flow control

1 definition found

flow control - Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (26 May 2007) :

  flow control
  
     <communications, protocol> The collection of techniques used
     in serial communications to stop the sender sending data until
     the receiver can accept it.  This may be either software flow control
      or hardware flow control.  The receiver typically
     has a fixed size buffer into which received data is written
     as soon as it is received.  When the amount of buffered data
     exceeds a "high water mark", the receiver will signal to the
     transmitter to stop transmitting until the process reading the
     data has read sufficient data from the buffer that it has
     reached its "low water mark", at which point the receiver
     signals to the transmitter to resume transmission.
  
     (1995-03-22)