COMPUTER OPERATING SYSTEMS

ASSIGNMENT 1 – 5%
1) Describe the historical development of General Purpose Computer Systems and Special Purpose Computer
Systems.

Describing the historical development of General Purpose Computer Systems.

In 1937 a Claude Elwood Shannon, wrote a Master’s thesis illustrating that the electrical
application of Boolean algebra could represent and solve any numerical or logical
relationship.
ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) was the first general-purpose
electronic computer. ENIAC was developed to calculate artillery firing tables for the U.S.
Army’s ballistic research laboratory, ENIAC was also capable reprogrammed to solve a full
range of computing problems.
The US Army contact for ENIAC was signed on June 5, 1943 with the University of
Pennsylvania’s Moore School of Electrical Engineering. Developed by a team led by John
Presper Eckert and John W. Mauchly, ENIAC was unveiled on February 14, 1946 with a cost
of almost $500,000.
ENIAC was shut down in the late 1946 for a memory upgrade and refurbishment and in
1947 was transferred to Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland. On July 29 1947 it was
turned on and remained in operation until October 2, 1995.
In its original form ENIAC did not have a central memory. Its programming was determined
by the settings of switches and cable connections. Improvements to ENIAC’s design were
introduced over time. In 1953, A 100-word magnetic core memory was added.

2) Briefly describe the history of Operating Systems through the different generations of computing.

3) Explain the concept of multi-programming.

NOTES:
Diagrams should be used where applicable.
Proper Bibliography must be stated.
Any Wikipedia answers would be mark zero.
 Bibliography

General Purpose Computer Development:

http://www.internetlooks.com/oncomputers.html