UNIT 1

INTRODUCTION TO
SYSTEM PROGRAMMING
Software
• Software collection of programs used to perform a task. This is in
contrast to physical hardware from which the system is built and
actually performs the work.

• Types of Software:
1. System software.
2. Application software.
System Software
• System software is a computer software designed to operate the
computer hardware and provides and maintains a platform for
running application software.
(or)
• System software is a mediator or bridge between user and
hardware.

• It can be used to understand the concept of system software in

which the user uses the system software as the communicating
and controlling element in order to get the work done from the
computer.
Application software
• It comprises programs designed for an end user such as
Microsoft ,turbo c , java , gaming software, web browsers etc...
Components of system software:

1) Assemblers.
2) Loaders.
3) Macros.
4) Compilers.
5) Operating system (OS).
1) Assemblers: It translates assembly level language into a machine
language. Mnemonics code is used for translation purpose. Assembly
language code is more often used with 8-bit processors.

2) Loaders: It is a system software that loads a program into memory

and prepares them for execution. It is one of the essential stages in the
process of starting a program as it places programs into memory and
prepares them for execution.

3) Macros: Macro processor is a program that substitute’s and

specializes macro definition’s for macro values. Macros can be used to
make tasks less repetitive by representing a complicated sequence of
keystrokes, mouse movements, commands etc.
4) Compliers: Compiler is a program that accepts a source code in high
level language and converts it inti low level language. It is capable of
creating code for a platform other than the one which the complier is
running.

5) Operating System (OS): Operating System is concerned with allocation

of resources and services such as memory, processors, devices and
information. It is an interface between user and hardware.
Machine Architecture
1. Instruction Interpreter: It is a group of electrical circuits that performs the
purpose of the instructions fetched from memory and also it is like a
dewder the type of instrruction.Instruction Interpreter Hardware is a group
of circuits that perform operation specified by instructions fetched from
memory.
2. Location Counter(Lc): It is also a PC(Program Counter)in which it is a hard
memory device which holds the location of the current instructions being
executed. Location Counter can be called as Program/Instruction Counter
which points to current instruction being executed.
3. Instruction Registers: It contains the copy of the current instructions that
is executed.
4.Working Registers: They are memory devices that serve as scartch pads for
the instruction interpreter and they are used to store temporary values
during calculation.
5.General Purpose Registers:It is used by the programmers as storage
location for outputs.
6. MAR(Memory Address Register):It contains the address of the memory
location i.e, read.
7. MBR(Memory Buffer Register): It contains the copy of the content of the
memory Location whose address is stored in MAR
8. Memory Controlleru: it is a hardware device whose work iss to transfer the
contents of MBR to the core memory location whose address is stored in
MAR.
9. I/O Channels: It separets the computers which interprets special
instructions for inputting and outputting information from memory.
THE GENERAL APPROACHES TO A NEW MACHINE
Memory: It is a device where the information can be stored and
retrieved in form of 0’s and 1’s. the basic unit of memory is bites.
The size of IBM memory up to 224 bytes

Registers: IBM 360 Machine has the following registers.

1. Base Register: It stores address of first location of the program.
2. Index Register: It stores content of the base register.
3. Data Formats:
The different types of data formats are:
•  Short form fixed point numbers
•  Long form fixed point numbers
•  Packed decimal numbers
•  Unpacked decimal numbers
•  Short form floating point numbers
•  Long form floating point numbers
•  Logical or character data
4. Instruction Formats: There are 5 different instruction formats available
in IBM 360 machine, they are: - 

RR instruction: it denotes register to register operation.

 RX instruction: it denotes register to indexed operation.
 RS instruction: it denotes register to storage operation.
 SI instruction: it denotes storage to immediate operation.
 SS instruction: it denotes storage to storage operation.
Simplified Instructional Computer (SIC):
• Simplified Instructional Computer (SIC) is a hypothetical computer that
has hardware features which are often found in real machines.

