Term

Bios

BIOS (Basic input/output system), A program or set of programs that control the basic functions of the computer.

High-speed connection point for subsystems into a computer system that is formed by a chain of identical ports. Some examples of different buses include:

ISA bus, where 8 and 16 bit expansion cards plug into a PC Motherboard at 8MHz. This is becoming increasingly obsolete.

PCI bus, the faster, 32 and 64 bit, 33MHz bus used in most computers, superceding the ISA bus on PCs. PCI is also used on Macs.

SCSI bus, connecting up to 7 devices on some Macs and PCs.

USB (Universal Serial Bus), on new PCs and Macs, this connects external devices to a PC. Likely it will replace most specialized ports, like serial, parallel, keyboard, game and mouse ports. Only the video port will likely remain as a separate port.

PCM/CIA or "PC-Card" bus, connecting credit card sized peripherals to laptop computers.

FireWire, extremely high-speed (1GHz+) bus similar to USB in design, but intended for faster devices, like hard drives, video cameras, etc. Likely it will supercede SCSI.

Specific area on a primary hard drive or floppy diskette which contains information to tell the computer where to find and start operating systems.

Cache is a generic term for the invisible, intelligent storage of information in a medium that is faster than the medium it represents. Examples include RAM cache and disk cache.

Central Processing Unit. Also called the microprocessor. The CPU acts as the brain of a computer. It controls the computer's actions.**

A circuit board or circuitry integrated onto the motherboard, which provides a physical connection to an Ethernet network. In addition to an ethernet card, the following are also required for a computer to communicate over and Ethernet network: a device driver, proper operating system configuration and cable connecting the card to a network outlet.

The computer's main permanent storage device that can hold 6 GB to 20 GB of data (and the amount continues to increase). It stores the operating system, all applications, and data, as well as, storing information from session to session.

A Modulator/Demodulator (Modem) is a device that lets computers communicate and exchange information across telephone lines.*

The printed circuit board that is the foundation of the computer. This board contains a computer's CPU, RAM chips and expansion slots. The motherboard is where all of the computer's compenents meet.*

Any device connected to the computer that performs a specific function. Printers, keyboard, disk drives and monitors are among the most common types of peripheral devices.*

In data transfer, parallel means the transmission of more than one bit of information at one time while serial means information is transmitted bit-by-bit, or sequentially.*

Plug-like connectors on the back of a PC's case that let the machine communicate with peripheral devices such as mice and printers. Serial ports transmit data one bit of data at a time; parallel ports transmit data eight bits (one byte) at a time.**

RAM stands for Random Access Memory. All work on your computer is done through the interaction of RAM and the CPU. When you turn on your computer, the RAM is empty of all contents. Storage media, like your hard drive, contain information that can be copie into RAM. Once information is in RAM, the CPU can read, write and generally change the contents of RAM however it is instructed to do so. Every command or bit of information that your computer uses has to be in RAM while it is being used. When you turn your computer off, everything in RAM disappears, so all data you will want to retrieve later must be written back out to a storage device.

Read-Only Memory is a memory area into which instructions for the computer are permanently burned in at the factory to be used during booting up the computer.

Small Computer System Interface (Pronounced scuz-zee) is used for connecting computers to peripheral devices (such as CD-ROM drives, scanners, hard drives, zip drives, jazz drives or other removable drives). Peripheral devices are attached to a single SCSI port through a series of connections called a daisy chain. **

This circuit board in a computer translates output instructions from the CPU into images that can be displayed on the computer monitor. It also controls display factors such as the resolution, colors displayed, and refresh rate of images displayed.