Time-Sharing Operating system

An operating system (OS) is basically a collection of software that manages computer hardware resources and provides common services for computer programs. Operating system is a crucial component of the system software in a computer system.

Time-Sharing Operating Systems is one of the important type of operating system.

Time-sharing enables many people, located at various terminals, to use a particular computer system at the same time. Multitasking or Time-Sharing Systems is a logical extension of multiprogramming. Processor’s time is shared among multiple users simultaneously is termed as time-sharing.

The main difference between Time-Sharing Systems and Multiprogrammed Batch Systems is that in case of Multiprogrammed batch systems, the objective is to maximize processor use, whereas in Time-Sharing Systems, the objective is to minimize response time.

Multiple jobs are implemented by the CPU by switching between them, but the switches occur so frequently. So, the user can receive an immediate response. For an example, in a transaction processing, the processor executes each user program in a short burst or quantum of computation, i.e.; if n users are present, then each user can get a time quantum. Whenever the user submits the command, the response time is in few seconds at most.

An operating system uses CPU scheduling and multiprogramming to provide each user with a small portion of a time. Computer systems which were designed primarily as batch systems have been modified to time-sharing systems.

Advantages of Timesharing operating systems are −