• There are two versions of this machine:

1. SIC standard Model
2. SIC/XE (extra equipment or expensive)

Object program for SIC can be properly executed on SIX/XE which is known
as upward compatibility.
SIC Machine Architecture/Components:
1. Memory: 
Memory is byte addressable that is words are addressed by location of their lowest
numbered byte.
There are 2^15 bytes in computer memory (1 byte = 8 bits)
3 consecutive byte = 1 word (24 bits = 1 word)

2. Registers:
There are 5 registers in SIC. Every register has an address associated with it known as register
number. Size of each register is 3 bytes. On basis of register size, integer size is dependent.
I. A (Accumulator-0) : It is used for mathematical operations.
II. X (Index Register-1) : It is used for addressing.
III. L (Linkage Register-2) : It stores the return address of instruction in case of sub routines.
IV. PC (Program Counter-8) : It holds the address of next instruction to be executed.
V. SW (Status Word-9) : It contains the variety of information
Status Word Register

• mode bit refers to user mode(value=0) or supervising mode(value=1). It occupies 1

bit [0].
• State bit refers whether process is in running state(value=0) or idle state(value=1).
It also occupies 1 bit [1].
• id bit refers to process id (PID). It occupies 3 bits [2-5].
• CC bit refers to condition code i.e. It tells whether device is ready or not. It
occupies 2 bits [6-7].
• Mask bit refers to interrupt mask. It occupies 4 bits [8-11].
• X refers to unused bit. It also occupies 4 bits [12-15].
• ICode refers to interrupt code i.e. Interrupt Service Routine. It occupies the
remaining bits [16-23].
3. Data Format: 
• Integers are represented by 24 bits.
•  Negative numbers are represented in 2’s complement.
•  Characters are represented by 8-bit ASCII value.
•  No floating-point representation is available.

4. Instruction-Format:

All instructions in SIC have 24-bit format.

 If x=0 it means direct addressing mode.
 If x=1 it means indexed addressing mode.
5. Instruction Set: 
• Load And Store Instructions: To move or store data from accumulator
to memory or vice-versa. For example, LDA, STA, LDX, STX etc.
• Comparison Instructions: Used to compare data in memory by
contents in accumulator. For example, COMP data.
• Arithmetic Instructions: Used to perform operations on accumulator
and memory and store result in accumulator. For example, ADD, SUB,
MUL, DIV etc.
• Conditional Jump: compare the contents of accumulator and memory
and performs task based on conditions. For example, JLT, JEQ, JGT
• Subroutine Linkage: Instructions related to subroutines. For example,
JSUB, RSUB
6. Input-and-output:
It is performed by transferring 1 byte at a time from or to rightmost 8
bits of accumulator. Each device has 8-bit unique code.
There are 3 I/O instructions:
• Test Device (TD) tests whether device is ready or not. Condition code
in Status Word Register is used for this purpose. If cc is < then device
is ready otherwise device is busy.
• Read data (RD) reads a byte from device and stores in register A.
• Write data (WD) writes a byte from register A to the device.
 SIC/XE Architecture:
• SIC/XE stands for Simplified Instructional Computer Extra Equipment or
Extra Expensive. This computer is an advance version of SIC.
• Both SIC and SIC/XE are closely related to each other that’s why they are
Upward Compatible. SIC/XE machine architecture:

1. Memory:
Memory consists of 8 bit-bytes and the memory size is 1 megabyte (2 20
bytes). Standard SIC memory size is very small.
This change in the memory size leads to change in the instruction formats
as well as addressing modes.
3 consecutive bytes form a word (24 bits) in SIC/XE architecture.
2. Registers:
It contain 9 registers (5 SIC registers + 4 additional registers). Four additional
registers are: Mnemonics Use of Register
•B Base register
•S General working register
• T General working register
• F Floating-point accumulator

3. Data Formats: 
• Integers are represented by Binary numbers.
• Characters are represented using ASCII codes.
• Floating points are represented using 48-bits.
4. Instruction formats: 
In SIC/XE architecture there are 4 types of formats available. The Bit(e) is
used to distinguish between Formats 3 and Formats 4,
e=0 means Format 3 and e=1 means Format 4
5. Addressing-Modes:
To use Format 3 use of Base register and Program counter is there.
Mode Indication Target Address (TA)
Base relative b=1, p=0 TA=(B) + displacement
Program-counter b=0, p=1 TA=(PC) + displacement
relative

Target address is the effective address of the instruction.

6. Instruction Set: 
IN SIC/XE all the instructions are same as that of SIC architecture but
because of Floating point data format it provides Floating Point Arithmetic
functions too.

• To perform floating-point arithmetic operations,

 ADDF = Add floating points,
 SUBF = Subtract floating points,
 MULF = Multiply floating points,
 DIVF = Divide floating points
 SVC (Supervisor call) is also provided in the SIC/XE architecture to handle
Interrupts.
7. Input and Output:
SIC/XE architecture include I/O channels that allow to perform I/O operations
while CPU is executing other tasks. It will allow overlapping of computing and
I/O, which make this architecture more efficient.

Instructions such as
SIO
TIO
HIO
are used to start, test, and halt the operation I/O channels.