1. An independent agency of the U.S. government that seeks to promote the public good throughout the development of science and engineering. Until 1995, NSF subsidized and coordinated NSFnet, which at one time was the backbone network of the Internet native application A software program designed to work with a particular type of microprocessor in other words, a program that is binary compatible with a particular microprocessor. Non-native applications may run on a given microprocessor with the help of an emulation program, but native applications are almost always significantly faster than non-native applications. From QUECID