Batch operating system
Before going for discussion of batch operating you must have discussion about Operating System.
In early mainframe computers, the input and output devices were card readers and tape drivers.
Most of the input devices was in the form of card readers which helps to read the punch card. Following figure shows the Punch card.
Some of the advanced system uses the Magnetic tapes.
What is batch operating system ?
Batch processing is a technique in which an Operating System collects the programs and data together in a batch before processing starts.
An operating system does the following activities related to batch processing-
- The OS defines a job which has predefined sequence of commands, programs and data as a single unit.
- The OS keeps a number a jobs in memory and executes them without any manual information.
- Jobs are processed in the order of submission, i.e., first come first served fashion.
Advantages
Batch processing takes much of the work of the operator to the computer.
Increased performance as a new job get started as soon as the previous job is finished, without any manual intervention.
Disadvantages
Memory Limitation.
Difficult to debug program.
A job could enter an infinite loop.
Due to lack of protection scheme, one batch job can affect pending jobs.
