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Zeus Lexicon

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R

R2D2 - a droid in Star Wars. See C3PO.

RAID - 1. a pesticide; 2. an array of hard drives working in concert to provide data very quickly.

RAM - see Random Access Memory. zLaunch reduces the amount of RAM required to launch external applications from Director. See K, KB, MB, ROM, fragment.

RAM disk or RAM cache - is the opposite of virtual memory. RAM is used to buffer information off the disk, just in case it is needed repeatedly or quickly. This can consumes 1-2 MB of RAM on an 8 MB system, hampering performance. The user can disable the RAMdisk by commenting out the appropriate line in the CONFIG.SYS file under Windows, or via the Memory Control Panel on the Macintosh. There may be multiple applications trying to manage disk and RAM caching. Your CD-ROM driver, Windows and Director all may attempt to cache data from the CD or RAM to the hard drive at various times.

RAM footprint - the amount of RAM that an application requires. zLaunch and other Zeus products have small memory requirements.

random access memory - the generic memory in a computer used to store programs and data while they are actively running. Typical computers contain 8 MB, 16 MB or more RAM.

rational - 1. behaving in an explicable or sane manner; 2. a rational number is one which can be expressed exactly by a ratio of two integers. A rational number, when expressed as a decimal, has a finite number of decimal places or repeats at some point. Contrast irrational.

read-only memory - memory whose content is fixed. The ROM chips in a computer retain information even when the power is off and enable the computer to boot up.

rasher - 1. more rash 2. a piece of bacon. See Dali.

RBI - Runs Batted In. See ERA.

read-only - a mode in which a file, disk or chip can be read from but not written to, such as a ROM or CD-ROM. Setting a file to "Read-Only" will reduce access conflicts. You can set a file's read-only attribute using "Get Info" (Command-I) on the Macintohs and checking the "Lock" option. You can set a file's read-only attribute under Windows using the "Attribute" option in the File Manager (Windows 3.1) or File Explorer (Windows 95). Contrast read/write.

read/write - a mode in which a file or disk can be both read from and written to. Contrast read-only.

reality - see virtual reality

reality check - 1. an approximation to determine whether the intended approach is viable. It is a good idea to perform a reality-check to ensure that your plan will work before committing time and resources to a failed approach. 2. see Tick, The

Reality Cheque - the official yacht of Puma Associates.

real-time - happening live and on-the-fly. Three-D action games such as Doom, feature real-time rendering, while games such as Myst contain pre-rendered graphics.

Real Thing - 1. love 2. Coca-Cola (R)

RegEdit - a Windows utility used to inspect and edit the Registry File. See SysEdit

Reggie - 1. Jughead's and Archie's friend; 2. Mr. October; 3. a candy bar, namesake of definition 2. See Baby Ruth.

Registry File - a Windows system configuration file that stores information about the software setup including file types and their associated applications. It largely replaces the WIN.INI file used under Windows 3.1.

relative path - a path specification given relative to the current location. For example, a file called MyFile.DIR located in a folder called "DATA" would have the relative path "DATA\MyFile.DIR" (on a PC) or "DATA:MyFile.DIR" (On a Mac). You can convert it to an absolute path using:

the pathname & relative path

Refer to the TechNote, "Path and File Specifications"

REM - 1. (pronounced "rem") a phase of the sleep cycle during which a person dreams, as indicated by Rapid Eye Movement; 2. (pronounced "R-E-M") a popular pop group, Rapid Ear Movement; 3. a keyword used in DOS batch files indicating that the line is a REMark (a comment) and is to be ignored.

render - 1. to cook off the fat from bacon 2. to generate a two dimensional picture from a description of a three-d environment. 3. to create a visual representation of HTML code with a web broswer.

Renderman - a rendering appliation from Pixar, once bundled with various Macromedia 3D rendering products.

replication - the process of duplicating CDs or other media for distribution. See clone.

ResEdit - (pronouced "Rez-Edit") a Resource Editor from Apple. See resource fork.

resolution-independent - describing something whose appearance is independent of the resolution at which it is viewed or printed. See Postscript, Display Postscript, EPS.

resource - 1. an asset for a Macintosh program, such as a graphic, sound, cursor or window, stored in the program's resource fork. See mctb.

resource fork - a portion of a Macintosh program file which contains assets that can easily be replaced or modifed with ResEdit, without editing the data fork. Windows files do not have resource forks. The size of a Macintosh file when viewed on a Windows machine reflects only the size of the data fork, and will not reflect the size of the resource fork. Therefore, Macintosh files, such as XObjects, that contain no data in their data forks, will appear to have zero size when viewed under Windows.

Return - the Return key is used to end a line of text or submit data. It is synonymous with the Enter key, and is often marked with a bent arrow on the keyboard. See carriage return, CR.

RGB value - an Red Green Blue triad, specifying a numeric intensity for the three individual components, red, green and blue. See CMYK.

Rhapsody - code name for Apple's new operating system based on OpenStep, and the successor to the soon-to-be-released Mac OS 8.

Rinaldi Collection - a collection of Hypercard XFCNs created by Fredric Rinaldi which perform numerous Macintosh operations, such as reading directories and posting dialog boxes. This are widely available on on-line services, such as AOL (keyword Hypercard) and on various Apple servers. They are generally free for non-commercial use, but cost $300 US for each commercial application. Some of these that are not Hypercard-specific can also be used with Director. See Xtras, and XObjects.

Rinaldi, Fredric - a Macintosh programmer, and employee of Apple France, famous for his collection of Hypercard XFCNs, known as the Rinaldi Collection.

Ritchie, Dennis - co-author of the C programming language along with Brian Kernighan. Famous for their programming book on C commonly referred to as K&R.

RLE - Run-Length Encoding, a form of compression well suited to pictures with large blocks of a single color, such as a line drawing.

ROFL - Rolling On Floor , Laughing, a common e-mail abbreviation. Funnier than LOL.

ROFLOL - Rolling On Floor , Laughing Out Loud, a common e-mail abbreviation. Funnier than ROFL or LOL alone.

ROM - see Read-Only Memory, CD-ROM. See RAM.

Roman numeral - see I, V, X, L, C, D, M.

RomMaker - CD-ROM Burning software from JVC. See Toast.

RTFM - a polite rebuke indicating that the information sought can be obtained by reading the manual. See documentation.

RTM - Remit To Manufacturing, the deadline for delivering a software product for duplication and distribution. See GMC.

run-time - 1. adj. occurring during playback, as opposed to development. See dynamic. 2. n. a plyabck version of the development environment. For example, a Projector is a run-time version of Director.

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