(computer science)

A program that organizes and regulates the flow of work in a computer system, for example, it may automatically change over from one run to another and record the time of the run.

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

a program intended for the organization and control of the operation of a computer system. It is one of the integral parts of electronic computer software and is made up of a large program (tens of thousands of instructions) with a complicated logic for the interaction of individual parts.

By making possible the operation of a digital computer in a mode of batch (simultaneous) processing of several tasks, the supervisory program establishes the order in which input data are introduced, distributes programs and data files throughout the memory, coordinates the work of the computer devices during simultaneous performance of sections of one or more programs, and provides automatic protection of programs and data files in the memory against unauthorized interference, chance overlapping, or mutual influence. During operation of a digital computer in the time-sharing mode, the supervisory program serves several dozen or more mathematical user consoles, which are sometimes at a considerable distance from the machine, by assigning a small block of machine time for the solution of a problem specified by each console. The supervisory program also analyzes rejections and malfunctions of the machine and devises solutions to allow continuation of the computations.

A. V. GUSEV