absolute address


absolute address

[′ab·sə‚lüt ə′dres] (computer science) The numerical identification of each storage location which is wired permanently into a computer by the manufacturer.

absolute address

An explicit identification of hardware, such as a memory location, peripheral device, or location within a device. For example, memory byte 107,443, disk drive 2 and sector 238 are absolute addresses. Although the action may have been initiated through many "layers of abstraction" at a higher level, some instruction in some software routine must use an absolute address to activate every hardware component in the computer. See base address, address mode and abstraction layer.