COBOL Manual for TNS and TNS/R Programs

Glossary
HP COBOL Manual for TNS and TNS/R Programs—522555-006
Glossary-34
TNS instructions
TNS instructions. Stack-oriented, 16-bit machine instructions that are directly executed on
TNS systems by hardware and microcode. TNS instructions can be emulated on
TNS/E and TNS/R systems by using millicode, an interpreter, and either translation or
acceleration. Compare to MIPS RISC instructions and Intel® Itanium® instructions.
TNS interpreted mode. A TNS emulation environment on a TNS/R or TNS/E system in
which individual TNS instructions in a TNS object file are directly executed by
interpretation rather than permanently translated into MIPS or Intel® Itanium®
instructions. TNS interpreted mode runs slower than TNS accelerated mode. Each
TNS instruction is decoded each time it is executed, and no optimizations between
TNS instructions are possible. TNS interpreted mode is used when a TNS object file
has not been accelerated for that hardware system, and it is also sometimes used for
brief periods within accelerated object files. Accelerated or interpreted TNS object code
cannot be mixed with or called by native mode object code. Compare to TNS
accelerated mode, TNS/R native mode, and TNS/E native mode.
TNS mode. The operational environment in which unaccelerated TNS instructions execute.
Compare to TNS accelerated mode and native mode.
TNS object code. The TNS instructions that result from processing program source code
with a TNS compiler. TNS object code executes on TNS, TNS/R, and TNS/E systems.
TNS Object Code Accelerator (OCA). A program optimization tool that processes a TNS
object file and produces an accelerated file for the TNS/E architecture. OCA augments
a TNS object file with equivalent Intel® Itanium® instructions. TNS object code that is
accelerated runs faster on TNS/E systems than TNS object code that is not
accelerated.
TNS process. A process whose main program object file is a TNS object file, compiled
using a TNS compiler. A TNS process executes in interpreted or accelerated mode
while within itself, when calling a user library, or when calling into TNS system libraries.
A TNS process temporarily executes in native mode when calling into native-compiled
parts of the system library. Object files within a TNS process might be accelerated or
not, with automatic switching between accelerated and interpreted modes on calls and
returns between those parts. Compare to TNS/R native process and TNS/E native
process.
TNS user library. A user library available to TNS processes in the Guardian environment.
TNS/E. Refers to fault-tolerant HP computers that support the HP NonStop™ operating
system and are based on the Intel® Itanium® processor. TNS/E systems run the
Itanium instruction set and can run TNS object files by interpretation or after
acceleration. TNS/E systems include all HP NonStop™ systems that use NSE-x
processors. Compare to TNS and TNS/R.