Immediate

The Immediate:

The passageway for The Stone (an online game -- if you're not familiar with it, go here).

Each triangular cell within the Immediate (also called the Enigma? At least that's what the Stone Keepers allude to.) represents one puzzle. When a puzzle is available to a certain player, a white dot will appear within the triangle of that player's Immediate. If a player has solved a puzzle, that triangle will contain a gray dot.

At the moment (July 10, 2002) there are 58 puzzles available within the Immediate, so at most a player will have 58 dots showing. (As you solve puzzles, others are made available to you.)

(Forth:)

A Forth word marked IMMEDIATE is executed by the compiler (":") immediately upon being encountered, rather than being threaded into the compiled code.

This is used by all words that must perform some compile time actions. Even Forth comments are just words marked IMMEDIATE (their action is to skip to the end of the comment)! More serious examples include all the flow control words, like IF/ELSE/THEN: IF pushes an address onto the return stack, compiles (IF) and leaves an address for the use of ELSE and/or THEN.

Im*me"di*ate (?), a. [F. imm'ediat. See In- not, and Mediate.]

1.

Not separated in respect to place by anything intervening; proximate; close; as, immediate contact.

You are the most immediate to our throne. Shak.

2.

Not deferred by an interval of time; present; instant.

Shak.

Death . . . not yet inflicted, as he feared, By some immediate stroke. Milton.

3.

Acting with nothing interposed or between, or without the intervention of another object as a cause, means, or agency; acting, perceived, or produced, directly; as, an immediate cause.

The immediate knowledge of the past is therefore impossible. Sir. W. Hamilton.

Immediate amputation Surg., an amputation performed within the first few hours after an injury, and before the the effects of the shock have passed away.

Syn. -- Proximate; close; direct; next.

© Webster 1913.