Talk:Cycle stealing

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Copyright Violation[edit]

There is copyright information on the "freedictionary.com" page as follows:
"Computer Desktop Encyclopedia copyright ©1981-2005 by The Computer Language Company Inc. All Right reserved. THIS COPYRIGHTED DEFINITION IS FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY. All other reproduction is strictly prohibited without permission from the publisher"

Therefore, I believe I interpret it correctly when I say we shouldn't host material from freedictionary on Wikipedia. Kareeser|Talk! 00:28, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Aaah! Will try rewrite the article now... thanks :) Foant 09:43, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Definition of cycle stealing as not interfering with the CPU may not be meaningful any more?[edit]

I'm not sure the first definition is that meaningful any more, in these days of loosely coupled memory controllers and caches; the original use is more appropriate to the days when the CPU. memory bus, and I/O bus all ran synchronously; in modern systems, CPU stalls now happen all the time when cache misses occur, and DMA can occur without stalling the CPU providing the relevant data is in-cache.

As far as I know, the distributed computing meaning is now the most common. -- The Anome 09:57, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yea but for historical reasons I think we should describe what was meant back then, it is important to consider for example Programmed IO even if that is obsolete today. Foant 12:12, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Cycle Stealing vs. DMA[edit]

I don't agree with the strange distinction between DMA and cycle stealing. In my mind, DMA describes a peripheral or other non-CPU logic block that can make a direct memory access. Cycle stealing describes a strategy for a memory controller to arbitrate between CPU and DMA requests, where the memory controller delays a CPU request ("steals a cycle") to service a DMA request instead. That is, DMA is a capability associated with a peripheral. Cycle stealing is a strategy associated with a memory controller. Am I off base here? --Mr z (talk) 10:23, 20 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]