Crossword clues for lockstep
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
Wiktionary
n. 1 (context military English) A step whereby the toe of one man is brought very close to the heel of the man in front. 2 (context figuratively English) Close connection, unison, rigid synchronization. 3 An inflexible, rigid or stifling pattern.
WordNet
n. a standard procedure that is followed mindlessly; "the union's support had been in lockstep for years"
a manner of marching in file in which each person's leg moves with and behind the corresponding leg of the person ahead; "the prisoner's ankles were so chained together that they could only march in lockstep"
Wikipedia
Lockstep systems are fault-tolerant computer systems that run the same set of operations at the same time in parallel. The redundancy allows error detection and error correction: the output from lockstep operations can be compared to determine if there has been a fault if there are at least two systems ( dual modular redundancy), and the error can be automatically corrected if there are at least three systems ( triple modular redundancy), via majority vote. The term " lockstep" originates in the army usage, where it refers to the synchronized walking, in which the marchers walk as closely together as physically practical.
To run in lockstep, each system is set up to progress from one well-defined state to the next well-defined state. When a new set of inputs reaches the system, it processes them, generates new outputs and updates its state. This set of changes (new inputs, new outputs, new state) is considered to define that step, and must be treated as an atomic transaction; in other words, either all of it happens, or none of it happens, but not something in between. Sometimes a timeshift (delay) is set between systems, which increases the detection probability of errors induced by external influences (e.g. voltage spikes, ionizing radiation, or in situ reverse engineering).
Lockstep is a kind of marching that involves all marcher's legs moving in the same way at the same time.
Lockstep or lock step may also refer to:
- Lockstep (computing), a term used in fault-tolerant computing
- Lockstep protocol, a protocol that tackles the look-ahead cheating problem in peer-to-peer gaming networks
- Lockstep compensation, a form of employee compensation based purely on seniority
- Lock step (dance move), dance steps which involve the "locking" of the moving foot
- Lockstep, a science fiction book written by Karl Schroeder
In the US, lockstep marching or simply lockstep is marching in a very close single file in such a way that the leg of each person in the file moves in the same way and at the same time as the corresponding leg of the person immediately in front of him, so that their legs stay very close all the time.
Originally it was used in drilling soldiers. Each soldier stepped on the point just vacated by the foot of the soldier in front of him. Thus the soldiers stayed in position to form close files.
Lockstep marching was a characteristic trait of American prisons of the 19th century. "Inmates formed in single file, right hand on the shoulder of the man in front, left hand on the side; the convicts then stepped off in unison, raising the right foot high and shuffling with the left." The reason for the shuffling step was the chain that connected the legs of a chain gang.
In the Auburn Prison, John Cray developed the following form of the lockstep, as part of the penal system that has become known as the Auburn system, developed in the 1820s: "The lockstep was a method of walking where each man walked with his arms locked under the man's arms in front of him". This system was devised to keep prisoners under control during mass marches of several hundred prisoners from work places to mess, to cells, several times a day. Also, the inmates in lockstep were often required to alternate which side they were looking toward, to preclude communication.
The Auburn system, including its lockstep, was also adopted in Canada.
In some prisons, the inmates were divided into categories, with some of them walking in an ordinary military step, while lockstep was applied to others as a form of punishment.
In Nazi Germany, members of the Hitler Youth were also made to march in lockstep.
Along with striped robes and enforced silence, the prison lockstep was criticized as dehumanizing until it was abolished by the early 1900s.It was abolished gradually, by separate acts in different places:
- Sing Sing: The prison lockstep was abolished in 1900 by the order of the Superintendent of State Prisons Cornelius Collins — '"Sent up the river" - A History of the Sing Sing Correction Facility', DOCS Today, March 1998
- New Jersey: "During Mr. Osborne's tenure as warden of the New Jersey prison he abolished the lockstep,..." 1
- Illinois: (1898-1903) "Changes to prisoner treatment also occurred during this period. The congregate movement of prisoners, the lockstep, was abolished,.." 2
- Nevada: Raymond T. Baker: "He abolished the lockstep" 3
The term acquired a number of other meanings by the way of analogy, referring to synchronous or imitating movement or other behavior, following something or someone ("in lockstep with..."), often with a pejorative tone.
Usage examples of "lockstep".
Steward thought, marching in lockstep along the third level of the Vesta mainline centrifuge, Steward at the ardis, cleaving apart the Brighter Suns citizens.
At work, my business life has been spent in lockstep with an incredible group of Wal-Mart associates who have put up with all my aggravation and bullheadedness and pulled together to make what once appeared truly impossible now seem expected and routine.
Programmers sometimes assume a lockstep timing that does not exist in a free-wheeling, multitasking world.
Davin started to suggest they continue the search for the missing droids on their own instead of joining the rest of the detachment, when the rest of Zeta squad marched around the corner in lockstep, completing their circuit of the perimeter.
The two of them crowded against me, walking in a lockstep that forced me to trot along.
As the last of us left the UMS environs, stepping over a'dimly lighted boundary marker into a wider and even older tunnel, we clasped hands on shoulders and half-marched, half-danced in lockstep.
With vast libraries of data available to him via computerized information retrieval systems, with his own tapes and video units, his own language laboratory and his own electronically equipped study carrel, he will be freed, for much of the time, of the restrictions and unpleasantness that dogged him in the lockstep classroom.