14 lines
742 B
Plaintext
14 lines
742 B
Plaintext
wheel of reincarnation
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Term used to refer to a well-known effect whereby function in a computing
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system family is migrated out to special-purpose peripheral hardware for
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speed, then the peripheral evolves toward more computing power as it does
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its job, then somebody notices that it is inefficient to support two
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asymmetrical processors in the architecture and folds the function back into
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the main CPU, at which point the cycle begins again. Several iterations of
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this cycle have been observed in graphics-processor design, and at least one
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or two in communications and floating-point processors. Also known as the
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Wheel of Life , the Wheel of Samsara , and other variations of the basic
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Hindu/Buddhist theological idea. See also blitter.
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