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shadowing
Last modified: Monday, January 16, 2006
A technique used to increase a computer's speed by using high-speed RAMmemory in place of slower ROM memory (RAM is about three times as fast as ROM). On PCs, for example, all code to control hardwaredevices, such as keyboards, is normally executed in a special ROM chip called the BIOS ROM. However, this chip is slower than the general-purpose RAM that comprises main memory. Many PC manufacturers, therefore, configure their PCs to copy the BIOS code into RAM when the computer boots. The RAM used to hold the BIOS code is called shadow RAM.
