cacal -
noun and verb (Science and Technology) noun: Short for cache memory, a small high-speed memory in some computers which can be used for data and instructions that need to be accessed frequently, instead of the slower main memory. transitive verb: To place (data, etc.) in a separate high-speed memory. Adjective cached, action
noun caching. Etymology: A
figurative use of cache, which originally meant 'a hiding place' (borrowed into
English at the end of the eighteenth century from French cache, related to cacher 'to hide'); from here it went on to mean 'a temporary store' (Arctic explorers, for example, put spare provisions in a cache, and the verb to cache also already existed for this activity). A computer cache is, in effect, only another kind of temporary store. History and Usage: The cache memory was invented
by IBM in the late sixties, but the verb and its derivatives appear not to have developed until the early eighties. Window images are normally cached in a form to allow fast screen
redraw . Personal Computer World Nov. 1986, p.
171 If the
information is held in the cache,
which can be thought of as a very fast on-chip local memory,
then only two clock cycles are required. Electronics & Wireless
World Jan. 1987, p. 105
