SOFTWARE MANUAL INTRODUCTION TO AMOS DWM-001 00-65 REV . ADO ,............... ____a_lpha micro SOFTWARE MANUAL INTRODUCTION TO AMOS DWM-00100-65 REV. ADO ~_.................. ___ ' aiiiiilpha mll:::rc FIRST EDITION May 1,1980 REVISIONS INCORPORATED REVISION I DATE ©1985 ALPHA MtCROSYSTEMS THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THIS MANUAL IS BELIEVED TO BE ACCURATE AND RELIABLE. HOWEVER, NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ACCURACY, COMPLETENESS OR USE OF THIS INFORMATION IS ASSUMED BY ALPHA MICRO. This book was originally created using the Alpha Micro text editor AlphaVUE and text formatter TXTFMT, and was then typeset using an Alpha Micro computer. This document may contain references to products covered under the following U.S. Patent Number(s): 4,530,048 THE FOLLOWING ARE TRADEMARKS OF ALPHA MICROSYSTEMS, SANTA ANA, CA 92799 AMOS AM-100 AlphaACCOUNTING AlphaBASIC AlphaCALC AlphaFORTRAN AlphaPASCAL Alpha Micro AlphaRJE AlphaSERVE AlphaWRITE ALPHA MICROSYSTEMS 3501 Sunflower P.O. Box 25059 Santa Ana, Ca 92799 Introduction to AMOS iii IMPORTANT NOTE: This manual is not a guide to system operation. For information on using the system, refer to the AMOS User's Guide, (DWM-00100-35), and the documents in the AM-100 doc;umentation packet. For a complete list of all Alpha Micro software documentation, refer to A Guide to the Alpha Micro Software Documentation Library, (DWM-00100-37). Introduction to AMOS v TABLE OF CONTENTS IMPORTANT NOTE . ..................................................................................... iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................................................................... v CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 HOW TO USE THIS BOOK .................................... ~ .................... 1-2 12 GRAPHIC CONVENTIONS USED IN THIS BOOK .................................. 1-4 PART I GETTING STARTED CHAPTER 2 WHAT IS A COMPUTER? 2.1 DEFINITION OF A COMPUTER. ................................................... 2-1 22 COMPONENT STRUCTURE OF A COMPUTER ................................ : ... 2-2 2.3 WHERE COMPUTERS ARE USED ................................................. 2-4 2.4 THE ALPHA MICRO SYSTEM ..................................................... 2-4 CHAPTER 3 WHO IS AMOS? 3.1 COMMUNICATING WITH THE COMPUTER. ....................................... 3-1 32 SYSTEM STRUCTURE ............................................................ 3-2 3.3 THE ALPHA MICRO OPERATING SYSTEM ........................................ 3-4 CHAPTER 4 DATA AND THE COMPUTER 4.1 WHAT IS DATA? ................................................................... 4-1 4.2 THE BREAKDOWN OF DATA ...................................................... 4-1 4.3 BINARY NUMBERS AND DECIMAL NUMBERS .................................. 4-2 4.4 ASCII ............................................................................. 4-3 4.5 MACHINE LANGUAGE ........................................................... 4-3 4.6 MORE NUMBERING SySTEMS ................................................... 4-5 4.6.1 Octal ........................................................................ 4-6 4.62 Hexadecimal ................................................................ 4-6 4.7 SNEAK PREVIEW ................................................................. 4-7 CHAPTER 5 WHAT IS A FILE? 5.1 HANDLING DATA .................................................................. 5-1 5.2 EXAMPLE OF FILE HANDLING: EDITING A TEXT FILE ............................ 5-2 5.3 ORGANIZING FILES ON THE DiSK ................................•.............. 5-3 5.3.1 User Accounts ............................................................... 5-3 5.32 Passwords .................................................................. 5-4 5.4 HOW AMOS ALLOCATES FILES ON THE DISK .................................... 5-4 5.4.1 Sequential Files ............................................................. 5-5 5.4.2 Random Files ............................................................... 5-6 vi Introduction to AMOS CHAPTER 8 PERMANENT DATA STORAGE 6.1 DISK DRiVES ...................................................................... 6-1 6.1.1 Disk Structure................................................................ 6-2 62 MAGNETIC TAPE TRANSPORTS .................................................. 6-2 CHAPTER 7 PROGRAMS 7.1 THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN DATA AND THE PROGRAM ........................ 7-1 72 STEPPING THROUGH A PROGRAM ............................................... 7-2 7.3 ALPHA MICRO PROGRAMS ...................................................... 7-5 7.4 THINGS TO COME ................................................................ 