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Multitasking is a common feature of computer operating systems since at least the 1960s. It allows more efficient use of the computer hardware; when a program is waiting for some external event such as a user input or an input/output transfer with a peripheral to complete, the central processor can still be used with another program.
Even though it is very difficult to further speed up a single thread or single program, most computer systems are actually multitasking among multiple threads or programs. Thus, techniques that improve the throughput of all tasks result in overall performance gains. Two major techniques for throughput computing are multithreading and ...
In computing, time-sharing is the concurrent sharing of a computing resource among many tasks or users by giving each task or user a small slice of processing time. This quick switch between tasks or users gives the illusion of simultaneous execution. [1] [2] It enables multi-tasking by a single user or enables multiple-user sessions.
Multitasking may refer to: Computer multitasking, the concurrent execution of multiple tasks (also known as processes) over a certain period of time Cooperative multitasking; Pre-emptive multitasking; Human multitasking, the apparent performance by an individual of handling more than one task at the same time
In computing, a pipeline or data pipeline [1] is a set of data processing elements connected in series, where the output of one element is the input of the next one. The elements of a pipeline are often executed in parallel or in time-sliced fashion. Some amount of buffer storage is often inserted between elements. Computer-related pipelines ...
When the computer system is executing on behalf of a user application, the system is in user mode. However, when a user application requests a service from the operating system (via a system call), the system must transition from user to kernel mode to fulfill the request. User mode avoids various catastrophic failures:
Multithreading is similar in concept to preemptive multitasking but is implemented at the thread level of execution in modern superscalar processors. Simultaneous multithreading (SMT) is one of the two main implementations of multithreading, the other form being temporal multithreading (also known as super-threading).
In computing, scheduling is the action of assigning resources to perform tasks. The resources may be processors, network links or expansion cards. The tasks may be threads, processes or data flows. The scheduling activity is carried out by a mechanism called a scheduler.