Correct. Real time doesn't mean "as fast as possible" in embedded systems. It can mean anything from "within a specified time after a given condition is met"

Correct. Real time doesn't mean "as fast as possible" in embedded systems. It can mean anything from "within a specified time after a given condition is met" to "it must happen at precisely this time, every time, after this condition is met" and a bunch of permutations between and outside those two. The idea of deterministic jitter might be foreign to those who've never done real time embedded work. By this I mean the idea that, for example, a certain output or result is specified to happen at 100us +/- 1.2us from a condition being met. Here +/- 1.2us being the acceptable response jitter. Very often you find yourself using NOP's to balance both sides of a conditional in machine language in order to control jitter. From experience I'd say that the exact definition of "real time" is project dependent. This definition is very different in, for example, a control panel processor vs. a 5 axis milling machine capable of rigid tapping.