|
Model-specific Register
A model-specific register (MSR) is any of various control registers in the x86 system architecture used for debugging, program execution tracing, performance monitoring, and toggling certain CPU features. History With the introduction of the 80386 processor, Intel began introducing "experimental" features that would not necessarily be present in future versions of the processor. The first of these were two "test registers" (TR6 and TR7) that enabled testing of the processor's translation lookaside buffer (TLB); a special variant of the instruction allowed moving to and from the test registers. Three additional test registers followed in the 80486 (TR3–TR5) that enabled testing of the processor's caches for code and data. None of these five registers were implemented in the subsequent Pentium processor; the special variant of generated an invalid opcode exception. With the introduction of the Pentium processor, Intel provided a pair of instructions ( and ) to access current a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Control Register
A control register is a processor register that changes or controls the general behavior of a CPU or other digital device. Common tasks performed by control registers include interrupt control, switching the addressing mode, paging control, and coprocessor control. History The early CPU lacked dedicated control registers, and relied on a limited set of internal signals and flags. When IBM developed a paging version of the System/360, they added 16 control registers to the design for what became the 360/67. IBM did not provide control registers on other S/360 models, but made them a standard part of System/370, although with different register and bit assignments. As IBM added new features to the architecture, e.g., DAS, S/370-XA, S/370-ESA, ESA/390, they added additional fields to the control registers. With z/Architecture, IBM doubled the control register size to 64 bits. Control registers in IBM 360/67 On the 360/67, CR0 and CR2 are used by address translation, CR 4- ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
BIOS
In computing, BIOS (, ; Basic Input/Output System, also known as the System BIOS, ROM BIOS, BIOS ROM or PC BIOS) is a type of firmware used to provide runtime services for operating systems and programs and to perform hardware initialization during the booting process (power-on startup). The firmware comes pre-installed on the computer's motherboard. The name originates from the Basic Input/Output System used in the CP/M operating system in 1975. The BIOS firmware was originally proprietary to the IBM PC; it was reverse engineered by some companies (such as Phoenix Technologies) looking to create compatible systems. The interface of that original system serves as a ''de facto'' standard. The BIOS in older PCs initializes and tests the system hardware components ( power-on self-test or POST for short), and loads a boot loader from a mass storage device which then initializes a kernel. In the era of DOS, the BIOS provided BIOS interrupt calls for the keyboard, display, st ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Instruction Processing
Instruction or instructions may refer to: A specific direction or order given to someone to perform a task or carry out a procedure. They provide clear guidance on how to achieve a desired outcome. They can be written or verbal, and they typically include detailed steps or actions to follow. Instructions are crucial for ensuring tasks are completed correctly and efficiently. Computing * Instruction, one operation of a processor within a computer architecture instruction set * Computer program, a collection of instructions Music * Instruction (band), a 2002 rock band from New York City, US * "Instruction" (song), a 2017 song by English DJ Jax Jones * ''Instructions'' (album), a 2001 album by Jermaine Dupri Other uses * Instruction, teaching or education performed by a teacher * Sebayt, a work of the ancient Egyptian didactic literature aiming to teach ethical behaviour * Instruction, the pre-trial phase of an investigation led by a judge in an inquisitorial system of justice * I ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Digital Registers
Digital usually refers to something using discrete digits, often binary digits. Businesses *Digital bank, a form of financial institution *Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) or Digital, a computer company *Digital Research (DR or DRI), a software company Computing and technology Hardware *Digital electronics, electronic circuits which operate using digital signals **Digital camera, which captures and stores digital images ***Digital versus film photography **Digital computer, a computer that handles information represented by discrete values **Digital recording, information recorded using a digital signal Socioeconomic phenomena *Digital culture, the anthropological dimension of the digital social changes *Digital divide, a form of economic and social inequality in access to or use of information and communication technologies *Digital economy, an economy based on computing and telecommunications resources *Digital rights, legal rights of access to computers or the Internet Oth ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
LOADALL
LOADALL is the common name for two different undocumented machine instructions of Intel 80286 and Intel 80386 processors, which allow access to areas of the internal processor state that are normally outside of the IA-32 API scope, like ''descriptor cache registers''. The LOADALL for 286 processors is encoded 0Fh 05h, while the LOADALL for 386 processors is 0Fh 07h. Both variants – as the name implies – load all CPU internal registers in one operation. LOADALL had the unique ability to set up the visible part of the segment registers (selector) independently of their corresponding cached part, allowing the programmer to bring the CPU into states not otherwise allowed by the official programming model. Usage As an example of the usefulness of these techniques, LOADALL can set up the CPU to allow access to all memory from real mode, without having to switch it into unreal mode (which requires switching into protected mode, accessing memory and finally switching back to real ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Memory Type Range Register
