spec
    n 1: a detailed description of design criteria for a piece of
         work [syn: specification, spec]

SPEC
       System Performance Evaluation Corporation (org., RISC)
       

SPEC

    Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation.

   A non-profit corporation registered in California formed to
   "establish, maintain and endorse a standardized set of
   relevant benchmarks that can be applied to the newest
   generation of high-performance computers" (from SPEC's
   bylaws).  The founders believe that the user community will
   benefit greatly from an objective series of
   applications-oriented tests, which can serve as common
   reference points and be considered during the evaluation
   process.

   SPEC develops suites of benchmarks intended to measure
   computer performance.  These are available to the public for a
   fee covering development and administration costs.

   The current (14 Nov 94) SPEC benchmark suites are: CINT92
   (CPU intensive integer benchmarks); CFP92 (CPU intensive
   floating-point benchmarks); SDM (UNIX Software Development
   Workloads); SFS (System level file server (NFS) workload).

   <Results>.

   SPEC also publishes a quarterly report of SPEC news and
   results, The SPEC Newsletter.  Some issues are <here>.

   There is a FAQ about SPEC <here>.

   (1994-11-14)

Spec

   A specification language.  It expresses black box interface
   specifications for large distributed systems with real-time
   constraints.  It incorporates conceptual models, inheritance
   and the event model.  It is a descendant of MSG.84.

   ["An Introduction to the Specification Language Spec",
   V. Berzins et al, IEEE Software 7(2):74-84 (Mar 1990)].

specification
spec

    (spec) A document describing how some system should
   work.

   (2001-02-06)