15 lines
2.7 KiB
HTML
15 lines
2.7 KiB
HTML
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" standalone="no"?>
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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><title>orthogonal</title><link rel="stylesheet" href="../../jargon.css" type="text/css"/><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.61.0"/><link rel="home" href="../index.html" title="The Jargon File"/><link rel="up" href="../O.html" title="O"/><link rel="previous" href="orphaned-i-node.html" title="orphaned i-node"/><link rel="next" href="OS.html" title="OS"/></head><body><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="3" align="center">orthogonal</th></tr><tr><td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="orphaned-i-node.html">Prev</a> </td><th width="60%" align="center">O</th><td width="20%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="OS.html">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr/></div><dt><a id="orthogonal"/><dt xmlns="" id="orthogonal"><b>orthogonal</b>: <span xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" class="grammar">adj.</span></dt></dt><dd><p> [from mathematics] Mutually independent; well separated; sometimes,
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irrelevant to. Used in a generalization of its mathematical meaning to
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describe sets of primitives or capabilities that, like a vector basis in
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geometry, span the entire ‘capability space’ of the system and
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are in some sense non-overlapping or mutually independent. For example, in
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architectures such as the <a href="../P/PDP-11.html"><i class="glossterm">PDP-11</i></a> or
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<a href="../V/VAX.html"><i class="glossterm">VAX</i></a> where all or nearly all registers can be used
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interchangeably in any role with respect to any instruction, the register
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set is said to be orthogonal. Or, in logic, the set of operators <span class="firstterm">not</span> and <span class="firstterm">or</span> is orthogonal, but the set <span class="firstterm">nand</span>, <span class="firstterm">or</span>,
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and <span class="firstterm">not</span> is not (because any one of
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these can be expressed in terms of the others). Also used in comments on
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human discourse: “<span class="quote">This may be orthogonal to the discussion,
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but....</span>”</p></dd><div class="navfooter"><hr/><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="orphaned-i-node.html">Prev</a> </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="u" href="../O.html">Up</a></td><td width="40%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="OS.html">Next</a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">orphaned i-node </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="../index.html">Home</a></td><td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"> OS</td></tr></table></div></body></html>
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