In the early days of computing, CPU time was expensive, and peripherals were very slow. When the computer ran a program that needed access to a peripheral, the central processing unit (CPU) would have to stop executing … See more

Preemptive multitasking allows the computer system to more reliably guarantee to each process a regular "slice" of operating time. It also allows the system to deal rapidly with important external events like incoming data, which might require the … See more

As multitasking greatly improved the throughput of computers, programmers started to implement applications as sets of cooperating processes (e. g., one process gathering … See more

Use of a swap file or swap partition is a way for the operating system to provide more memory than is physically available by keeping portions of the primary memory in secondary storage. While multitasking and memory swapping are two completely … See more

Early multitasking systems used applications that voluntarily ceded time to one another. This approach, which was eventually supported by many computer operating systems, … See more

Another reason for multitasking was in the design of real-time computing systems, where there are a number of possibly unrelated external activities needed to be controlled by a single processor system. In such systems a hierarchical interrupt system is coupled … See more

Essential to any multitasking system is to safely and effectively share access to system resources. Access to memory must be strictly … See more