control program

control program

[kən′trōl ‚prō·grəm]

(computer science)

A program which carries on input/output operations, loading of programs, detection of errors, communication with the operator, and so forth.

McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific & Technical Terms, 6E, Copyright © 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Control Program

(operating system)

(CP) The component of IBM's Virtual Machine (VM) that provides "guest support" for operating systems that run on IBM mainframe compatible processors. Cp does this by providing a seamless emulation of privileged functions in the problem program environment.

This article is provided by FOLDOC - Free Online Dictionary of Computing (foldoc.org)

control program

Software in charge of other software or hardware. For example, the primary control program in a computer is the operating system (OS). It sets the standards that all applications must use to interface with the OS (see API and OS).

All peripheral devices in a computer are controlled by software, also known as a driver. The driver software accepts the commands from the OS and initiates the commands the controller circuit accepts to activate functions in a storage drive or other peripheral hardware. See driver, controller, network control program and peripheral.

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