virtual memory - Article Index

Encyclopedia - Windows 2000: Encyclopedia - Windows 2000
Windows 2000 (also referred to as Win2K, W2K or Windows NT 5.0) is a preemptible and interruptible, graphical, business-oriented operatin...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Windows 3.0: Encyclopedia - Windows 3.0
Windows 3.0 was the third major release of Microsoft Windows, and came out on May 22, 1990. It was the first widely successful version of...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Zeroisation: Encyclopedia - Zeroisation
In cryptography, zeroisation (also spelled zeroization) is the practice of erasing sensitive parameters (especially keys) from a cryptogr...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Computer Architecture: Encyclopedia - Computer Architecture
In computer science, computer architecture is the conceptual design and fundamental operational structure of a computer system. It is a b...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Virtual: Encyclopedia - Virtual
The term virtual is a concept applied in many fields with somewhat differing connotations, and also denotations. Colloquially, 'virtual' ...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Vax: Encyclopedia - Vax
VAX is a 32-bit computing architecture that supports an orthogonal instruction set (machine language) and virtual addressing (i.e. demand...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - 64-bit: Encyclopedia - 64-bit
In computer architecture, 64-bit is an adjective used to describe integers, memory addresses or other data units that are at most 64 bits...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Data General: Encyclopedia - Data General
Data General was one of the first minicomputer firms from the late 1960s. Three of the four founders were former employees of Digital Equ...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Berkeley Software Distribution: Encyclopedia - Berkeley Software Distribution
Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD, sometimes called Berkeley Unix) is the Unix derivative distributed by the University of California, ...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Copy-on-write: Encyclopedia - Copy-on-write
Copy-on-write (sometimes referred to as "COW") is an optimization strategy used in computer programming. The fundamental idea is that if ...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Virtual Management: Encyclopedia - Virtual Management
Virtual management seeks to separate certain responsibilities of managers from the actual site of production, the workers and resources a...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Image: Encyclopedia - Image
In common usage, an image (from Latin imago) or picture is an artifact that reproduces the likeness of some subject—usually a physical ...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Apple Macintosh: Encyclopedia - Apple Macintosh
The Macintosh, or Mac, is a line of personal computers designed, developed, manufactured and marketed by Apple Computer that run the Maci...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - X86: Encyclopedia - X86
x86 or 80x86 is the generic name of a microprocessor architecture first developed and manufactured by Intel. The x86 architecture current...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Immutable Object: Encyclopedia - Immutable Object
In computer science, an immutable object, as opposed to a mutable object, is a kind of object whose internal state cannot be modified aft...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Buffer Overflow: Encyclopedia Ii - Buffer Overflow - Technical Description
A buffer overflow occurs when data written to a buffer, due to insufficient bounds checking, corrupts data values in memory addresses adj...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Sorting Algorithm: Encyclopedia Ii - Sorting Algorithm - Summaries Of Some Popular Sorting Algorithms
Sorting algorithm - Bubble sort. Bubble sort is a straightforward and simplistic method of sorting data that is used in computer scienc...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Spring Operating System: Encyclopedia Ii - Spring Operating System - Description
It should be noted that the Sun engineers used non-standard terminology for a number of common components, which makes discussing the sys...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Microsoft Windows: Encyclopedia Ii - Microsoft Windows - Microsoft Windows Versions
The term Windows is used as a collective term for several generations of operating system products which can be classified into the follo...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Motorola 68000: Encyclopedia Ii - Motorola 68000 - Architecture
Motorola 68000 - Address bus. The 68000 was a clever compromise. When the 68000 was introduced, 16-bit buses were really the most pract...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Apple Lisa: Encyclopedia Ii - Apple Lisa - Business Blunder
The Apple Lisa, created in 1980, turned out to be a commercial failure for Apple, the largest since the Apple III disaster of 1980. The i...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Symbolics: Encyclopedia Ii - Symbolics - Symbolics Inc. History
