Direct mode, also known as immediate mode is a computing term referring to the input of textual commands outside the context of a program. The command would be executed immediately and the results printed on screen, in contrast to programming mode where nothing would be executed until a specific command was given (BASICs RUN is an example of a direct mode command.) Some commands could be used in either mode, others were exclusive to one or the other. Direct mode was most often used on 8-bit systems such as the Commodore 64 and Atari 800 series, though commands entered at a unix shell can be thought of as direct mode equivalents to shell scripts, and modern interpreted languages like Python and Perl include shells where commands may be entered for immediate evaluation and execution.
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Famous quotes containing the words direct and/or mode:
“You will find that reason, which always ought to direct mankind, seldom does; but that passions and weaknesses commonly usurp its seat, and rule in its stead.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“Poor John Field!—I trust he does not read this, unless he will improve by it,—thinking to live by some derivative old-country mode in this primitive new country.... With his horizon all his own, yet he a poor man, born to be poor, with his inherited Irish poverty or poor life, his Adam’s grandmother and boggy ways, not to rise in this world, he nor his posterity, till their wading webbed bog-trotting feet get talaria to their heels.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)