• Adapter. Normally a Circuit Board that can be plugged into an expansion slot that will enhance the PC Systems capabilities. Adding a Sound card is an example.
• ADC. A/D - short for Anolog to Digital Converter.
• AI. Artificial Intelligence.
• ALGOL. Algorithmic Language.
• ALT. Alternate Key.
• ALU. Arithmitic and Logic Unit.
• ANSI. American National Standards Institute.
• APL. A Programming Language. Developed by Kenneth Iverson.
• APT. Automatically Programmed Tools.
• ASCII. American National Standard Code for Information Interchange.
• ASCII Characters. These are characters used on your PC that come from the ASCII Character set, which is a binary code that is used to represent text characters; alphabetic, numeric and punctuation.
• ASR. Automatic Send-Recieve Keyboard.
• ATA. A relatively low cost hard disk drive interface to provide high performance.
• ATM. Automatic Teller Machine.
• Average Seek Time. The average time taken for the heads of a disk drive to move from a track to another track.
• BASIC. Beginners All Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code.
• Batch File. Normally a text file with the extension .bat that holds an amount of Dos commands that would normally be 'run' when the PC System boots (Starts, runs-up).
• BBD. Bucket Brigade Device.
• BCD. Binary Coded Decimal.
• BIOS. Basic Input Output System.
• Bit. Binary digit.
• BNF. Backus-Naur Form.
• Boot Disk. The disk which is used to Boot up a PC System, this disk holds information which is loaded into the system memory at start-up.
• BPI. Bits Per Inch.
• BPS. Bits per Second.
• Buffer. Memory that is used for the temporary storage of data.
• Bug. A software fault that can cause the program or Operating System to do strange things or malfunction.
• Bus. A group of signal lines (wires, copper tracks etc) that are used for the transfer of data in a PC System.
• Byte. Eight bits make up a byte.
• C. A programming language.
• CAD. Computer Aided Design.
• CAE. Computer Aided Engineering.
• CAI. Computer Aided (or Assisted) Instruction.
• CAL. Computer Assisted Learning.
• CAM. Computer Aided Manufacturing.
• CAM. Content Addressable Memory.
• CBL. Computer Based Learning.
• CCD. Charged Coupled Device.
• CCITT. International Telegraph and Telephone Consultative Committee.
• CD-ROM. Compact Disk Read Only Memory.
• CGA. Colour Graphics Adapter capable of displaying 16 colours in low resolution graphics and 4 colours in medium resolution graphics mode.
• CIM. Computer Input Microfilm.
• CIR. Current Instruction Register.
• CIS. Computer Information System.
• CMI. Computer Managed Instruction.
• CMOS Ram. Holds system configuration and clock data.
• CMOS. Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor.
• COBOL. COmmon Business Oriented Language.
• COM. Computer Output Microfilm.
• CP/M. An operating system produced by Digital Research.
• CPI. Characters Per Inch.
• CPU. Central processing Unit, the Microprocessor that is responsible for the Arithmetic, logical and control functions of the PC System.
• CPS. Characters Per Second.
• CRC. Cyclic Redundancy Check. An error checking scheme.
• CROM. Control Read Only Memory.
• CRT. Cathode Ray Tube.
• CTRL. Control Key.
• CVSD. Continuous Variable Slope Delta-modulation.
• CWP. Communicating Word Processors.
• DAC. D/A. Digital to Analog Converter.
• DAR. Data Access Register.
• DBMS. Database Management System.
• DCB. Data Control Block.
• DDE. Direct Data Entry.
• DDL. Data Description Language.
• DEL. Delete Key.
• DIL. Dual In Line.
• DIP. Dual In Line Package.
• DIR. Directory.
• DISP. (Cobol) Disposition.
• DMA. Direct Memory Access.
• DML. Data Manipulation Language.
• DOS. Disk Operating System.
• DP. Data processing.
• DRAM. Dynamic RAM.
• DSN. Data Set Name.
• DTL. Diode Transistor Logic.
• EAROM. Electrically Alterable ROM.
• EBCDIC. Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code.
• ECL. Emitter Coupled Logic.
• EDP. Electronic Data Processing.
• EDSAC. Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator.
• EPROM. Electrically Programmable ROM.
• EEPROM. Electronically Erasable Programmable ROM.
• EGA. Enhanced Graphics Adapter.
• EMS. Expanded Memory Specification.
