Define, compare, and contrast each of the following terms:

What will be an ideal response?
a. online
b. real time
c. interactive computing
d. timesharing

a. online
This simply means that a computer is turned on and directly connected to the network. For example, when their PCs are on, hundreds of millions of users are online because their PCs are connected to the Internet.
b. real time
Real-time systems attempt to respond to a request within a bounded amount of time. These types of systems are useful for applications that must react rapidly to changes in an environment.A hard real-time system meets its goals only if all tasks complete on time. A soft real-time system performs its real-time tasks with higher priority but does not ensure that they will always complete on time.
c. interactive computing
Interactive computing involves a user being present when jobs or processes are run and carrying on a dialog with the machine. Interactive computing ordinarily involves a series of short user requests that require prompt service.
d. timesharing
Timesharing is essentially multiprogramming of multiple interactive users.