1. <
filename extension, application, file format, music>
(module) The filename extension for a sampled music file
format that originated on the
Commodore Amiga. A .
MOD
file is composed of digitised sound samples, arranged in
patterns to create a song. There are .
MOD players for most
personal computers including
Amiga,
Archimedes, {IBM
PC}, and
Macintosh.
An
IBM PC will require a
sound card capable of handling
digitised samples (
Sound Blaster,
Sound Blaster Pro,
GUS) and slower
Intel 80386-based PCs may not be able to
do anything else while playing a module.
.
MOD files differ from .MID (
MIDI) files in that they
contain sound samples. This allows each song to use different
sounds but it also puts more load on the
CPU than playing a
MIDI file, since more data must be processed for each note. A
slow CPU would benefit from a sound card with {wavetable
synthesis} which handles samples instead of the CPU.
Module files come in various formats including .
MOD. Formats
evolved from .
MOD include .S3M, .FAR and .669. Most contain
improvements on .MODs.
http://eskimo.com/modfuture/mods.htm.
2. <
jargon> modify or modification.
This abbreviation is very common - in fact the full terms are
considered formal. "Mods" is used especially with reference
to bug fixes or minor design changes in hardware or software,
most especially with respect to
patch sets or a
diff.
3. <
programming> A common name for the
modulo operator.
(1999-07-14)