Symbolics, Inc. (or simply "Symbolics") was a computer manufacturer headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts and later in Concord, Massa...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Apple Macintosh: Encyclopedia Ii - Apple Macintosh - History
Apple Macintosh - 1979–84: Development and introduction. The Macintosh project started in early 1979 with Jef Raskin, an Apple employ...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Motorola 68060: Encyclopedia Ii - Motorola 68060 - Architecture
The 68060 is not just a redesign of the 68040, but a from-scratch entirely new processor, adding a second integer pipeline, a two cycle i...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Vax: Encyclopedia Ii - Vax - History
The first VAX model sold was the VAX-11/780, which became available in 1978. The architect of this model was Bill Strecker. Many differen...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Windows 2000: Encyclopedia Ii - Windows 2000 - Common Functionality
Certain features are common across all versions of Windows 2000 (both Professional and the Server versions), among them being NTFS 5, the...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Windows 3.0: Encyclopedia Ii - Windows 3.0 - Features
Windows 3.0 succeeded to Windows 2.1x and included a significantly revamped user interface as well as technical improvements to make bett...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Virtual: Encyclopedia Ii - Virtual - Philosophy
Numerous philosophers have advanced conceptions of the virtual. The current definition, that can hardly be distinguished from "potential"...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Build Engine: Encyclopedia Ii - Build Engine - Technical Features
Build engine - Sectors. The Build engine allowed for more complex and flexible worlds than Doom by virtue of its representation of the ...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Paging: Encyclopedia Ii - Paging - How It Works
The memory access part of paging is done at the hardware level via page tables, and is handled by the memory management unit (MMU for sho...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Immutable Object: Encyclopedia Ii - Immutable Object - Implementation
Immutability does not imply that the object as stored in the computer's memory is unwriteable. Rather, immutability is a compile-time con...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Non-uniform Memory Access: Encyclopedia Ii - Non-uniform Memory Access - Basic Concept
Modern CPUs are considerably faster than the main memory they are attached to. In the early days of high speed computing and supercompute...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Motorola 68000: Encyclopedia Ii - Motorola 68000 - Architecture
Motorola 68000 - Address bus. The 68000 was a clever compromise. When the 68000 was introduced, 16-bit buses were really the most pract...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Cdc Cyber: Encyclopedia Ii - Cdc Cyber - Cdc Cyber 170 Series
The Cyber 170 architecture was a successor to the earlier CDC 6600 and CDC 7600 series and therefore shared many of the earlier architect...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Risc Os: Encyclopedia Ii - Risc Os - Risc Os 2
RISC OS was a rapid development of Arthur 1.2 after the failure of the ARX project. The first release was to be called Arthur 2, but was ...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Smart Pointer: Encyclopedia Ii - Smart Pointer - Handles
A handle is a particular kind of smart pointer. Handles are used when an application references blocks of memory or objects managed by an...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Spinning Wait Cursor: Encyclopedia Ii - Spinning Wait Cursor - Explanation
Each application has an event queue which receives events from the operating system (for example key presses and mouse button clicks). If...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Protected Mode: Encyclopedia Ii - Protected Mode - Compatibility With Real Mode Programs
The Intel iAPX 286 Programmer's Reference Manual states the protected mode is just an overlay over the 80186 instruction set, and indeed ...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Pick Operating System: Encyclopedia Ii - Pick Operating System - History
Pick was originally implemented as the Generalized Information Retrieval Language System (GIRLS) on an IBM System/360 in 1965 by Don Nels...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Novell Netware: Encyclopedia Ii - Novell Netware - History
Novell NetWare - Early years. Netware was based on the consulting work by SuperSet Software, a group founded by the friends Drew Major,...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Openvms: Encyclopedia Ii - Openvms - Features
OpenVMS can be divided into three layers: The kernel, made up of input/output, memory management, and process/time management subsystems...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - System 6: Encyclopedia Ii - System 6 - Multitasking
