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[Unix; common] To bring a task to the
top of one's stack for immediate processing, and hackers often
use it in this sense for non-computer tasks. "If your presentation
is due next week, I guess I'd better foreground writing up the
design document."
Technically, on a time-sharing system, a task executing in
foreground is one able to accept input from and return output to
the user; oppose background. Nowadays this term is primarily
associated with Unix, but it appears first to have been used
in this sense on OS/360. Normally, there is only one foreground
task per terminal (or terminal window); having multiple processes
simultaneously reading the keyboard is a good way to lose.
