MAC or Mac (media access controller)
Refers to a specific type of netcard driver.
Microchannel architecture, a type of backplane architecture that only accepts a compatible netcard.
A memory descriptor list uses an array of physical page frame numbers (PFNs) to describe the pages that back a virtual memory range.
MIB (managed information block)
The MIB is the set of netcard driver objects that represent information about driver capabilities and current status. The MIB identifies a managed object by a 32-bit OID.
A type of driver that includes the functions of both a transport driver and a netcard driver.
A 48-bit identifier (as transmitted over an Ethernet or FDDI network) naming the group of stations that should receive a data packet. Instead of being a bitmask (see functional address), a multicast address simply contains a unique group number by which receiving stations can request packets.
A platform with more than one CPU. Windows NT is designed to run on multiprocessor machines, usually configured to be:
· Homogenous ¾ all CPUs are identical, and either all have identical coprocessors or none has a coprocessor.
· Closely coupled ¾ all CPUs share memory and have uniform access to memory.
· Symmetric ¾ every CPU can access memory, handle any interrupt, and access I/O control registers just like every other CPU in the system. Note that any version of Windows NT that runs on a symmetric multiprocessor machine also runs unchanged on a uniprocessor machine based on the same CPU.
While Windows NT can run on asymmetric platforms, configured with a master CPU that handles all IRQs and one or more slave CPUs as long as the platform is both homogenous and closely coupled, the system has been designed to run primarily on symmetric multiprocessor platforms because SMP machines have better performance characteristics, particularly for I/O.