ADC

Analogue to Digital Converter

ALGOL

ALGOrithmic Language, a problem-oriented, high-level programming language for mathematical and scientific use

ASCII

American Standard Code for Information Interchange

AT&T

American Telephone & Telegraph company

ATM

Automated Telling Machine

BASIC

Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code

BIOS

Basic Input/Output System

bit

binary digit

bps

bits per second

BUS

Binary Unit System

C

A high-level language designed for system programming, usually (but not exclusively) for software development in the UNIX environment

CAD

Computer-Aided Design

CAM

Computer-Aided Manufacturing

Cc

Carbon copy, Addresses on the Cc: line of an e-mail will receive the same message

CD

.Compact Disk

CD-R

Compact Disk-Recordable

CD-ROM

Compact Disk-Read Only

CD-RW

CD-Rewritable

CGA

Colour Graphics Adaptor

COBOL

COmmon Business-Oriented Language

CPU

Centra! Processing Unit

DAT

Digital Audiotape

DD

1 Disk Drive; 2 Double Density

DOS

Disk Operating System

DTP

Desktop Publishing

EGA

Enhanced Graphics Adaptor

FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

FD

Floppy Disk

FDD

Floppy Disk Drive

FORTRAN

FORmula TRANslation

GB

Gigabyte (1,024 megabytes)

GHz

Gigahertz

GIF

Graphic Interchange Format

HD

1 Hard Disk 2 High Density disk

HDD

Hard Disk Drive

HTML

Hypertext Markup Language, codes used on the Web pages

HTTP

Hypertext Transfer Protocol: the method by which Web pages are transferred from an internet site to your PC

Hz

Hertz (unit of frequency equal to one cycle per second), named after Heinrich Hertz

IBM

International Business Machines

IDE

Integrated Drive Electronics: a standard hard disk controller

ISA

Industry Standard Architecture. An ISA bus is 16 bits wide

ISDN

Integrated Services Digital Network

ISO

International Standard Organization

IP

Internet Protocol

JPEG

Joint Photographic Experts' Group: standard in image compression

k

2 1,024 bytes

KB

kilobyte (1,024 bytes)

kHz

kilohertz: 1,000 cycles per second

Laser

Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation

LCD

Liquid-Crystal Display

LAN

Local Area Network

MHz

megahertz: one million cycles per second

MB

1 megabyte: one million bytes; 2 Mother Board

MP3

MPEG-1 Layer 3 Audio

MPEG

Moving Pictures Experts' Group: standard for compressing and decompressing images

MIDI

Musical Instrument Digital Interface

MIPS

Million Instructions Per Second

MMX

Multimedia Extensions

modem

MOdulator DEModulator

ms

millisecond: thousandth of a second

OS

Operating System

PC

Personal Computer

pdf

Portable document formatted to distribute text files over the Internet; it can be read with Adobe Acrobat

PCI

Peripheral Component Interconnect, a standard bus

PROM

Programmable Read Only Memory

PS

PostScript

RAM

Random Access Memory

ROM

Read Only Memory

SCSI

Small Computer System Interface

SIMMs

Single In-line Memory Modules: circuit hoards which contain RAM chips

TB

terabyte; one million megabytes

TCP/IP

Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol, the language used for data transfer on the Internet

TELEX

TELeprinter Exchange

TIFF

Tagged Image File Format: the kind of graphics-file format created by a scanner

TFT

Thin Film Transistor: In a TFT display, each pixel is produced by three tiny transistors: one each for red, green and blue. This allows for very clear and stable pictures

URL

Uniform Resource Locator, an address

USB

Universal Serial Bus

VDU

Visual Display Unit

WAN

Wide Area Network

WP

Word Processor

WWW

World Wide Web

WYSIWYG

What You See Is What You Get

XGA

extended Graphics Array