<operating system, product> Novell's fully compatible alternative to MS-DOS. It is intended as an {operating system} for workstations on Novell networks. It features enhanced memory management that moves the operating system, network drivers, and memory-resident programs (TSRs) out of conventional memory on all systems with an Intel 80286 or later processor and extended memory or expanded memory. It supports preemptive multitasking and {peer-to-peer networking} using the same DOS Requester and VLMs for a "common client" with native Novell NetWare. A data compression utility effectively doubles storage capacity of the hard disk. It supports disk defragmentation, a read/write disk cache for better performance of both DOS and Microsoft Windows {application programs}. An undelete utility recovers erased files, even on network drives. It has a complete on-line reference guide, command help, and menu-driven install and setup utilities for easy configuration changes. Novell DOS has internal and external commands like MS-DOS. The following commands have been significantly enhanced in Novell DOS: CHKDSK, DISKCOPY, HELP, MEM, REPLACE, UNDELETE, and XCOPY. Novell DOS also includes many new commands such as XDIR, CURSOR, XDEL, TOUCH, SCRIPT, and RENDIR. Version: 7. (1995-04-14)

<games> An algorithm for choosing the next move in a two player game. A player moves so as to maximise the minimum value of his opponent's possible following moves. If it is my turn to move, I give a value to each legal move I might make. If the result of a move is an immediate win for me I give it positive infinity and, if it is an immediate win for you, negative infinity. The value to me of any other move is the minimum of the values resulting from each of your possible replies. The above algorithm will give every move a value of positive or negative infinity since the value of every move will be the value of some final winning or losing move. This can be extended if we can supply a heuristic evaluation function which gives values to non-final game states without considering all possible following complete sequences. We can then limit the minimax algorithm to look only a certain number of moves ahead. This number is called the "look-ahead" or "ply". See also alpha/beta pruning. [Is "maximin" used? Is it significantly different?] (2000-12-07)

Minimax (sometimes MinMax, MM or saddle point) is a decision rule used in artificial intelligence, decision theory, game theory, statistics, and philosophy for minimizing the possible loss for a worst case (maximum loss) scenario. When dealing with gains, it is referred to as "maximin" – to maximize the minimum gain.

<company, networking> A software development company specialising in networking and workgroup applications. Novell started life as Novell Data Systems, a computer hardware business. The company was reorganised as Novell, Inc., and began to focus almost entirely on networking in 1983, with the release of Novell Netware 1, a {Network Operating System} for IBM PCs. Novell Netware's success has left Novell in a dominant position in the networking market. The product has evolved and now supports many hardware and software platforms together with WAN connectivity. The company has diversified in recent years, with the acquisition of several mainstream applications, including Wordperfect and Quattro Pro. Other products include UnixWare, AppWare, Personal NetWare, Groupwise and Novell Dos 7. http://novell.com/. (21 Sept 1995)

<company> A small computer hardware company building CP/M Z80-based systems. They later went on to become {Novell, Inc.} and develop Novell Netware. (1995-09-23)

Novell Embedded Systems Technology (NEST) was a series of APIs, data formats and network protocol stacks written in a highly portable fashion intended to be used in embedded systems. The idea was to allow various small devices to access Novell NetWare services, provide such services, or use NetWare's IPX protocol as a communications system (and later also TCP/IP).

Microsoft Disk Operating System