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Glossary
handshake: After a telephone line is connected from one station to
another, some signals are exchanged according to the ITU-T or Bell
standard to confirm that the standard is the same between the calling
and called stations prior to starting data communication between
them. This exchange of signals is called handshake.
hangup: Hangup means disconnecting a telephone line to terminate
communication
I
input: Information received by a computer from a storage device such as
a disk, or an input device such as the keyboard.
input/output (I/O): Input and output are two of the three functions that
computers perform (the other is processing). Input/Output describes
the interrelated tasks of providing information to the computer and
providing the results of processing to users. I/O devices include
keyboards (input) and printers (output). A disk drive is both an input
and an output device, since it can both provide information to the
computer and receive information from the computer.
ITU-T Standard: A series of communication procedures for telephone
lines and analog data transmission standardized by ITU
(International Telecommunications Union, formerly CCITT).
K
keyboard: The device you use to type information into the computer.
Each key on the keyboard is a switch that is activated when you
press it. The switch sends a specific code, representing the character
printed on the key, to the processor.
kilobyte (KB): A unit of data storage equal to 1024 bytes. Its
abbreviations (K and KB) are taken from the Greek word kilo,
meaning 1000, although the abbreviation refers to 1024, or 2 raised
to the 10th power. See also byte.
M
megabyte (MB): A unit of data storage equal to 1024 KB. From the
Greek work mega for million, one megabyte is actually 1,048,576
bytes (1024 x 1024 bytes). See also byte.
MIPS (Millions of Instructions Per Second): A computer processor's
performance.
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