power

adj : supplementing or replacing manual effort; "power brakes";

"power-assisted steering" [syn: {power-assisted}, {power(a)}]

n 1: possession of controlling influence; "the deterrent power of

nuclear weapons"; "the power of his love saved her"

[syn: {powerfulness}, {potency}] [ant: {powerlessness}]

2: (physics) the rate of doing work; measured in watts (◦

joules/second)

3: possession of the qualities (especially mental qualities)

required to do something or get something done; "danger

heightened his powers of discrimination" [syn: {ability}]

[ant: {inability}]

4: a state powerful enough to influence events throughout the

world [syn: {world power}, {major power}, {great power}, {superpower}]

5: (of a government or government official) holding an office

means being in power; "being in office already gives a

candidate a great advantage"; "during his first year in

power" [syn: {office}]

6: one possessing or exercising power or influence or

authority: "the mysterious presence of an evil power";

"may the force be with you"; "the forces of evil" [syn: {force}]

7: physical strength [syn: {might}, {mightiness}]

8: a mathematical notation indicating the number of times a

quantity is multiplied by itself [syn: {exponent}, {index}]

9: a very wealthy or powerful businessman: "an oil baron" [syn:

{baron}, {big businessman}, {business leader}, {king}, {magnate},

{mogul}, {top executive}, {tycoon}]

v : supply the force or power for the functioning of; "The

gasoline powers the engines"

PowerPC

(PPC) A {RISC} {microprocessor} designed

to meet a {standard} which was jointly designed by {Motorola},

{IBM}, and {Apple Computer} (the PowerPC Alliance). The

PowerPC standard specifies a common {instruction set

architecture} (ISA), allowing anyone to design and fabricate

PowerPC processors, which will run the same code. The PowerPC

architecture is based on the IBM {POWER} architecture, used in

IBM's {RS/6000} {workstation}s. Currently {IBM} and

{Motorola} are working on PowerPC chips.

The PowerPC standard specifies both 32-bit and 64-bit data

paths. Early implementations were 32-bit (e.g. {PowerPC

601}); later higher-performance implementations were 64-bit

(e.g. PowerPC 620). A PowerPC has 32 integer {registers} (32-

or 64 bit) and 32 {floating-point} (IEEE standard 64 bit)

{floating-point} registers.

The POWER CPU chip and PowerPC have a (large) common core, but

both have instructions that the other doesn't. The PowerPC

offers the following features that POWER does not:

Support for running in {little-endian} mode.

Addition of single precision {floating-point} operations.

Control of branch prediction direction.

A hardware coherency model (not in Book I).

Some other {floating-point} instructions (some optional).

The real time clock (upper and lower) was replaced with the

time base registers (upper and lower), which don't count in

sec/ns (the decrementer also changed).

64-bit instruction operands, registers, etc. (in 64 bit

processors).

See also {PowerOpen}, {PowerPC Platform} (PReP).

{IBM PPC info

(http://fnctsrv0.chips.ibm.com/products/ppc/index.html)}.

{(gopher://info.hed.apple.com/)}, "Apple Corporate News/"

(press releases), "Apple Technologies/" and "Product

Information/". {(gopher://ike.engr.washington.edu/)}, "IBM

General News/", "IBM Product Announcements/", "IBM Detailed

Product Announcements/", "IBM Hardware Catalog/".

{Usenet} newsgroups: {news:comp.sys.powerpc},

{news:comp.sys.mac.hardware}.

["Microprocessor Report", 16 October 1991].

(1994-09-30)