Memory type range registers (MTRRs) are a set of processor supplementary capability control registers that provide system software with control of how accesses to memory ranges by the CPU are cached. It uses a set of programmable model-specific registers (MSRs) which are special registers provided by most modern CPUs. Possible access modes to memory ranges can be uncached, write-through, write-combining, write-protect, and write-back. In write-back mode, writes are written to the CPU's cache and the cache is marked dirty, so that its contents are written to memory later. Write-combining allows bus write transfers to be combined into a larger transfer before bursting them over the bus to allow more efficient writes to system resources like graphics card memory. This often increases the speed of image write operations by several times, at the cost of losing the simple sequential read/write semantics of normal memory. Additional bits which are provided on some computer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Privilege (computing)
In computing, privilege is defined as the delegation of authority to perform security-relevant functions on a computer system. A privilege allows a user to perform an action with security consequences. Examples of various privileges include the ability to create a new user, install software, or change kernel functions. Users who have been delegated extra levels of control are called privileged. Users who lack most privileges are defined as unprivileged, regular, or normal users. Theory Privileges can either be automatic, granted, or applied for. An automatic privilege exists when there is no requirement to have permission to perform an action. For example, on systems where people are required to log into a system to use it, logging out will not require a privilege. Systems that do not implement file protection - such as MS-DOS - essentially give unlimited privilege to perform any action on a file. A granted privilege exists as a result of presenting some credential to the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
UEFI
Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI, as an acronym) is a Specification (technical standard), specification for the firmware Software architecture, architecture of a computing platform. When a computer booting, is powered on, the UEFI implementation is typically the first that runs, before starting the operating system. Examples include AMI Aptio, Phoenix Technologies, Phoenix SecureCore, TianoCore EDK II, and InsydeH2O. UEFI replaces the BIOS that was present in the boot ROM of all personal computers that are IBM PC compatible, although it can provide Backward compatibility, backwards compatibility with the BIOS using #CSM booting, CSM booting. Unlike its predecessor, BIOS, which is a de facto standard originally created by IBM as proprietary software, UEFI is an open standard maintained by an industry consortium. Like BIOS, most UEFI implementations are proprietary. Intel developed the original ''Extensible Firmware Interface'' (''EFI'') specification. The last Inte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
CPUID
In the x86 architecture, the CPUID instruction (identified by a CPUID opcode) is a processor supplementary instruction (its name derived from " CPU Identification") allowing software to discover details of the processor. It was introduced by Intel in 1993 with the launch of the Pentium and SL-enhanced 486 processors. A program can use the CPUID to determine processor type and whether features such as MMX/ SSE are implemented. History Prior to the general availability of the CPUID instruction, programmers would write esoteric machine code which exploited minor differences in CPU behavior in order to determine the processor make and model. With the introduction of the 80386 processor, EDX on reset indicated the revision but this was only readable after reset and there was no standard way for applications to read the value. Outside the x86 family, developers are mostly still required to use esoteric processes (involving instruction timing or CPU fault triggers) to determine th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
System Architecture
A system architecture is the conceptual model that defines the structure, behavior, and views of a system. An architecture description is a formal description and representation of a system, organized in a way that supports reasoning about the structures and behaviors of the system. A system architecture can consist of system components and the sub-systems developed, that will work together to implement the overall system. There have been efforts to formalize languages to describe system architecture, collectively these are called architecture description languages (ADLs). Overview Various organizations can define systems architecture in different ways, including: * The fundamental organization of a system, embodied in its components, their relationships to each other and to the environment, and the principles governing its design and evolution. * A representation of a system, including a mapping of functionality onto hardware and software components, a mapping of the softwa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pentium (original)
The Pentium (also referred to as the i586 or P5 Pentium) is a microprocessor introduced by Intel on March 22, 1993. It is the first CPU using the Pentium, Pentium brand. Considered the fifth generation in the x86 (8086) compatible line of processors, succeeding the i486, its implementation and microarchitecture was internally called ''P5''. Like the Intel i486, the Pentium is instruction set compatible with the 32-bit i386. It uses a very similar microarchitecture to the i486, but was extended enough to implement a dual integer instruction pipelining, pipeline design, as well as a more advanced floating-point unit (FPU) that was noted to be ten times faster than its predecessor. The Pentium was succeeded by the Pentium Pro in November 1995. In October 1996, the Pentium MMX was introduced, complementing the same basic microarchitecture of the original Pentium with the MMX (instruction set), MMX instruction set, larger caches, and some other enhancements. Intel discontinued the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
