Appendix Hi Glossary - Radio Shack TRS-80 Model 4 Owner's Manual

Appendix HI Glossary
alphanumeric - consisting of only the letters A-Z, a-z, and the
numerals 0-9.
ASCII - The alphanumeric representation of controls and characters
as a single byte, falling within a range from 1 to 127 (sometimes
including 0).
ASCII files - Files that are readable by LiSTing the file. Source,
text, and data files are usually ASCII files.
background task - A job performed by the computer that is not
apparent to the user or does not require interaction with the user.
Some examples are the REAL TIME CLOCK, the SPOOLer, and
the TRACE function.
baud - Refers to the rate of serial data transfer.
bit - One eighth of a byte; one binary digit.
boot - The process of resetting your computer and loading in the
resident operating system from the system drive.
buffer - An area in RAM that temporarily holds information that is
being passed between devices or programs.
byte - The unit that represents one character to the Model 4. It is
composed of eight binary "bits" that are either ON (1) or OFF
(0). One byte can represent a number from 0 to 255.
COMM - A communications program capable of interacting with:
disk, printer, video display, keyboard, and the RS232 interface.
COMM dynamically buffers all of the system devices.
concatenate - To add one variable or string onto the end of
another.
configuration - The status of the system and physical devices that
are available to it. This configuration can be dynamically changed
with several library commands, and can be saved with the
SYSGEN library command. If the system is SYSGENed, the
SYSGENed configuration is re-established each time the
machine is reset or re-started.
cursor - The location on the video display where the next character
is printed. It is marked by the presence of a cursor character.
cylinder - All tracks of the same number on a disk drive. On single
sided drives, cylinders are the same as tracks.
DAM (Data Address Mark) -
A control byte that prefixes each
sector on a disk. This byte indicates the type of sector that is
about to be read. It can mark a sector as being deleted or
undeleted, a user sector or a system sector.
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