Contents page

Index (83KB)

flat


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.