computer science

Melco

Melco is a computer science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Melco rather than just read about it. In short: Melco Holdings Inc. is a family business founded by Makoto Maki in 1975 and is located in Japan. The company's most recognizable brand is Buffalo Inc.

Key takeaways

Melco belongs to computer science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Melco to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Melco from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Melco Holdings Inc. is a family business founded by Makoto Maki in 1975 and is located in Japan. The company's most recognizable brand is Buffalo Inc.

Name Melco's name stands for Maki Engineering Laboratory COmpany.

History Melco Holdings Inc. was incorporated in 1986; currently its subsidiaries are involved in the manufacture of random-access memory products, Flash memory products, USB products, CD-ROM/DVD-RW drives, hard disk drives, local area network products, printer buffers, liquid-crystal displays, Microsoft Windows accelerators, personal computer components and CPU accelerators. A subsidiary of Melco provides corporate services in Japan like Internet set-up, computer terminal installation/set-up, computer education and computer maintenance. The company has also started selling solid-state drives in Japan. Another subsidiary provides the Kuroutoshikou line of PC components. Buffalo Inc. is currently one of the 16 subsidiaries of Melco Holdings Inc. and is based in Austin, Texas. Initially founded as an audio equipment manufacturer, the company entered the computer peripheral market in 1981 with an EEPROM writer. The name BUFFALO is derived from one of company's first products, a printer buffer and the name for the American Bison (Buffalo).

A Timeline of Firsts January 1999 – First Wireless Router December 2002 – First Draft-11g Wi-Fi Products Shipped November 2003 – First NAS Appliance January 2005 – First RAID NAS Appliance April 2006 – First Draft-11n Wi-Fi Products Shipped November 2009 – First USB 3.0 Storage January 2012 – First Draft-11ac Wi-Fi Solution Demonstrated at CES May 2012 – First Draft-11ac Wi-Fi products shipped June 2012 – First Thunderbolt + USB 3.0 Hybrid Device May 2013 – First DDR Memory Buffer DAS Drive

Corporate structure

Products Nintendo Wi-Fi USB Connector Buffalo network-attached storage series External hard drive HD DVD Computer Drive AirStation (Residential gateway) AOSS Memory - SO-DIMM and DIMM USB flash drive UPnP Media Rendering Hardware

Litigation In late 2006, the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) won a lawsuit against Buffalo Inc. under which it would receive a royalty for every WLAN product worldwide. The lawsuits basis was that CSIRO was granted US patent 5487069 in 1996, which grants elements of 802.11a/g wireless technology that had become an industry standard. In June 2007, the federal court in Texas granted an injunction to prevent any more wireless products from shipping until a license agreement had been reached. On September 19, 2008, the Federal Circuit ruled in Buffalo's favor and has remanded this case to the district court ruling that the district court's Summary Judgment was insufficient on the merits of obviousness of CSIRO's patent. Therefore, this case will be tried again before the district court. In this connection Buffalo is hopeful that it will shortly be permitted to, once again, sell IEEE 802.11a and 802.11g compliant products in the United States.

See also AirStation Buffalo network-attached storage series

References

External links Buffalo's web page

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Melco

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Melco claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In computer science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Melco before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Melco ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Melco

In research: Melco appears in computer science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Melco in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Melco is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Companies listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, Computer companies established in 1975, Computer companies of Japan, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Melco outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Melco in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Melco means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Melco out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Melco in simple terms?

Melco Holdings Inc. is a family business founded by Makoto Maki in 1975 and is located in Japan. The company's most recognizable brand is Buffalo Inc.

Why does Melco matter?

Because it connects several computer science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Melco?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Melco.