master-slave


master-slave

(1) An electronic interaction in which one device acts as the controller (the master) and initiates the commands, and the other devices (the slaves) respond accordingly. See master-slave communications.

(2) An ordering of electronic devices in a primary-secondary sequence. For example, when a pair of ATA (IDE) disk drives are installed in the same PC, one is configured as master and the other as slave. See IDE.