Chapter 1: Introducing Operating Systems

TRUE/FALSE

1. The operating system manages each and every piece of hardware and software. True

2. An operating system is a special type of hardware. False

3. The Memory Manager, the Interface Manager, the User Manager, and the File Manager are the basis of all operating systems. True

4. Networking was not always an integral part of operating systems. True

5. The Memory Manager is in charge of main memory, also known as ROM. False

6. The high-level portion of the Process Manager is called the Process Scheduler. False

7. The Device Manager monitors every device, channel, and control unit. True

8. The File Manager is responsible for data files but not program files. False

9. When the Processor Manager receives a command, it determines whether the program must be retrieved from storage or is already in memory, and then notifies the appropriate manager. True

10. Operating systems with networking capability have a fifth essential manager called the Network Manager that provides a convenient way for users to share resources while controlling users’ access to them. True

11. The central processing unit (CPU) is the brains of the computer with the circuitry to control the interpretation and execution of instructions. True

12. Until the mid-1970s, all computers were classified by price alone. False

13. The supercomputer was developed primarily for government applications needing massive and fast number-crunching ability to carry out military operations and weather forecasting. True

14. The minicomputer of the 1970s was smaller than the microcomputer. False

15. Since the mid-1970s rapid advances in computer technology have blurred the distinguishing characteristics of early machines. True

16. The Intel 4004 chip in 1971 had 2,300 transistors while the Pentium II chip twenty years later had 7.5 million, and the Pentium 4 Extreme Edition processor introduced in 2004 had 178 billion transistors. False

17. Card systems date from the earliest computers, which relied on punched cards or tape for input when a job was entered by assembling the cards into a deck and running the entire deck of cards through a card reader as a group. False

18. Real-time systems are used in time-critical environments where reliability is key and data must be processed within a strict time limit. True

19. Onboard systems are computers placed inside other products to add features and capabilities. False

20. The first bug was a moth trapped in a Harvard computer. True

21. Many early programs used convoluted logic that only the original programmer could understand, so it was nearly impossible for anyone else to debug or change the program later on. True

22. In the 1950s, only one FORTRAN program could run at a time, and then the FORTRAN compiler had to be reloaded into memory. False

23. If the control unit has two buffers, the second buffer can be loaded while the first buffer is transmitting its contents to or from the CPU. True

24. Few major advances were made in data management during the 1960s. True

25. A process requires space in main memory where it resides during its execution although, from time to time, it requires other resources such as data files or I/O devices. True