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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 ...
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
A multitasking operating system like Unix is poor at real-time tasks. The scheduler gives the highest priority to jobs with the lowest demand on the computer, so there is no way to ensure that a time-critical job will have access to enough resources. Multitasking systems must manage sharing data and hardware resources among multiple tasks.
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.
A Round Robin preemptive scheduling example with quantum=3. Round-robin (RR) is one of the algorithms employed by process and network schedulers in computing. [1] [2] As the term is generally used, time slices (also known as time quanta) [3] are assigned to each process in equal portions and in circular order, handling all processes without priority (also known as cyclic executive).
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.
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.