half-duplex: A transmission mode that only allows network
adapters and servers to transmit and receive data in one direction at a time.
All hubs and switches support this mode of transmission.
hand animation: Animation sequences that are scripted by
an artist (by hand).
hardware wavetable: A wavetable synthesis uses digitized instrument or sounds
to generate music or sound. A hardware wavetable processes the sounds locally,
reducing the load on a CPU.
Hardware Wavetable Synthesis: By synthesizing instrument
sounds into a ROM or MIDI patch, a soundcard can offer far more realistic
instruments. Instruments are organized into a table. Hardware wavetables off-load
processing of instruments onto the soundcard.
head: The device that both writes data on a disk drive
and reads it back. In magnetic hard-disk drives, the head is attached to an
aerodynamic "slider," which is in turn attached to a suspension arm whose
position is controlled by the actuator.
headsets: With respect to technologies such as 1.44MB floppy
disk and 100MB Zip disk, multiple magnetic heads for reading different formats.
HID: Human Interface Device. A Microsoft-specific term
describing a USB device. You'll see this term when you hook up a USB device
to a Windows 98 system via the USB port. The OS then loads the appropriate
drivers, labeled HID.
Hi8: A videotape format like VHS, but about a 1/4 of the
size.
high polygon counts: The number of texture-mapped triangles
(otherwise known as polygons) that make up an object or character. When this
number is high, the objects and characters are more detailed or more objects
or characters are on-screen.
High Voltage Differential (HVD) Signaling: Where signals
are sent on two wires with the data represented as the difference in voltage
between the wires.
hi-pass: crossover A series of capacitors, coils, and resistors
placed within an audio signal path that filters out low frequencies and lets
only the high frequencies pass through. Hence the name, "hi-pass" filter.
hot flashes: That warm, fruity feeling you get when you
are introduced to software or hardware that you must have.
hot swappable: The ability to add and remove devices to
a computer while it is running and have the operating system automatically
recognize the change. The Universal Serial Bus (USB), IEEE 1394, and PCMCIA
standards support hot plugging.
HPFS: The High Performance File System first appeared with
IBM's OS/2 Version 1.2. It handles large drives (up to 2TB and files up to
2GB in size). It also supports long filenames up to 256 characters.
HRTF: Head Related Transfer Function. Filters applied to
sound to simulate 3D positional sound. Created through analysis of how humans
perceive sound with two ears.
HTML: HyperText Markup Language. A standardized set of
tags that defines how the contents of a web page should appear in a web browser.
Most of the tags describe the appearance of text and the position of graphics.
HTML standards are defined by a committee called the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium).
HTML scripts: Scripts placed within the HTML script element
tags.
hub: A cabling system for both 10BaseT and 100BaseT connections
that essentially provides each network node its own discrete wiring connection.
This is to isolate links that have stopped working or that may be malfunctioning,
preventing problems from taking down the rest of the network. Even with two
computers, it's best to use a hub. Unless the hub contains switching, all
connected computers must contain the same types of connections: either 10BaseT
or 100BaseT.
hypertext: Text or images in a document that link to related text.