Cooperative multitasking made its Macintosh debut in March 1985 with a program called Switcher, which allowed the user to launch multiple...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - System 7 Macintosh: Encyclopedia Ii - System 7 Macintosh - Version History
Soon after the initial release of System 7, the 7.0.1 minor update was released in October 1991. A patch, called "System 7 Tune-Up" also ...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Windows 1.0: Encyclopedia Ii - Windows 1.0 - Features
Unlike later versions, Windows 1.0 offered limited multitasking of existing MS-DOS programs and concentrated on creating an interaction p...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Microsoft Windows: Encyclopedia Ii - Microsoft Windows - Microsoft Windows Versions
The term Windows is used as a collective term for several generations of operating system products which can be classified into the follo...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Universal Virtual Computer: Encyclopedia Ii - Universal Virtual Computer - Conceptual Model
The UVC is part of a broader concept, called the Universal Virtual Computer (UVC)-based preservation method. This method is invented by R...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Inmos Transputer: Encyclopedia Ii - Inmos Transputer - Design
The transputer (transistor computer) was the first general purpose microprocessor designed specifically to be used in parallel computing ...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Tops-20: Encyclopedia Ii - Tops-20 - Tenex
In the 1960's BBN was involved in a number of LISP-based artificial intelligence projects for DARPA, many of which had very large (for th...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Threaded Code: Encyclopedia Ii - Threaded Code - Threading Models
Practically all executable threaded code uses one or another of these methods for calling subroutines (each method is called a "threading...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Microsoft Windows: Encyclopedia Ii - Microsoft Windows - Microsoft Windows Versions
The term Windows collectively describes any or all of several generations of Microsoft operating system products. These products are gene...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Windows 3.0: Encyclopedia Ii - Windows 3.0 - Features
Windows 3.0 succeeded Windows 2.1x and included a significantly revamped user interface as well as technical improvements to make better ...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Classic Risc Pipeline: Encyclopedia Ii - Classic Risc Pipeline - The Classic Five Stage Risc Pipeline
Classic RISC pipeline - Instruction fetch. The Instruction Cache on these machines had a latency of one cycle. During the Instruction F...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Clipper Architecture: Encyclopedia Ii - Clipper Architecture - Versions
The initial Clipper microprocessor produced by Fairchild was the C100, which became available in 1986. This was followed by the faster C3...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Cpu Design: Encyclopedia Ii - Cpu Design - History Of General Purpose Cpus
CPU design - 1950s: early designs. Each of the computer designs of the early 1950s was a unique design; there were no upward-compatible...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Cpu Cache: Encyclopedia Ii - Cpu Cache - Cache Hierarchy In A Modern Processor
Modern processors actually have multiple interacting caches on chip. Two issues have driven the development of the modern cache hierarchy...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Mach Kernel: Encyclopedia Ii - Mach Kernel - Mach Concepts
After some initial steps it became clear to many that Unix's concept of everything-as-a-file simply no longer worked on modern systems. N...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Cpu Design: Encyclopedia Ii - Cpu Design - History Of General Purpose Cpus
CPU design - 1950s: early designs. Each of the computer designs of the early 1950s was a unique design; there were no upward-compatible...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Convex Computer: Encyclopedia Ii - Convex Computer - History
Convex was formed in 1982 by Bob Paluck and Steve Wallach in Richardson, Texas. It was originally named Parsec. They planned on producing...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Darwin Operating System: Encyclopedia Ii - Darwin Operating System - Kernel Design
Like most modern kernels, Darwin's is a hybrid, containing features of both monolithic and microkernels, attempting to make the best use ...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Mac Os: Encyclopedia Ii - Mac Os - Versions
The Macintosh operating system initially consisted of two pieces of software, called "System" and "Finder", each with its own version num...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Master Control Program: Encyclopedia Ii - Master Control Program - Process Management
The MCP manages processes by scheduling tasks. Running processes are those which are using a processor resource and are marked as 'runnin...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Linux Kernel: Encyclopedia Ii - Linux Kernel - History
