01/17/03: Operating Systems class
 

Well, school has started back up again, and my classes all seem like they're going to go really well. As I said near the end of this thread, one of the classes I'm taking this semester is Operating Systems. I think the teacher for this class is either really, really amazing, or just a complete nutcase.

An example:
<blockquote>"Back in my day, we didn't have these fancy <b>operating systems</b>. We just had little switches! And you had to move the bits around yourself with your bare hands! Did you know that I worked on the operating system for the space shuttle. Oh yes! I also worked as a contracter for the government on one of their spy satellites. Did you know that if you go outside and light up a cigarette, the government will instantly know where you are? Oh yes! That's how they detect missles, and I wrote the OS for it!"</blockquote>
The thing is, though, he says all this in a way that makes it all seem believable.

He didn't actually say the stuff about the little switches. I just made that up. :) But he did talk about the early days with one of the first mainframes, and how it had no operating system, and they used punch cards. He also drew an elaborate diagram explaining how the spy sattelite he worked on actually worked, and how it detected heat, and how it was designed to detect nuclear missle lauches.

Everyone loves this teacher, I guess he's just supposed to be really easy. It's already the third day, and we have yet to actually talk about operating systems. I have read about them in the book, though. Anyway, it should be interesting.

Yes, old programmers are really like that.

Sounds like a definitely cool guy. You might even learn something about operating systems ...

The little switches were the believeable part. Early PDP-11s had them and you could put a program right into memory using them. That was how it was done back in the day.

BIOS feh! ptooie! In MY day ---

I took a class entitled the same last semester. It ended up being my favorite class(probably becuase it was only one night a week). But then my professor was great and made class a lot of fun.

What OSs are you going to look at? We used Win 98, NT 4.0, 2000, andRH Linux 7.2 and talked about Mac OS.

I'm not sure. I get the impression that it will just be a general look at techniques common to all operating systems. He likes to tell stories and go off topic, which is cool, 'cause his commentary is always really interesting. Unfortunately, I don't think it's going to leave much time for "in depth coverage". We'll see how it goes.

I had to rewrite the scheduler to perform a round-robin job queue when I took that class. Fun stuff!
What's the name of the teacher? Have you googled him yet?

That sounds interesting. His name is Joe Wiggins. His site is here. Haven't googled him yet, though. Perhaps I could drag up some embarrasing usenet comments and guarantee myself a better grade?

I am also taking Operating Systems this semester. Enjoy.