Hardware-Software Interface

Most computer software is not written at the processor instruction level in assembly language. Almost all the applications we work with daily are written in one high-level programming language or another, relying on pre-existing libraries of capabilities that the application programmers built upon during the software development process. Practical programming environments, consisting of high-level languages and their associated libraries, offer many services, including disk input/output (I/O), network communication, and interactions with users, all easily accessible from program code.

This chapter describes the software layers that implement these features, beginning with processor instructions within device drivers. Several key aspects of operating systems will be covered in this chapter, including booting, process scheduling, multithreading, and multiprocessing.

After completing this chapter, you will understand the services provided by operating...