Toshiba A100 User Manual page 157

BIOS: Basic Input Output System. The firmware that controls data flow
bit: Derived from ìbinary digit,î the basic unit of information used by the
Bluetooth: A short-range radio technology designed to simplify wireless
board: A circuit board. An internal card containing electronic components,
boot: Short for bootstrap. A program that starts or restarts the computer.
bps: Bits per second. Typically used to describe the data transmission
buffer: The portion of the computer's memory where data is temporarily
bus: An interface for transmission of signals, data or electric power.
byte: The representation of a single character. A sequence of eight bits
C
cache memory: High speed memory which stores data that increases
capacity: The amount of data that can be stored on a magnetic storage
card: Synonym for board. See board.
CardBus: An industry standard bus for 32-bit PC Cards.
CD-ROM: A Compact Disk-Read Only Memory is a high capacity disk that
Centronics: The printer manufacturer whose method of data transmission
User's Manual
within the computer. See also firmware.
computer. It is either zero or one. Eight bits is one byte. See also
byte.
communication among computers, communication devices and the
Internet.
called chips, which perform a specific function or increase the
capabilities of the system.
The program reads instructions from a storage device into the
computer's memory.
speed of a modem.
stored. Buffers often compensate for differences in the rate of flow
from one device to another.
treated as a single unit; also the smallest addressable unit within the
system.
processor speed and data transfer rate. When the CPU reads data
from main memory, it stores a copy of this data in cache memory.
The next time the CPU needs that same data, it looks for it in the
cache memory rather than the main memory, which saves time. The
computer has two cache levels. Level one is incorporated into the
processor and level two resides in external memory.
device such as a diskette (floppy disk) or hard disk. It is usually
described in terms of kilobytes (KB), where one KB = 1024 bytes
and megabytes (MB), where one MB = 1024 KB.
can be read from but not written to. The CD-ROM drive uses a laser,
rather than magnetic heads, to read data from the disk.
between a parallel printer and a computer has become an industry
standard.
Glossary
Glossary-4