History
Before the mid-1960s, computers were extremely expensive and used only for special-purpose tasks. A simple batch processing arrangement ran only a single "job" at a time, one after another. But during the 1960s faster and more affordable computers became available, and as prices decreased newer computer systems supported time-sharing, a system which allows multiple users or processes to use the CPU and memory. In such a system the operating system alternates between running processes, giving each one running time on the CPU before switching to another. The machines had become fast enough that most users could feel they had the machine all to themselves.
By this point the problem of interacting with the computer was a concern. In the batch processing model, users never interacted with the machine directly, instead they tendered their jobs to the computer operators. Under the time-sharing model the users were given individual computer terminals and interacted directly. The need for a system to simplify this experience, from command line interpreters to programming languages was an area of intense research during the 1960s and 70s.
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