<networking> (IMP) The original message switching node on the ARPANET. [More details?] (1996-04-07)

The Interface Message Processor (IMP) was the packet switching node used to interconnect participant networks to the ARPANET from the late 1960s to 1989. It was the first generation of gateways, which are known today as routers.

One of the two techniques for communicating between parallel processes (the other being shared memory). A common use of message passing is for communication in a parallel computer. A process running on one processor may send a message to a process running on the same processor or another. The actual transmission of the message is usually handled by the run-time support of the language in which the processes are written, or by the operating system. Message passing scales better than shared memory, which is generally used in computers with relatively few processors. This is because the total communications bandwidth usually increases with the number of processors. A message passing system provides primitives for sending and receiving messages. These primitives may by either synchronous or asynchronous or both. A synchronous send will not complete (will not allow the sender to proceed) until the receiving process has received the message. This allows the sender to know whether the message was received successfully or not (like when you speak to someone on the telephone). An asynchronous send simply queues the message for transmission without waiting for it to be received (like posting a letter). A synchronous receive primitive will wait until there is a message to read whereas an asynchronous receive will return immediately, either with a message or to say that no message has arrived. Messages may be sent to a named process or to a named mailbox which may be readable by one or many processes. Transmission involves determining the location of the recipient and then choosing a route to reach that location. The message may be transmitted in one go or may be split into packets which are transmitted independently (e.g. using wormhole routing) and reassembled at the receiver. The message passing system must ensure that sufficient memory is available to buffer the message at its destination and at intermediate nodes. Messages may be typed or untyped at the programming language level. They may have a priority, allowing the receiver to read the highest priority messages first. Some message passing computers are the {MIT J-Machine (http://ai.mit.edu/projects/cva/cva_j_machine.html)}, the {Illinois Concert Project (http://www-csag.cs.uiuc.edu/projects/concert.html)} and transputer-based systems. Object-oriented programming uses message passing between objects as a metaphor for procedure call. (1994-11-11)

In computing, an interface is a shared boundary across which two or more separate components of a computer system exchange information. The exchange can be between software, computer hardware, peripheral devices, humans, and combinations of these.

(interfaces, interfacing, interfaced)

<jargon> A boundary across which two systems communicate. An interface might be a hardware connector used to link to other devices, or it might be a convention used to allow communication between two software systems. Often there is some intermediate component between the two systems which connects their interfaces together. For example, two EIA-232 interfaces connected via a serial cable. See also graphical user interface, {Application Program Interface}. (1996-05-22)

Interface (also known as The Electrochemical Society Interface) is a quarterly open access scientific journal published by the Electrochemical Society covering developments in electrochemistry and solid-state chemistry, as well as news and information about and for members of the society.

Omni Processor is a term coined in 2012 by staff of the Water, Sanitation, Hygiene Program of the Bill & Melinda Gates FoundationKuchenrither, R. D.