computer multitasking

Concurrent execution of multiple processes over a certain period of time

EntityQ192969

Subclass of: method

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia · Read full article · Text CC BY-SA 4.0

In computing, multitasking is the concurrent execution of multiple tasks over a certain period of time. New tasks can interrupt already started ones before they finish, instead of waiting for them to end. As a result, a computer executes segments of multiple tasks in an interleaved manner, while the tasks share common processing resources such as central processing units (CPUs) and main memory. Multitasking automatically interrupts the running program, saving its state and loading the saved state of another program and transferring control to it. This "context switch" may be initiated at fixed time intervals, or the running program may be coded to signal to the supervisory software when it can be interrupted.

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All data

35 statements · 26% with external sources · numbers in brackets are citations

Facet of: operating system
scheduling
Uses: scheduling
Different from: hardware multithreading
multithreading
human multitasking
Has use: concurrent computing

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24 identifiers linking computer multitasking across the web's reference databases

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statements

26%

externally sourced

Source last edited September 22, 2026. AIDB refreshes this page daily.

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AIDB. (2026). computer multitasking (Q192969). Retrieved from https://aidb.si/e/computer-multitasking-Q192969