File

File or filing may refer to:

Services

Information

Computing

Other uses

See also

Glossary of chess

This page explains commonly used terms in chess in alphabetical order. Some of these have their own pages, like fork and pin. For a list of unorthodox chess pieces, see Fairy chess piece; for a list of terms specific to chess problems, see Glossary of chess problems; for a list of chess-related games, see Chess variants.

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

[adjective: prophylactic] Prophylactic techniques include the blockade, overprotection, and the mysterious rook move.

Q

R

S

T

U

V

W

X

Z

References

Bibliography

Computer file

A computer file is a resource for storing information, which is available to a computer program and is usually based on some kind of durable storage. A file is "durable" in the sense that it remains available for other programs to use after the program that created it has finished executing. Computer files can be considered as the modern counterpart of paper documents which traditionally are kept in office and library files, and this is the source of the term.

Etymology

The word "file" was used publicly in the context of computer storage as early as February, 1950. In an RCA (Radio Corporation of America) advertisement in Popular Science Magazine describing a new "memory" vacuum tube it had developed, RCA stated:

In 1952, "file" was used in referring to information stored on punched cards.

In early usage, people regarded the underlying hardware (rather than the contents) as a file. For example, the IBM 350 disk drives were called "disk files". In about 1961 the Burroughs MCP and the MIT Compatible Time-Sharing System introduced the concept of a "file system", which managed several virtual "files" on one storage device, giving the term its present-day meaning. Although the current term "register file" shows the early concept of files, it has largely disappeared.