vaston

A measure of a computer's load average.

If I run 'uptime', I get three numbers that say how heavily loaded the computer is. A load of 1 is considered to be as much work as the computer likes to do in the case of a single-processor system. Hence, it's running at one vaston.

This is in the Jargon File, since we took ESR out to a posh restaurant.

vaston n.

[Durham, UK] The unit of `load average'. A measure of how much work a computer is doing. A meter displaying this as a function of time is known as a `vastometer'. First used during a computing practical in December 1996.

--The Jargon File version 4.3.1, ed. ESR, autonoded by rescdsk.