hammer

(1) (Hammer) The code name for AMD's 64-bit CPU chips using 0.13 process technology. The Sledgehammer was introduced as the Opteron in 2003 for servers and workstations, and the Clawhammer was born that same year as the AMD Athlon 64. Designed for different markets, the initial Athlon 64 processor contained one HyperTransport link while the Opteron for servers came out with three links embedded on the chip.

Using silicon-on-insulator technology (SOI), both the Athlon and Opteron versions of Hammer provide backward compatibility for all 32-bit software that has been running on PCs since the mid-1990s. In the spring of 2002, Microsoft announced Windows support for these 64-bit chips. See Opteron, Athlon, SOI and Itanium.

(2) In a printer, the mechanism that pushes the typeface onto the ribbon and paper or pushes the paper into the ribbon and typeface.

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The part of a piano action that strikes the strings. The term is also applied to the beater used for such instruments as the xylophone or tubular bells.