abstract:In telecommunications and computing, a product or technology is backward or downward compatible if it can work with input generated by an older product or technology. If products designed for the new standard can receive, read, view or play older standards or formats, then the product is said to be backward-compatible; examples of such a standard include data formats and communication protocols.
Rather than talking about backward-compatibility, enterprise now has to embrace forward-compatibility, designing systems based on new technology to meet evolving user needs and creating customer value.
To overcome the problem of backward-compatibility, modern x86 chips such as the Pentium are able to take x86-style instructions from old software and split them up into several smaller micro-operations which lend themselves better to performance-enhancing trickery.