From: Ed Beroset 
Subject: Re: circular buffer
James Vahn wrote:
> 
> Imagine a slowly revolving waterwheel and that you're looking at
> the circumference with a lens. You can move the lens clockwise or
> move it counterclockwise. I call it a "circular buffer", having
> first seen the effect on COMIT. What is it really called?
It sounds to me like you're describing a sliding window on a circular
buffer.  Forgive me if I over-explain, but there seems to be some
confusion about some of these things, and having a common vocabulary is
vital to clear communications (computer or human!).
A circular buffer is data structure (or more precisely I guess it's a
way of thinking of a data structure) in which the head and the tail of a
regular linear buffer are joined.  Naturally, since memory in most
computers is actually linear in organization, this is usually just a
logical and not a physical construct.  
From what I've read, you seem to be concentrating more on the "sliding
window" aspect.  Since it's not possible (or convenient, or useful, or
whatever) to display the whole dataset, one provides a "window," which
is a subset of related data.  
If none of this is helpful, feel free to ignore it.  :-)
Ed
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