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working, leaving fewer cycles to go around. "The high moby is down, so we're running with only half the usual amount of memory. There will be a cycle drought until it's fixed." |
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cycle of reincarnation n. [coined in a paper by T. H. Myer and I.E. Sutherland On the Design of Display Processors, Comm. ACM, Vol. 11, no. 6, June 1968)] Term used to refer to a well-known effect whereby function in a computing system family is migrated out to special-purpose peripheral hardware for speed, then the peripheral evolves toward more computing power as it does its job, then somebody notices that it is inefficient to support two asymmetrical processors in the architecture and folds the function back into the main CPU, at which point the cycle begins again. |
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Several iterations of this cycle have been observed in graphics-processor design, and at least one or two in communications and floating-point processors. Also known as the Wheel of Life, the Wheel of Samsara, and other variations of the basic Hindu/Buddhist theological idea. See also blitter, bit bang. |
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cycle server n. A powerful machine that exists primarily for running large compute-, disk-, or memory-intensive jobs. Implies that interactive tasks such as editing are done on other machines on the network, such as workstations. |
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cypherpunk n. [from cyberpunk] Someone interested in the uses of encryption via electronic ciphers for enhancing personal privacy and guarding against tyranny by centralized, authoritarian power structures, especially government. There is an active cypherpunks mailing list at cypherpunksrequest@toad.com coordinating work on public-key encryption freeware, privacy, and digital cash. See also tentacle. |
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