Dell Precision 410 User Manual page 215

A diskette that can boot your computer to
the operating system in the event that the
computer will not boot from the hard-disk
drive.
Abbreviation for bits per inch.
Abbreviation for bits per second.
Abbreviation for British thermal unit.
An information pathway between the
components of a computer. Your comput-
er contains an expansion bus that allows
the microprocessor to communicate with
controllers for all the various peripheral
devices connected to the computer. Your
computer also contains an address bus
and a data bus for communications be-
tween the microprocessor and RAM.
Eight contiguous bits of information, the
basic data unit used by your computer.
Abbreviation for Celsius.
A fast storage area that keeps a copy of
data or instructions for quicker data re-
trieval. For example, your computer's
BIOS may cache ROM code in faster
RAM. Or, a disk-cache utility may reserve
RAM in which to store frequently access-
ed information from your computer's disk
drives; when a program makes a request
to a disk drive for data that is in the cache,
the disk-cache utility can retrieve the data
from RAM faster than from the disk drive.
The metal-contact section on the bottom
of an expansion card that plugs into an
expansion-card connector.
Abbreviation for compact disc read-only
memory. CD-ROM drives use optical
technology to read data from CDs. CDs
are read-only storage devices; you cannot
write new data to a CD with standard
CD-ROM drives.
Abbreviation for centimeter(s).
Acronym for complementary metal-oxide
semiconductor. In computers, CMOS
memory chips are often used for NVRAM
storage.
Q
The device names for the first through
fourth serial ports on your computer are
COM1, COM2, COM3, and COM4. The
default interrupt for COM1 and COM3 is
IRQ4, and the default interrupt for COM2
and COM4 is IRQ3. Therefore, you must
be careful when configuring software that
runs a serial device so that you don't cre-
ate an interrupt conflict.
As they relate to DMI, manageable
components are operating systems,
computer systems, expansion cards, or
peripherals that are compatible with DMI.
Each component is made up of groups
and attributes that are defined as relevant
to that component.
FRQILJV\V
The config.sys file (Windows 95 and
MS-DOS only) is executed when you boot
your computer (before running any
commands in the autoexec.bat file). This
start-up file contains commands that
specify which devices to install and which
drivers to use. This file also contains com-
mands that determine how the operating
system uses memory and controls files.
A chip that controls the transfer of data
between the microprocessor and memo-
ry or between the microprocessor and a
peripheral device such as a disk drive or
the keyboard.
Glossary 3