Ricardo's Home Page Glossary

BIOS - Basic Input Output System The BIOS is a peace of software residing between the OS and the hardware. This way there is a certain degree of fredom to change the hardware without the need of a change in OS. In the same way, if you are a programmer there are some guarante that, if you use BIOS functions instead of direct hardware access, you programs will run smothly across the several platforms. For most users the BIOS means the BIOS Configuration Utility that most BIOS have witch allows the (experienced) end user to fine tine its PC. For those who are not experienced users this is the last place to be playing with. In any case a good precaution could be to make a print out of all the configurations in the BIOS Setup Utility and save it aparts for future reference. You probably won't need it again, but if you do, you probably will need it badly. CRT - Cathodic Ray Tube This is, probably, what you are staring at. It's the most sucessful technology in TV and PC monitors. Despite beeing an old thechnology and all it's disadvantages, like big size, hight power consuption, radiations and image distortion, just to name a few, it is still the most used technology for PC monitoring due to it's low price and reliability. Some of the CRT monitor vendors are now starting to produce and sell alternative solutions, mostly based in TFT-LCD, althougth those are still very expensive monitor (4 times or more than a equivalent CRT based monitor). DIMM - Double Inline Memory Module DSP - Digital Signal Processor A special porpose processor that can be used to transform digital data to an analogic format and vice-versa. It is mostly used in modems, speach boards, video boards, etc... References: Motorola: What is Digital Signal Processing Digital Signal Processing Lab HTTP - HiperText Transport Protocol This is the protocol used in the "conversation" between a Web Server and a Web Browser. LCD - Liquid Christal Display This is the most promising technology that can be replacing the CRT in a foresenable future. Althoght this is at production stage, this technology is mutch more expensive than the traditional CRT. OS - Operating System You know this for sure. DOS, Windows, OS/2, CP/M, Unix, MVS, VSM, etc... All of those are well knowned Operating Systems. An Operatins System is a peace of software (larger and larger every day) that is suposed to insulate the applications from the surronding environment. This way, an application can rely in standard ways to make things so that applications can survive changes in the hardware and even the Operating System. Besides that, modern Operating Systems, suplly standard API's that help to create a standard user interface, making users life easier. PNP - Plug and Play New techonoly that intends to avoid the problems of assigning resources to a new board that you install in your PC. With that system you should be freed from assigning manualy the resources to the board, beeing that a responsability of the BIOS, OS and the board it self. Unfortunately, in this early stage of implementation, thing don't work quite as they should and most of the boards still have a way of defining the configuration in the traditional way, i.e. by hand. RAM - Random Access Memory SIMM - Single Inline Memory Module USB - Universal Serial Bus This is a new kind of serial connection interface. It's principal property is it's bandwidth of 12Mbps and the possibility of controlling several devices in only one bus using only one PC interrupt channel. Although most of the PC's are shipped with a USB connector there are not many devices using it. Expect to see keyboards, mice, printers, scanners and a lot other devices supporting USB in a near future. References: USB (Universal Serial Bus) Hitex' Home Page on USB - Universal Serial Bus Intel Universal Serial Bus (USB) Components

Last update: 1999/04/03

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Prepared by: Ricardo Lindengrün