The project was launched in 1991 with a famous post to the Usenet newsgroup comp.os.minix that includes this sentence: "I'm doing a (fre...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - History Of Microsoft Windows: Encyclopedia Ii - History Of Microsoft Windows - Early History
The first independent version of Microsoft Windows, version 1.0, released in 1985, lacked a degree of functionality and achieved little p...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Data General Nova: Encyclopedia Ii - Data General Nova - History
Edson deCastro was the Product Manager at Digital Equipment (DEC) of their pioneering PDP-8, a 12-bit computer generally considered by m...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Divide And Conquer Algorithm: Encyclopedia Ii - Divide And Conquer Algorithm - Advantages
Divide and conquer algorithm - Solving difficult problems. Divide and conquer is a powerful tool for solving conceptually difficult pro...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Cdc 6600: Encyclopedia Ii - Cdc 6600 - History And Impact
CDC's first products were based on the machines designed at ERA, which Seymour Cray had been asked to update after moving to CDC. After a...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Berkeley Software Distribution: Encyclopedia Ii - Berkeley Software Distribution - History
Berkeley Software Distribution - PDP-11 beginnings. The earliest distributions of Unix from Bell Labs in the 1970s included the source ...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Linker: Encyclopedia Ii - Linker - Criticism
Dynamic linking is often portrayed as universally good, but it has several drawbacks that aren't immediately apparent. Because dynamic li...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Digital Equipment Corporation: Encyclopedia Ii - Digital Equipment Corporation - History
The company was founded in 1957 by Ken Olsen and Harlan Anderson, two engineers who had been working at MIT Lincoln Laboratory on the TX-...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Data General: Encyclopedia Ii - Data General - History
Data General - Origin founding and early years: The Nova and SuperNova. Data General (DG) formed when several engineers from Digital Eq...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Ms-dos: Encyclopedia Ii - Ms-dos - History
MS-DOS was created by computer manufacturer Seattle Computer Products (SCP) in 1980 as QDOS (for Quick and Dirty Operating System), but w...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Mvs: Encyclopedia Ii - Mvs - Mvs Filesystem
MVS's classic filesystem is a record-oriented filesystem. Filenames are organized in a hierarchy, separated with dots. Each level in the ...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - X86: Encyclopedia Ii - X86 - Design
The x86 architecture is a CISC design with variable instruction length. Word sized memory access is allowed to unaligned memory addresses...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Ia-32: Encyclopedia Ii - Ia-32 - Registers
The 386 has eight 32-bit general purpose registers for application use. There are 8 floating point stack registers. Later processors adde...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Berkeley Software Distribution: Encyclopedia Ii - Berkeley Software Distribution - History
Berkeley Software Distribution - PDP-11 beginnings. The earliest distributions of Unix from Bell Labs in the 1970s included the source ...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Flash Memory: Encyclopedia Ii - Flash Memory - Principles Of Operation
Flash memory stores information in an array of floating gate transistors, called "cells", each of which traditionally stores one bit of i...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Hex Discworld: Encyclopedia Ii - Hex Discworld - Evolution
Hex has its origins in a device that briefly appeared in Soul Music, created by student wizard Skazz in the High Energy Magic building. I...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Firewire: Encyclopedia Ii - Firewire - Standards And Versions
FireWire was developed by Apple Computer in the 1990s, after work defining a slower version of the interface by the IEEE 1394 working com...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Mac Os: Encyclopedia Ii - Mac Os - Versions
The Macintosh operating system initially consisted of two pieces of software, called "System" and "Finder", each with its own version num...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Apple Macintosh: Encyclopedia Ii - Apple Macintosh - History
Apple Macintosh - 1979–84: Development and introduction. The Macintosh project started in early 1979 with Jef Raskin, an Apple employ...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - 64-bit: Encyclopedia Ii - 64-bit - 32 Vs 64 Bit
A change from a 32-bit to a 64-bit architecture is a fundamental alteration, as most operating systems must be extensively modified to ta...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Computer Architecture: Encyclopedia Ii - Computer Architecture - Design Goals
