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Glossary
LM78 - The LM78 is a highly inte-
grated Data Acquisition system for hard-
ware monitoring of servers, personal
computers or virtually any microproces-
sor based system. In a PC, the LM78
can be used to monitor temperatures,
power supply voltages and fan speeds.
NS - An acronym for Nanosecond. One
billionth of a second. Measure of the
access time of RAM.
Parallel - A form of data transmission
in which the data is sent one byte at a
time over several wires that each carry
one byte. In parallel transmission, all
the bytes arrive simultaneously, as op-
posed to serial transmission in which
bits arrive one by one.
Parallel Port - A connection for a
printer or similar peripheral. Generally,
parallel ports are output only. See Bi-
directional Parallel Port and ECP .
Parity - Logic that detects the presence
of an error in memory. Generally, a
single parity bit is used for each byte
(8 bits) of data. The most commonly
used forms of parity are even parity, odd
parity and checksums.
PCI - An acronym for Peripheral Com-
ponent Interconnect. A high perfor-
mance 32-bit or 64-bit bus developed
by Intel Corporation. PCI is
designed to be independent of the hard-
ware architecture to ensure compatibil-
ity with future computer systems. See
VESA Local Bus and ISA.
80
Micronics C400 System Board Manual
Pentium - A high performance 64-bit
CISC processor designed and manufac-
tured by Intel Corporation.
Pipeline - In DRAMs and SRAMs, a
method for increasing the performance
using multistage circuitry to stack or
save data while new data is being ac-
cessed.
Plug and Play - A standard developed
to ensure easy installation of peripher-
als. Theoretically, a newly installed card
will automatically configure itself and
work properly without requiring jumper
configuration or device drivers.
POST - An acronym for Power On Self
Test. A diagnostic program that is run
whenever the system is cold booted.
RAM - An acronym for Random
Access Memory. A type of memory that
is used as the "working memory" of a
computer system. See DRAM and
SRAM.
ROM - An acronym for Read Only
Memory. A type of memory that retains
its data without requiring power. Once
written, it cannot be modified. See
EPROM and Flash ROM.
Serial Port - A communications port
used to connect peripherals such as
modems and mice.
Serial Presence Detect - Some
SDRAM modules have an onboard
EEPROM which contains critical con-
figuration information about the mod-
ule. This feature, known as Serial Pres-
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