The purpose of ACM Transactions on Computer Systems is to present research and development results on the design, specification, realization, behavior, and use of computer systems. The term "computer systems" is interpreted broadly and includes systems architectures, operating systems, distributed systems, and computer networks. Articles that appear in TOCS will tend either to present new techniques and concepts or to report on experiences and experiments with actual systems. Insights useful to system designers, builders, and users will be emphasized. Among the topics within the scope of TOCS are the following:

design of entire systems
technology shifts
engineering trade-offs
storage management
system-user interface
communication management
reliability
implementation techniques
system validation
performance models
design of system components
processor management
security
file systems
protocols
data organization
fault tolerance
information flow
system verification
performance analysis

It is possible that a TOCS paper of interest to a large segment of the computing community would be published in Communications in order to keep the general ACM membership apprised of developments in the systems area. TOCS publishes research and technical papers, both short and long. It includes technical correspondence to permit commentary on technical topics and on previously published papers.