The most common goals in computer architecture revolve around the tradeoffs between cost and performance (i.e. speed), although other con...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Apple Macintosh: Encyclopedia Ii - Apple Macintosh - Advantages, Disadvantages And Criticisms
The Macintosh differs in several ways from personal computers which run Microsoft Windows. Both the hardware and bundled software, includ...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Mac Os: Encyclopedia Ii - Mac Os - Classic Mac Os Technologies
Some features of the "classic" Mac OS are still in use in Mac OS X, including: ColorSync  ColorSync is a technology for matching co...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Data General Nova: Encyclopedia Ii - Data General Nova - Technical Description
The Nova had four 16-bit accumulator registers, of which two could be used as index registers. There was a 15-bit program counter and a ...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Berkeley Software Distribution: Encyclopedia Ii - Berkeley Software Distribution - Technology
BSD pioneered many of the advances of modern computing. Berkeley's Unix was the first to include libraries supporting the Internet Protoc...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Mac Os: Encyclopedia Ii - Mac Os - Project Star Trek
One interesting historical aspect of the classic Mac OS was a relatively unknown secret prototype Apple started work on in 1992, code-nam...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Mac Os: Encyclopedia Ii - Mac Os - Project Marklar
In April 2002, eWeek reported a rumor that Apple had a version of Mac OS X running on x86 processors, code-named Marklar. The idea behind...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Darwin Operating System: Encyclopedia Ii - Darwin Operating System - Releases
A table of Darwin releases with their date of release, with their corresponding Mac OS X releases (note that the corresponding Mac OS X r...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Darwin Operating System: Encyclopedia Ii - Darwin Operating System - Development And Distribution
Darwin operating system - Quality control. Like most modern operating systems, Darwin employs a built-in kernel debugger to help the de...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Master Control Program: Encyclopedia Ii - Master Control Program - File System
The MCP provides a sophisticated file system with hierarchical directory structures. Unlike Unix though, directory nodes are not represen...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Master Control Program: Encyclopedia Ii - Master Control Program - History
The MCP started as 30,000 lines of source code. Since its creation, this has grown to several million lines (compare that to less-sophist...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Mac Os: Encyclopedia Ii - Mac Os - Translation Emulation And Macintosh Clones
Some computers have been shown to successfully run MacOS using the process of translation emulation. One example of this is the Amiga tha...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Mac Os: Encyclopedia Ii - Mac Os - A/ux
In 1988, Apple released its first UNIX based OS, named A/UX. This was an operating system that seamlessly integrated the Mac OS look and ...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Data General Nova: Encyclopedia Ii - Data General Nova - Assembly Language Examples
Data General Nova - Hello world program. This is a minimal programming example in Nova assembly language. It is designed to run under R...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Linux Kernel: Encyclopedia Ii - Linux Kernel - Technical Features
Linux kernel - Architecture. The Linux kernel includes true multitasking, virtual memory, shared libraries, demand loading, shared copy...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - History Of Microsoft Windows: Encyclopedia Ii - History Of Microsoft Windows - Windows 98
On June 25, 1998, Microsoft released Windows 98, which was widely regarded as a minor revision of Windows 95. It included new hardware dr...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - History Of Microsoft Windows: Encyclopedia Ii - History Of Microsoft Windows - Windows Millennium Edition Me
In September 2000, Microsoft introduced Windows Me (Millennium Edition), which upgraded Windows 98 with enhanced multimedia and Internet ...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Divide And Conquer Algorithm: Encyclopedia Ii - Divide And Conquer Algorithm - Disadvantages
One commonly argued disadvantage of a divide-and-conquer approach is that recursion is slow: the overhead of the repeated subroutine call...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - History Of Microsoft Windows: Encyclopedia Ii - History Of Microsoft Windows - Windows Nt 4.0
Originally developed as a part of its effort to introduce Windows NT to the workstation market, Microsoft released Windows NT 4.0, which ...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - History Of Microsoft Windows: Encyclopedia Ii - History Of Microsoft Windows - Windows 95
After Windows 3.11, Microsoft began to develop a new version of the operating system code-named Chicago. Chicago was designed to be fully...   » Read the article