| M |
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| Mac |
A brand name and registered trademark for a line of computers from Apple Inc.
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| MAC address |
Media Access Control address. The physical address of a device connected to a network, expressed as a 48-bit hexadecimal number.
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| Mac OS |
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| MAC protocol |
Medium Access Control protocol. In a local area network, the protocol that determines which device has access to the transmission medium at a given time.
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| MAC sublayer |
Medium Access Control sublayer. The lower sublayer of the data link layer, which uses the network's physical layer to provide services to the logical link control (LLC). The functions of the MAC sublayer vary according to the topology of the network.
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| MacApp |
A tool for developing application programs on the Macintosh, using object-oriented Pascal.
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| MacBench |
A benchmark from Ziff-Davis that measures the processor, floating point, disk, graphics, video, and CD-ROM performance of a MacOS, giving an idea of how well a particular system will run common Macintosh applications.
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| MacBinary |
Macintosh files, unlike files from other computer platforms which hold data only, have a resource fork and a data fork. If Mac files are put on a non-Mac machine, the resource fork will be stripped off, rendering some files unusable. MacBinary encoding prevents loss of the resource fork when posting the file to a non-Mac platform, by attaching the resource and data forks together in a single data file. MacBinary files must be transferred using an 8-bit, binary mode. They often have .bin as a filename extension.
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| MacBooz |
A Macintosh decompression program that can expand .zoo files.
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| MacCompress |
The Mac version of the Compress program for DOS and UNIX. It creates files with the .Z suffix.
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| MacDraw |
A drawing program for the Macintosh.
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| MacGzip |
A version of gzip for Macintosh, made by SPDsoft. It compresses Mac files into gzip files; the Mac resource fork is lost unless a MacBinary translator is used first. The gunzip function decompresses .gz, .Z, .z, and .tgz files.
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| machinable |
Readable by a computer; softcopy is machinable.
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| machine |
A device which performs a task and is operated mechanically, electrically, or electronically. In computer terminology, "machine" refers to the computer itself.
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| machine address |
An address that is permanently assigned to a specific storage location in a computer, by the maker of the machine.
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| machine code |
Machine language. The language which is actually read and understood by the computer.
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| machine cycle |
The cycle of four steps a computer's central processing unit must complete each time a machine language instruction is given: fetching the instruction from the main memory, decoding it, executing the instruction, and storing the result. "Machine cycle" also means the length of time one machine cycle takes.
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| machine language |
(Same as machine code.) The language which is actually read and understood by the computer. Machine language consists of instructions, written in binary code, that a computer can execute directly. Each machine language statement corresponds to one machine action. An operation that requires one machine-language instruction in one computer may require several instructions in another computer.
Humans do not usually write programs in machine language, but use a programming language which the computer translates into machine language. Assembly language is the next level of programming. Each assembly-language statement corresponds to one machine-language statement, but assembly language statements are written in a symbolic code that is easier for humans to read.
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| machine learning |
The ability of a machine to recognize patterns that have occurred repeatedly and improve its performance based on past experience.
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| machine-dependent program |
A program that works only on one type of computer.
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| machine-independent program |
A program that can work on many different types of computers.
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| machine-readable data |
Data in any form that a computer can read as input. Magnetic disks, optical disks, and magnetic tapes contain machine-readable data.
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| Macintosh |
A family of 32-bit personal computers introduced by Apple in 1984; the first widely used computers with a graphical user interface, a mouse, and windows. Rather than typing in commands, users open software and copy or delete files by clicking on icons on the screen that look like file folders, a trash can, and other things one would find in a real office. Macs quickly became popular because of their user-friendly interface. In 1994, PowerMacs, which use a PowerPC CPU, became available. The Macintosh Operating System is now called MacOS.
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| Macintosh clone |
A Power Macintosh not made by Apple Computer.
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