platform

platform

1. a raised floor or other horizontal surface, such as a stage for speakers

2. a raised area at a railway station, from which passengers have access to the trains

3. the declared principles, aims, etc., of a political party, an organization, or an individual

4. a level raised area of ground

5. a specific type of computer hardware or computer operating system

Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, 1st edition © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

Platform

A raised floor or terrace, open or roofed; a stair landing.

Illustrated Dictionary of Architecture Copyright © 2012, 2002, 1998 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

Platform

(religion, spiritualism, and occult)

“The Platform” is where mediums address the public and relay messages received from spirit. The Morris Pratt Institute Educational Course in Modern Spiritualism states,

Platform decorum is of the utmost importance. The moment you step into view, you are Spiritualism. You may be the main reason many of the people came. To meet the various needs of those attending, to leave a permanent message in their mind, and to be an asset to the movement of Spiritualism, you must know and practice good platform decorum. Our services are religious services, and those serving should act accordingly.

Whether or not there is an actual platform is immaterial. For example, at Lily Dale Assembly there are regular daily message services given throughout the summer season at Forest Temple and at Inspiration Stump. A variety of different mediums speak at each service. There is no actual platform from which they speak—they stand in front of the seated people—yet the traditional “platform decorum” still is strictly followed.

Speaking from a platform offers advantages to the medium in that she can see the whole of the audience and can thereby more easily distinguish the different people who are being contacted by spirit.

Sources:

Morris Pratt Institute: Educational Course on Modern Spiritualism. Milwaukee: M.P.I., 1981

The Spirit Book © 2006 Visible Ink Press®. All rights reserved.

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Platform

 

in geology, a segment of the earth’s crust, within a central continental craton, in which the folded base is relatively submerged and covered by 1- to 16-km strata of horizontally bedded or gently tilted sedimentary rocks. The platform is contrasted to the relatively uplifted structure of the central continental craton “known as the shield and is composed of diverse structures of lesser orders, such as anteclises, syneclises, and domes. The term was proposed by E. Suess in 1885.

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

platform

[′plat‚fȯrm]

(computer science)

The hardware system and the system software used by a computer program.

(geology)

Any level or almost level surface; a small plateau.

A continental area covered by relatively flat or gently tilted, mainly sedimentary strata which overlay a basement of rocks consolidated during earlier deformations; platforms and shields together constitute cratons.

(mining engineering)

A wooden floor on the side of a gangway at the bottom of an inclined seam, to which the coal runs by gravity, and from which it is shoveled into mine cars.

(ordnance)

Temporary or permanent solid bed on which artillery pieces are supported to give greater stability.

Metal stand at the base of some types of guns upon which the gun crew stands while serving the gun.

McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific & Technical Terms, 6E, Copyright © 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

platform

1. A raised floor or terrace, open or roofed.

2. A stair landing; also See stair platform.

3. A grillage.

McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Architecture and Construction. Copyright © 2003 by McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

platform

i. A flat structure on which loads are carried and may be air-dropped. See airdrop platform or palletized bladder.
ii. A vehicle carrying sensors and/or weapons [e.g., an aircraft, UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle)].
iii. A raised operating area for operation of helicopters and VSTOL (vertical/short takeoff and landing) aircraft.
iv. An extended root of turbine blade linking the root attachment to the airfoil.

An Illustrated Dictionary of Aviation Copyright © 2005 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

platform

Specific computer hardware, as in the phrase "platform-independent". It may also refer to a specific combination of hardware and operating system and/or compiler, as in "this program has been ported to several platforms". It is also used to refer to support software for a particular activity, as in "This program provides a platform for research into routing protocols".

This article is provided by FOLDOC - Free Online Dictionary of Computing (foldoc.org)

platform

A hardware and/or software architecture that serves as a foundation or base. The term originally dealt with hardware and often still refers to only a CPU model or computer family. For example, the x86 PC is the world's largest desktop computer platform. The terms "platform" and "environment" are used interchangeably. See multiplatform, hardware platform and environment.

An Operating System Platform
An operating system often implies the CPU hardware. For example, when an application "runs on the Windows platform," it means that the program has been compiled into the x86 machine language and runs under Windows. It implies x86 because Windows has run on x86 machines for decades. However, it briefly ran on ARM CPUs with Windows RT, and starting in 2018, Windows once again was able to run on ARM (see Windows 10 on ARM).

The macOS operating system means Intel x86 hardware, although in the past, it ran on PowerPC and Motorola 68000 CPUs. The Android platform means the Android OS on ARM CPUs, while Apple's mobile platform runs iOS on ARM (see ARM).

With Unix, hardware is not implied. Unix applications run on almost every CPU family and are compiled into the machine language of that hardware. The phrase "the xyz app runs on Unix" typically implies multiple CPUs. See Unix.

Platforms Provide Interfaces
An application can also be a platform if it is a base for other programs. For example, Web browsers accept third-party plug-ins, and the browser application becomes a platform to interface with. Any software can be defined as a platform if it provides programming interfaces (APIs), which are a set of rules and codes that applications are written to interact with. Social media networks such as Facebook and Twitter provide APIs and are thus called "social media platforms." See application framework and online platform.

Copyright © 1981-2019 by The Computer Language Company Inc. All Rights reserved. THIS DEFINITION IS FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY. All other reproduction is strictly prohibited without permission from the publisher.