• ENIAC. Electronic Numerical Intergrator and Calculator.
• EOF. End Of File.
• EPROM. Erasable programmable Read Only Memory.
• EQ Gate. Equivalence gate.
• EXE. An executable file, a program file like Delphi32.exe
• EXP. EXPonental.
• FAT. File Allocation Table.
• FDM. Frequency Division Multiplexing.
• FDX. Full Duplex Transmission.
• FET. Field Effect Transistor.
• FIFO. First In First Out.
• G. This is the symbol used for 'giga', gigabyte.
• GIGO. Garbage In Garbage Out.
• GPIB. General Purpose Interface Bus.
• GUI. Graphical User Interface.
• Hardware. The physical parts of a PC System.
• HDX. Half Duplex Transmission.
• HEX. Hexidecimal. 0123456789ABCDEF.
• IAS. Immediate Access Store. Main Store.
• IBG. Interblock Gap.
• IC. Intergrated Circuit.
• IDE. Intelligent Drive Electronics.
• IEEE. Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers.
• I/O. Input Output.
• K. Kilo.
• IBM. International Business Machines.
• IC. Intergrated Circuit.
• INC. Increment.
• INS. Insert key.
• INT. INTeger.
• IPL. Initial Program Loader.
• IPO. Input Process Output-chart.
• IPS. Inches Per Second.
• IR. Instruction Register.
• IRQ. Interrupt Request.
• ISA. Industry Standard Architecture.
• ISAM. Indexed Sequental Access Method.
• ISO. International Organization for Standardization.
• IT. Information Technology.
• JCL. Job Control Language.
• K. Kilobyte.
• Kilobyte. One thousand and twenty four bytes.
• KSAM. Keyed Sequential Access Methode.
• KWIC. KeyWord In Context.
• LAN. Local Area Network.
• LCD. Liquid Crystal Display.
• LED. Light Emitting Diode.
• LEO. Lyons Electronic Office.
• LIFO. Last In First Out.
• LISP. List Processor.
• LSD. Least Significant Digit.
• LSI. Large Scale Integration.
• M. Megabyte.
• MAR. Memory Address Register.
• MB. Megabyte. 1048, 576.
• MBR. Memory Buffer Register.
• MCI. Media Control Interface.
• MDR. Memory Data Register.
• MHz. Megahertz.
• MICR. Magnetic Ink Charater Recognition.
• MIDI. Musical Instrument Digital Interface.
• MIPS. Millions of Instructions Per Second.
• MMI. Man Machine Interface.
• MOD. Modulo.
• MODEM. Modulator/Demodulator.
• MOS. Metal Oxide Semiconductor.
• MPU. Microprocessing Unit.
• MTBF. Mean Time Between Failures.
• MTTF. Mean Time To Falure.
• MTU. Magnetic Tape Unit.
• MUX. Multiplexer.
• NEQ. Nonequivalence gate.
• OCR. Optical Character Recognition.
• OEM. Original Equipment Manufacturer.
• OMR. Optical Mark Reading.
• OS/2. Operating System 2.
• PAD. Packet Switching Network
• PC. Personal Computer.
• PC. Printed Circuit.
• PC. Program Counter.
• PCB. Printed Circuit Board.
• PCI. Peripheral Component Interconnect.
• Pentium. 5th generation microprocessor in the 8086 family.
• Pentium Pro. 6th generation microprocessor in the 8086 family.
• PERT. Program Evaluation and Review Technique.
• PID. Personal Identification Device.
• PIN. Personal Identification Number.
• PLA. Programmed Logic Array.
• POS. Point Of Sale systems.
• POST. Power On Self Test.
• PPM. Pages Per Minute.
• PROM. Programmable ROM.
• PSS. Packet Switching Service. British Telecom. Packet Switch Team.
• PSW. Program Status Word.
• RAM. Random Access Memory.
• REM. REMark.
• RJE. Remote Job Entry.
• ROM. Read Only Memory.
• RP. Reverse Polish.
• RTI. Return from Interupt.
• SCSI. Small Computer Systems Interface.
• SCR. Sequence Control Register.
• SIMM. Single Inline Memory Module.
• SNOBOL. String Orientated Symbolic Language.
• SOS. Silicon On Sapphire.
• SP. Stack Pointer.
• SRAM. Static RAM.
• STRUDL. Structoral Design Language.
• TDM. Time Division Multiplexing.
• TLU. Table Look-up.
• TPI. Tracks Per Inch.
• TSR. Terminate and Stay Resident program.
• TTL. Transistor-Transistor Logic.
• ULA. Uncommitted Logic Array.
• UNIVAC. Universal Automatic Computer.
• USART. Universal Synchronous/Asynchronous Reciever/Transmitter.
• UPC. Universal Product Code.
• VAB. Voice Answer Back.
• VDU. Visual Display Unit.
• VGA. Videa Graphics Array.
• VL Bus. Vesa Local Bus.
• VLSI. Very Large Scale Integration.
• VRAM. Video Ram.
• VSAM. Virtual Storage Access.
• WAN. Wide Area Network.
• WORM. Write Once Read Many.
• XMS. eXtended Memory Specification.

8088 -

80286 -

386DX -

386SX -

486DX -

486DX2 -

486DX4 -

486SX -

Pentium -