cycle crunch n.,obs.
A situation wherein the number of people trying to use a
computer simultaneously has reached the point where no one can
get enough cycles because they are spread too thin and the system
has probably begun to thrash. This
scenario is an inevitable result of Parkinson's Law applied to
timesharing. Usually the only solution is to buy more computer.
Happily, this has rapidly become easier since the mid-1980s, so
much so that the very term `cycle crunch' now has a faintly
archaic flavor; most hackers now use workstations or personal
computers as opposed to traditional timesharing systems, and are
far more likely to complain of `bandwidth crunch' on their shared
networks rather than cycle crunch.
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cycle drought n.
A scarcity of cycles. It may be due to a cycle crunch, but it could also occur
because part of the computer is temporarily not working, leaving
fewer cycles to go around. "The high
moby is down, so we're running
with only half the usual amount of memory. There will be a cycle
drought until it's fixed."
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reincarnation, Next:cycle server, Previous:cycle drought, Up:= C =
cycle of reincarnation n.
See wheel of
reincarnation.
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reincarnation, Up:= C =
cycle server n.
A powerful machine that exists primarily for running large
compute-, disk-, or memory-intensive jobs (more formally called a
`compute server'). Implies that interactive tasks such as editing
are done on other machines on the network, such as
workstations.