:cycle crunch: n. A situation wherein the number of people trying
to use a computer simultaneously has reached the point where no one
can get enough cycles because they are spread too thin and the
system has probably begun to {thrash}. This scenario is an
inevitable result of Parkinson's Law applied to timesharing.
Usually the only solution is to buy more computer. Happily, this
has rapidly become easier since the mid-1980s, so much so that the
very term `cycle crunch' now has a faintly archaic flavor; most
hackers now use workstations or personal computers as opposed to
traditional timesharing systems.
-- The AI Hackers Dictionary
to use a computer simultaneously has reached the point where no one
can get enough cycles because they are spread too thin and the
system has probably begun to {thrash}. This scenario is an
inevitable result of Parkinson's Law applied to timesharing.
Usually the only solution is to buy more computer. Happily, this
has rapidly become easier since the mid-1980s, so much so that the
very term `cycle crunch' now has a faintly archaic flavor; most
hackers now use workstations or personal computers as opposed to
traditional timesharing systems.
-- The AI Hackers Dictionary
Related:
- cycle crunch n.,obs.
A situation wherein the number of
people trying to use a computer simultaneously has reached the
point where no one can get enough cycles because they are spread
too thin and the system has probably begun to thrash.
This scenario is an inevitable result of Parkinson's... - dump: n. 1. An undigested and voluminous mass of information about
a problem or the state of a system,
especially one routed to the slowest available output... - cycle drought: n. A scarcity of cycles. It may be due to a {cycle
crunch},
but it could also occur because part of the computer... - dump n.
1. An undigested and voluminous mass of information
about a problem or the state of a system,
especially one routed to the slowest available output... - smart terminal: n. 1. A terminal that has enough computing
capability to render graphics or to offload some kind of front-end
processing from the computer it talks to.
The development of workstations and personal computers... - cycle: 1. n. The basic unit of computation. What every hacker
wants more of (noted hacker Bill Gosper describes himself as a
"cycle junkie").
One can describe an instruction as taking so many... - mainframe: n. Term originally referring to the cabinet
containing the central processor unit or `main frame' of a
room-filling {Stone Age} batch machine.
After the emergence of smaller `minicomputer' designs... - BASIC: [acronym, from Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction
Code] n.
A programming language, originally designed for ... - number-crunching: n. Computations of a numerical nature,
esp. those that make extensive use of floating-point...
