foreground
(Unix) On a {time-sharing} system, a task executing in
foreground is one able to accept input from and return output
to the user in contrast to one running in the {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 confusing.
[{Jargon File}]
(1994-10-24)