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clock

An internal timing device. Using a quartz crystal, the CPU clock breathes life into the microprocessor by feeding it a constant flow of pulses. For example, a 200 MHz CPU receives 200 million pulses per second from the clock. A 2 GHz CPU gets two billion pulses per second. Similarly, in a communications device, a clock may be used to synchronize the data pulses between sender and receiver.

     A "real-time clock," also called the "system clock," keeps track of the time of day and makes this data available to the software. A "timesharing clock" interrupts the CPU at regular intervals and allows the operating system to divide its time between active users and/or applications. See per clock and clockless computing.




The CPU Clock
The quartz crystal generates continuous waves, which are converted into digital pulses.





similar terms
Entries before clock
clipping path
cloaked
cloaking
CLOB
clobbering memory
Entries after clock
clock battery
clock/calendar
clock cycle
clock doubling
clock pulse
 




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