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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.
From the software standpoint, hardware support for multithreading is more visible to software, requiring more changes to both application programs and operating systems than multiprocessing. Hardware techniques used to support multithreading often parallel the software techniques used for computer multitasking. Thread scheduling is also a major ...
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 ...
The first published paper describing what is now known as hyper-threading in a general purpose computer was written by Edward S. Davidson and Leonard. E. Shar in 1973. [10] Denelcor, Inc. introduced multi-threading with the Heterogeneous Element Processor (HEP) in 1982. The HEP pipeline could not hold multiple instructions from the same process.
Explicitly parallel instruction computing (EPIC) is like VLIW with extra cache prefetching instructions. Simultaneous multithreading (SMT) is a technique for improving the overall efficiency of superscalar processors. SMT permits multiple independent threads of execution to better utilize the resources provided by modern processor architectures.
In a multitasking context, it refers to the process of storing the system state for one task, so that task can be paused and another task resumed. A context switch can also occur as the result of an interrupt , such as when a task needs to access disk storage , freeing up CPU time for other tasks.
Cooperative multitasking is similar to async/await in languages, such as JavaScript or Python, that feature a single-threaded event-loop in their runtime. This contrasts with cooperative multitasking in that await cannot be invoked from a non-async function, but only an async function, which is a kind of coroutine. [4] [5]