WINDOW°

noun and verb (Science and Technology) noun: In computing, an area of the VDU screen which can be sectioned off for a particular purpose so that different functions can be carried out and viewed simultaneously in different parts of the screen. transitive verb: To place (data) in a window; to divide (the screen) into windows. Etymology: One of a long line of figurative applications of the word window for things which in some way resemble a window in appearance or function; in this case, the effect of so dividing the screen is to give the user the possibility of looking (as if through a window) into a number of different areas of memory at once. History and Usage: The earliest uses of window in computing relate to the facility for 'homing in' on a part of a drawing or other graphics so as to display only a portion of it on the screen; this was developed during the sixties. The idea of sectioning the screen for simultaneous display of different sets of data was worked on by Rank Xerox in the seventies (see WIMPÜ above); the first references to call such an area of the screen a window date from the mid seventies. For a short time in the seventies and early eighties, the term viewport (adopted from science fiction) was also used for a window in which a clipped portion of a drawing, or a formatted set of data, was viewed; by the second half of the eighties, though, window seemed to have taken over at least in popular usage. The adjective windowed and action noun windowing are also used. Thanks to my windowed terminal, I am simultaneously editing the source code in a second window. Datamation 1 Dec. 1984, p. 17 The screen can be windowed, and the cursor moved between two windows. Practical Computing Dec. 1985, p. 83 Thursday's...module opens with Mel Slater...talking on dynamic window management, multiple window nesting and the implications for hardware. Invision Oct. 1988, p. 26