7-5 PART /I PROGRAMS AVAILABLE ON THE AMOS SYSTEM CHAPTER 8 AMOS UTILITY PROGRAMS 8.1 HELP .............................................................................. 8-1 82 DIR ............................................................................... 8-2 8.3 SORT ............................................................................. 8-2 8.4 THE ISAM SYSTEM ..............................................................,.8-4 8.4.1 What is ISAM? .............................................................. 8-4 CHAPTER 9 THE AMOS TEXT PROCESSORS 9.1 THE TEXT EDITOR ................................................................. 9-1 9.1.1 Character-oriented and Screen-oriented Text Editors ......................... 9-2 9.2 ALPHA MICRO TEXT EDITORS .................................................... 9-3 92.1 VUE ......................................................................... 9-3 922 EDIT ........................................................................ 9-4 9.3 THE TEXT FORMATTER ........................................................... 9-5 9.3.1 TXTFMT ..................................................................... 9-5 9.3.2 PDLFMT..................................................................... 9-6 CHAPTER 10 AMOS LANGUAGE PROCESSORS 10.1 COMPUTER LANGUAGES ...................................................... 10-1 102 WHAT IS A LANGUAGE PROCESSOR? ........................ ; ................ 10-2 10.3 INTERPRETERS AND COMPILERS ............................................. 10-2 10.3.1 Language Interpreters ................................................... 10-2 10.32 Language Compilers .................................................... 10-3 10.3.3 Theory Versus Fact ...................................................... 10-3 10.4 ALPHABASIC ................................................................... 10-4 10.5 ALPHAPA,- -:AL ................................................................. 10-6 10.6 ALPHALISP ..................................................................... 10-7 10.7 ASSEMBLERS ................................................................. 10-8 10.7.1 The Alpha Micro Assembly Language Programming System ............. 10-10 10.8 THINGS TO COME ............................................................. 10-11 Introduction to AMOS vii PART III AMOS OVERVIEW CHAPTER 11 GENERAL STRUCTURE 11.1 WHAT IS AN OPERATING SySTEM? ............................................ 11-1 11.2 BASIC STRUCTURE OF AMOS .................................................. 11-3 11.3 AMOS MONITOR CALLS ................... ,' .................................... 11-4 CHAPTER 12 INTRODUCTION TO JOBS 12.1 WHAT IS A JOB? ............................................................... 12-1 122 JOB SCHEDULING ............................................................. 12-2 CHAPTER 13 COMMAND PROCESSING 13.1 COMMAND AND DO FILES ..................................................... 13-1 13.2 PROCESSING COMMANDS .................................................... 13-3 13.2.1 The Command Processor Search List. ................................... 13-3 13.3 CHARACTERISTICS OF PROGRAMS ON THE AMOS SYSTEM .............. : .. 13-5 CHAPTER 14 MEMORY CONTROL AND MANAGEMENT 14.1 MEMORY MAP .................................................................. 14-1 14.1.1 Memory Partitions ....................................................... 14-2 14.12 Memory Modules ........................................................ 14-3 14.2 MEMORY MANAGEMENT ...................................................... 14-4 14.3 MEMORY ALLOCATION ........................................................ 14-6 14.3.1 Re-Allocating Memory................................................... 14-6 CHAPTER 15 TERMINAL HANDLING 15.1 DRIVER PROGRAMS ............................................................ 15-1 15.1.1 Terminal Drivers .......................................................... 15-2 15.1.2 Interface Drivers .......................................................... 15-2 15.2 HOWTRMSER WORKS ......................................................... 15-2 152.1 Inputting Characters ..................................................... 15-3 15.2.2 Outputting Characters .................................................... 15-4 CHAPTER 16 HOW AMOS HANDLES DEVICES 16.1 THE FILE SERVICE SYSTEM .................................................... 16-1 16.1.1 Special Device Drivers ................................................... 16-3 16.2 DISK SERVICE SYSTEM. .. , ........................................... 16-3 16.2.1 Disk Structure ........................................................... 16-4 16.2.1.1 Account Structure .............................................. 16-5 CHAPTER 17 SYSTEM INITIALIZATION AND STARTUP 17.1 SYSTEM STARTUP .............................................................. 17-1 17.2 SYSTEM