation was complete, the operating system would enter a continual monitoring routine of all the input sensors. If the state of any input sensor is changed, it would branch to an alarm generation routine.