Multiprogramming: promise, performance and prospect

Abstract

"Multiprogramming" is the label given to the concept of a dynamic sharing of the resources of a given computer system among two or more programs. An operating multiprogramming system presents to external observers the appearance of effecting the concurrent execution of several object programs. There may or may not be truly simultaneous operation of more than one program, but it will be the case that a second program begins execution before the first program has run to completion. Simple sharing of storage among several programs in a systematic way to facilitate serial execution is insufficient to qualify an operating system as incorporating multiprogramming. There must be an oscillation of control among the several programs for multiprogramming to come into play.