Hardware techniques

Warner: It is becoming increasingly evident that computer systems are not performing anywhere near as well as they should; recent statistics indicate that the average CPU is active only 30% of the time, with many clocked at 10% and lower. It seems that in trying to give computer systems the versatility required by a multiprogramming environment, we have been ignoring the fact that they must also be efficient. In general, today's systems are poorly coordinated and wasteful, with the CPU idle much of the time, and little overlap between CPU and peripherals. The price of this kind of inefficiency is high, especially in terms of job turnaround time and system throughput rate.