1. New computer hardware, unad
ORned with such snares and delusions as an
operating system, an
HLL,
OR even
assembler. Commonly used in the phrase "programming on the bare metal", which refers to the arduous w
ORk of
bit bashing needed to create these basic tools f
OR a new computer. Real bare-metal programming involves things like building {boot PROM}s and {BIOS} chips, implementing basic {monit
OR}s used to test
device drivers, and writing the assemblers that will be used to write the compiler back ends that will give the new computer a real development environment. 2. "Programming on the bare metal" is also used to describe a style of
hand-hacking that relies on bit-level peculiarities of a particular hardware design, especially tricks f
OR speed and space optimisation that rely on crocks such as overlapping instructions (
OR, as in the famous case described in {The St
ORy of Mel}, interleaving of opcodes on a magnetic drum to minimise fetch delays due to the device' s rotational latency). This s
ORt of thing has become less common as the relative costs of programming time and computer resources have changed, but is still found in heavily constrained environments such as industrial embedded systems, and in the code of hackers who just can' t let go of that low-level control. See {Real Programmer}. In the w
ORld of personal computing, bare metal programming is often considered a
Good Thing,
OR at least a necessary evil (because these computers have often been sufficiently slow and po
ORly designed to make it necessary see
ill-behaved). There, the term usually refers to bypassing the BIOS
OR OS interface and writing the application to directly access device registers and computer addresses. "To get 19.2 kilobaud on the serial p
ORt, you need to get down to the bare metal." People who can do this s
ORt of thing well are held in high regard. [
Jargon File]
In addition suitable contents:
[ 2 ] [ = ] [ ad ] [ address ] [ ag ] [ ai ] [ al ] [ am ] [ an ] [ app ] [ application ] [ ar ] [ arc ] [ arg ] [ as ] [ ash ] [ assembler ] [ at ] [ au ] [ av ] [ B ] [ b ] [ ba ] [ bar ] [ bash ] [ baud ] [ be ] [ bi ] [ BIOS ] [ bit ] [ bit bashing ] [ bo ] [ boot ] [ by ] [ C ] [ ca ] [ case ] [ cat ] [ cc ] [ ch ] [ chip ] [ ci ] [ ck ] [ co ] [ code ] [ codes ] [ com ] [ compiler ] [ computer ] [ computing ] [ con ] [ cons ] [ control ] [ cr ] [ crock ] [ cu ] [ cy ] [ dd ] [ de ] [ design ] [ development ] [ development environment ] [ device ] [ device driver ] [ ding ] [ do ] [ down ] [ driver ] [ drum ] [ du ] [ ec ] [ ed ] [ ee ] [ eg ] [ eh ] [ embedded system ] [ environment ] [ er ] [ era ] [ es ] [ et ] [ evil ] [ fi ] [ file ] [ fo ] [ fOR ] [ G ] [ ga ] [ ge ] [ gh ] [ gi ] [ gn ] [ Go ] [ Good Thing ] [ gr ] [ gs ] [ h ] [ hack ] [ hacker ] [ hand-hacking ] [ hang ] [ hardware ] [ hat ] [ hing ] [ HLL ] [ hr ] [ id ] [ ie ] [ il ] [ ill-behaved ] [ in ] [ int ] [ interface ] [ interleaving ] [ IO ] [ io ] [ IOS ] [ ir ] [ iron ] [ is ] [ it ] [ J ] [ Jargon File ] [ ke ] [ ki ] [ kilobaud ] [ la ] [ latency ] [ ld ] [ Lex ] [ li ] [ LL ] [ ls ] [ lu ] [ lv ] [ ly ] [ M ] [ ma ] [ Mel ] [ meta ] [ mm ] [ mo ] [ mod ] [ module ] [ monitOR ] [ mp ] [ ms ] [ N ] [ na ] [ nc ] [ ne ] [ net ] [ ng ] [ ni ] [ nl ] [ ns ] [ O ] [ om ] [ op ] [ operating system ] [ OS ] [ pa ] [ pe ] [ ph ] [ ping ] [ pl ] [ pm ] [ pORt ] [ PR ] [ pr ] [ program ] [ programming ] [ PROM ] [ pt ] [ query ] [ rc ] [ re ] [ real ] [ Real Programmer ] [ register ] [ rl ] [ ro ] [ ROM ] [ rotational latency ] [ ru ] [ S ] [ sa ] [ sc ] [ se ] [ serial pORt ] [ sh ] [ si ] [ sig ] [ sl ] [ sn ] [ so ] [ sORt ] [ source ] [ space ] [ spec ] [ st ] [ StORy of Mel ] [ struct ] [ su ] [ sy ] [ system ] [ T ] [ tc ] [ test ] [ th ] [ to ] [ tool ] [ tr ] [ ua ] [ um ] [ us ] [ ve ] [ vi ] [ write ]