Dictionary.net

A situation wherein the number of people trying touse a computer simultaneously has reached the point where noone can get enough cycles because they are spread too thinand the system has probably begun to thrash.This scenario is an inevitable result of Parkinson's Lawapplied to time-sharing. Usually the only solution is tobuy more computer. Happily, this has rapidly become easiersince the mid-1980s, so much so that the very term "cyclecrunch" now has a faintly archaic flavour; most hackers nowuse workstations or personal computers as opposed totraditional time-sharing systems.