HP Vectra VL6 7 Administrator's Manual page 109

Glossary
MAC driver Media Access Control
driver. A driver responsible for the
lowest level of network device
control. A MAC device driver deals
directly with the network adapter.
Magic Packet™ The HP Ethernet
Family Adapter has a unique IEEE
address (MAC address). This address
repeated 16 times in-a-row within a
valid network packet was chosen to
serve as a wake-up call for the remote
power control.
MAU Medium Attachment Unit. The
physical and electrical interface
between a workstation or repeater
and the actual medium. The MAU is
connected to the station by an
attachment unit interface (AUI). A
different MAU is required to support
each different type of medium (cable
type).
MCA Micro Channel Architecture.
MCA is the architectural basis for
IBM's Micro Channel bus which is
used in high-end models of IBM's
PS/2 series of computers.
media Plural of medium.
medium The network medium is the
cabling or wiring used to carry
network signals. Common types
include coax, fiber optic, and twisted
pair.
memory mapped The NIC registers
are located in the memory address
space.
109 English
MIF Management Information
Format. MIF files describe collections
of standardized instrumentation
attributes defined by the DMTF
working groups.
Miniport Miniport drivers
implement the hardware-specific
operations necessary to manage a
Network Interface Card (NIC).
Operations common to all lowest level
NIC drivers are generally provided by
the NDIS library, so that the driver is
smaller, faster and easier to write than
the old "full" NIC drivers. Only
miniport NIC drivers can take
advantage of the enhancements and
functionality planned for future
versions of the NDIS library.
NDIS Microsoft NDIS (Network
Driver Interface Specification) 2.01
and 3.x are driver specifications
developed by Microsoft Corporation
to offer a standard driver interface for
all network adapters. A standard
driver interface provides flexibility to
support not only multiple network
adapter cards but also multiple
protocol stacks (like ODI). As a result,
many operating systems have
incorporated the NDIS interface to
make configuration and installation of
network adapters easy and
independent of the network adapter
used.
NetBEUI NetBIOS Extended User
Interface transport. A network
transport commonly used in Microsoft
networks.