register (redirected from cross-file)

register

A small, high-speed computer circuit that holds values of internal operations, such as the address of the instruction being executed and the data being processed. When a program is debugged, register contents may be analyzed to determine the computer's status at the time of failure.

In microcomputer assembly language programming, programmers look at the contents of registers routinely. Assembly languages in larger computers are often at a higher level.

---

register

1. a recording device that accumulates data, totals sums of money, etc.

2. a movable plate that controls the flow of air into a furnace, chimney, room, etc.

3. Computing one of a set of word-sized locations in the central processing unit in which items of data are placed temporarily before they are operated on by program instructions

4. Music

a. the timbre characteristic of a certain manner of voice production

b. any of the stops on an organ as classified in respect of its tonal quality

---

register [′rej·ə·stər]

(computer science)

The computer hardware for storing one machine word.

(communications)

Part of an automatic switching telephone system which receives and stores the dialing pulses which control the further operations necessary in establishing a telephone connection.

(engineering)

Also known as registration.

The accurate matching or superimposition of two or more images, such as the three color images on the screen of a color television receiver, or the patterns on opposite sides of a printed circuit board, or the colors of a design on a printed sheet.

The alignment of positions relative to a specified reference or coordinate, such as hole alignments in punched cards, or positioning of images in an optical character recognition device.

(graphic arts)

Exact agreement in the position of printed material on both sides of a sheet or on all pages of a book or pamphlet.

Exact overprinting of colorplates, or other subsequent plates, so that all printed detail is correctly combined; proper color overprinting is checked by the exact superimposition of the register marks that are printed with each color run.

In flat preparation, the exact agreement between color or complementary flats.

(mechanical engineering)

The portion of a burner which directs the flow of air used in the combustion process.

(ordnance)

To adjust fire on a visible point, called a check point, and compute accurate adjusted data so that firing data for later targets may be computed with reference to that check point.

To adjust fire on several selected points in order that they may serve later as auxiliary targets.

---

1.		register - One of a small number of high-speed memory locations in a computer's CPU. Registers differ from ordinary random-access memory in several respects: There are only a small number of registers (the "register set"), typically 32 in a modern processor though some, e.g. SPARC, have as many as 144. A register may be directly addressed with a few bits. In contrast, there are usually millions of words of main memory (RAM), requiring at least twenty bits to specify a memory location. Main memory locations are often specified indirectly, using an indirect addressing mode where the actual memory address is held in a register. Registers are fast; typically, two registers can be read and a third written -- all in a single cycle. Memory is slower; a single access can require several cycles. The limited size and high speed of the register set makes it one of the critical resources in most computer architectures. Register allocation, typically one phase of the back-end, controls the use of registers by a compiled program. See also accumulator, FUBAR, orthogonal, register dancing, register allocation, register spilling.
2.		register - An addressable location in a memory-mapped peripheral device. E.g. the transmit data register in a UART.