Refers to new hardware and software that is able to support older, existing technologies People would be a lot less likely to purchase a new piece of hardware or software if it wouldn't support all their old programs or read their previous data files
term referring to the capability of a hardware or software system to function successfully with older editions of the system
A program is backward compatible if it can use files from an older version of itself
Software or hardware designed to be compatible with earlier versions of the same product For example, a word processor that can edit documents created in an earlier release of the same software Bandwidth The carrying capacity of a circuit, usually measured in bits per second for digital circuits, or hertz for analogue circuits Bindery A network database, in versions of the NetWare network operating system earlier than 4 0, that contains definitions for entities such as users, groups, and workgroups
A backward-compatible version of software is able to coexist with older versions that may have been installed on the machine previously, and able to read files of the older version