overrun
n. 1. [techspeak] Term for a frequent consequence of data
arriving faster than it can be consumed, esp. in serial line
communications. For example, at 9600 baud there is almost exactly
one character per millisecond, so if your
silo can hold only
two characters and the machine takes longer than 2 msec to get to
service the interrupt, at least one character will be lost.
2. Also applied to non-serial-I/O communications. "I forgot to pay
my electric bill due to mail overrun." "Sorry, I got four phone
calls in 3 minutes last night and lost your message to overrun."
When
thrashing at tasks, the next person to make a request
might be told "Overrun!" Compare
firehose syndrome. 3. More
loosely, may refer to a
buffer overflow not necessarily
related to processing time (as in
overrun screw).
