time-sharing
time-sharing — noun
1. a system in which several people jointly own or rent a holiday home and each per
a system in which several people jointly own or rent a holiday home and each person or family uses it for a fixed period every year
The Garcia family bought a time-sharing arrangement at a beach resort in Cancún.
time-sharing arrangement at [place]
Many retired couples use time-sharing to spend winters in warmer states without buying a second home.
Their time-sharing contract gives them the first two weeks of August at the lake house every year.
The resort offers time-sharing plans from eight thousand dollars for a one-week share.
- timeshare
One-word form, more common in American English for the same concept; 'time-sharing' emphasises the arrangement system.
用法筆記
Often used attributively (time-sharing contract, time-sharing plan) to describe the legal or financial agreement.
常見錯誤
2. a method of operating a large central computer so that many people at different
a method of operating a large central computer so that many people at different terminals can use it at the same time, each getting a tiny fraction of the processor's attention in rapid rotation
In the 1970s, university students accessed research databases through a time-sharing system on the mainframe.
time-sharing system + mainframe
The engineers developed a time-sharing operating system that let fifty users log in from separate offices.
Early time-sharing required a dedicated phone line and a bulky terminal with a keyboard and printer.
Nikhil explained that time-sharing was a key step between batch processing and personal computers.
- multi-user system
Broader modern term; does not imply the rapid-rotation processor-sharing method specifically.
- batch processing
An earlier method where jobs were run one after another without interactive user access.
用法筆記
Primarily a historical computing term; the concept has been absorbed into modern multi-user operating systems and cloud computing.