:flat: adj. 1. Lacking any complex internal structure. "That
{bitty box} has only a flat filesystem, not a hierarchical
one." The verb form is {flatten}. 2. Said of a memory
architecture (like that of the VAX or 680x0) that is one big linear
address space (typically with each possible value of a processor
register corresponding to a unique core address), as opposed to a
`segmented' architecture (like that of the 80x86) in which
addresses are composed from a base-register/offset pair (segmented
designs are generally considered {cretinous}).
Note that sense 1 (at least with respect to filesystems) is usually
used pejoratively, while sense 2 is a {Good Thing}.
-- The AI Hackers Dictionary
{bitty box} has only a flat filesystem, not a hierarchical
one." The verb form is {flatten}. 2. Said of a memory
architecture (like that of the VAX or 680x0) that is one big linear
address space (typically with each possible value of a processor
register corresponding to a unique core address), as opposed to a
`segmented' architecture (like that of the 80x86) in which
addresses are composed from a base-register/offset pair (segmented
designs are generally considered {cretinous}).
Note that sense 1 (at least with respect to filesystems) is usually
used pejoratively, while sense 2 is a {Good Thing}.
-- The AI Hackers Dictionary
Related:
- flat adj.
1. [common] Lacking any complex internal
structure.
"That bitty box has only a flat filesystem, not a ... - moby /moh'bee/
[MIT: seems to have been in use among
model railroad fans years ago.
Derived from Melville's "Moby Dick" (some say from... - accumulator: n. 1. Archaic term for a register. On-line use of it
as a synonym for `register' is a fairly reliable indication that
the user has been around for quite a while and/or that the
architecture under discussion is quite old.
The term in full is almost never used of microprocessor... - vaxocentrism /vak`soh-sen'trizm/ n.
[analogy with
`ethnocentrism'] A notional disease said to afflict C programmers
who persist in coding according to certain assumptions that are
valid (esp.
under Unix) on VAXen but false elsewhere. Among ... - accumulator n. obs.
1. Archaic term for a register.
On-line use of it as a synonym for `register' is... - orthogonal: [from mathematics] adj. Mutually independent;
well separated; sometimes, irrelevant to. Used... - down: 1. adj. Not operating. "The up escalator is down" is
considered a humorous thing to say,
and "The elevator is down" always means "The elevator... - flat-file: adj. A {flatten}ed representation of some database or
tree or network structure as a single file from which the
structure could implicitly be rebuilt,
esp. one in {flat-ASCII} form. See also {sharchive}... - domainist: /doh-mayn'ist/ adj. 1. Said of an {{Internet
address}} (as opposed to a {bang path}) because the part to the
right of the `@' specifies a nested series of `domains';
for example, esr@snark.thyrsus.com specifies the machine...
