Computer time-sharing - a review

Reviews time-sharing, a recent way of using computers in which a given information processing power is made available to several remote users. First, time-sharing, Its present services and its future ones, will be defined. Then, the main hardware and software features of a time-sharing computer will be pointed out. Features which are desirable but not essential will also be mentioned. Engineers and programmers have solved the most urgent problems in time-sharing. The use of a time-sharing system in fields other than scientific computation and management data processing has not yet been envisaged. Nevertheless, the results obtained to date in these two fields will facilitate the approach to new fields of application: industrial process control and telephone network control.