checkpoint
<programming> Saving the current state of a program and its data,
including intermediate results, to disk or other non-volatile storage, so that
if interrupted the program could be restarted at the point at which the last
checkpoint occurred.
This facility came into popular use in mainframe operating systemss such as
OS/360 in which programs frequently ran for longer than the mean time between
system failures. If a program run fails because of some event beyond the
program's control (e.g. hardware or operating system failure) then the processor
time invested before the checkpoint will not have been wasted.
(1995-02-07)
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