IGCSE Computer Science (0478) · Paper 1 — Computer Systems
Software
System vs application software, interrupt handling and language translators (compiler vs interpreter vs assembler) — a classic "state the difference" question that loses marks when both sides of the comparison aren't stated.
4.1 Types of software and interrupts
- Describe the difference between system software and application software and provide examples of each.
- Describe the role and basic functions of an operating system, including managing files, handling interrupts, providing an interface, managing peripherals/drivers/memory/multitasking, providing a platform, security and user accounts.
- Understand how hardware, firmware and an operating system are required to run applications software (applications run on the OS, the OS runs on the firmware, the bootloader runs on the hardware).
- Describe the role and operation of interrupts: how one is generated, how it is handled using an interrupt service routine, and what happens as a result, including software interrupts (e.g. division by zero) and hardware interrupts (e.g. key press).
4.2 Types of programming language, translators and IDEs
- Explain what is meant by a high-level language and a low-level language, including advantages and disadvantages of each (ease of reading/writing/debugging, machine independence, direct manipulation of hardware).
- Understand that assembly language is a form of low-level language that uses mnemonics, and that an assembler is needed to translate an assembly language program into machine code.
- Describe the operation of a compiler and an interpreter, including how high-level language is translated by each and how errors are reported.
- Explain the advantages and disadvantages of a compiler and an interpreter, including that an interpreter is mostly used when developing a program and a compiler is used to translate the final program.
- Explain the role of an IDE in writing program code and the common functions IDEs provide, including code editors, run-time environment, translators, error diagnostics, auto-completion, auto-correction and prettyprint.
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