heartbeat
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Related to heartbeat: Heartbleed
heartbeat
[′härt‚bēt] (physiology)
Pulsation of the heart coincident with ventricular systole.
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific & Technical Terms, 6E, Copyright © 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
heartbeat
(networking)The signal emitted by a Level 2 Ethernet
transceiver at the end of every packet to show that the
collision-detection circuit is still connected.
heartbeat
(2)A periodic synchronisation signal used by software or
hardware, such as a bus clock or a periodic interrupt.
heartbeat
(3)The "natural" oscillation frequency of a computer's clock
crystal, before frequency division down to the machine's clock
rate.
heartbeat
(4)A signal emitted at regular intervals by software to
demonstrate that it is still alive. Sometimes hardware is
designed to reboot the machine if it stops hearing a
heartbeat. See also breath-of-life packet, watchdog.
This article is provided by FOLDOC - Free Online Dictionary of Computing (foldoc.org)
heartbeat
(1) A periodic signal generated by hardware for activation and/or synchronization purposes. See MHz.(2) A periodic signal generated by hardware or software to indicate that it is still running.
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