type-ahead


type-ahead

(operating system)The facility where the user can type morecharacters before the system has fully responded to thosealready typed. Type-ahead is common on most current systems.It allows the user to type without worrying that the computermay miss input because it is temporarily busy,e.g. reformating a page, checking spelling, or simplysuffering from network latency. There is usually some limitto the amount of input the system can buffer, beyond which it__will__ lose input.