Compatibility

From iA wiki

See also: Developer | Reverse engineering

When two things, like hardware or software are compatible, so they can efficiently co-exist in the same system without causing trouble.

Needless to say, despite the use of engineering and standards enforcement, incompatibility can cause lots of problems, often when specifications are not meet.

There are different levels of compatibility:

• co-existence - not harming each other
• co-working - e.g. understanding each others data or commands

• interchangeability - one can replace the other without further work
• backwards compatibility - where a new version of a product include software and operating systems are compatible

Examples

• Computer peripherals
• TV - Color-TV is backward-compatible to Black-and-White-TV
• Radio - Stereo and Mono are compatible

• Software - most binary programs can also run on more recent processors of the x86 family.
• Operating system - legacy software cannot always use newer versions of OSs.