peek

   (and  {poke})  The commands in most microcomputer BASICs for directly
   accessing  memory  contents at an absolute address; often extended to
   mean  the  corresponding  constructs in any {HLL} (peek reads memory,
   poke  modifies  it).  Much  hacking  on small, non-MMU micros used to
   consist of peeking around memory, more or less at random, to find the
   location where the system keeps interesting stuff. Long (and variably
   accurate)  lists  of such addresses for various computers circulated.
   The  results of pokes at these addresses may be highly useful, mildly
   amusing,  useless  but  neat,  or  (most likely) total {lossage} (see
   {killer poke}).

   Since   a  {real  operating  system}  provides  useful,  higher-level
   services  for  the  tasks  commonly performed with peeks and pokes on
   micros,  and  real  languages  tend not to encourage low-level memory
   groveling,  a  question like "How do I do a peek in C?" is diagnostic
   of  the  {newbie}.  (Of  course,  OS kernels often have to do exactly
   this;  a  real  kernel  hacker  would  unhesitatingly, if unportably,
   assign an absolute address to a pointer variable and indirect through
   it.)

[glossary]
[Reference(s) to this entry by made by: {poke}]