One thing, many users, and time cut into slices. Nobody owns the whole thing; each person owns a piece of its time and takes a turn. The picture works the same whether the thing is a computer answering one desk at a time, or a seaside flat that belongs to you only in the first week of August.
One branch
把時間切成段，輪流用同一樣東西
兩個用法共用同一個畫面，只是被分的東西不同：一個是機器的運算時間，一個是一間房子的使用期。
noun · C1
A way of using one computer in which many people work on it at the same time, each at their own screen and keyboard, because the computer gives a very short slice of its working time to each user in turn.
分時處理