ACRONYMS AND ABBREVATIONS

A ACK positive ACKnowledgement

ADB Apple Desktop Bus

ADC Analogue to Digital Converter

ADSL Assymetric Digital Subscriber Line. Typically the upstream data flow is between 16 and 640 kilobits per second while the downstream data flow is between 1,5 and 9 megabits per second. ADSL also provides a voice channel

AI Artificial Intelligence

AIFF Audio Image File Format

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

ALU Arithmetic Logic Unit

AMD Advanced Micro Devices, manufacturer of microprocessors

API Application Program Interface

ASCII American Standard Code for Information Interchange

ASF Advanced Streaming Format, introduced by Microsoft for the transmission of real-time video and audio over the Net

AT Advanced Technology. The AT was born in 1984 with the introduction of the IBM PC-AT. Most ATs have 286 processors

AT&T American Telephone &Telegraph company

ATM 1 Adobe Type Manager 2 Automated Telling Machine

AVI Audio Video Interface, a video format

B BASIC Beginnerś All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code

Bcc Blind carbon copy. Addresses in the Bcc: line of an e-mail will receive a copy of the message but the identity of the recipients will be kept secret

BBS Bulletin Board System

BCPL system programming language from which the language C was derived

BIOS Basic Input/Output System

bit binary digit

bps bits per second

BUS binary Unit System

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

CAD Computer-Aided Design

CAE Computer-Aided Engineering

CAI Computer-Assisted Instruction

CALL Computer-Assisted Language Learning

CAM Computer-Assisted Manufacturing

CASE Computer-Aided Software Engineering

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 Memory

CD-RW CD Rewritable

CGA Colour Graphics Adaptor

CMYB Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black

COBOL COmmon Business-Oriented Language

COM Computer Output on Microfilm

cps 1 characters per second 2 cycles per second

CPU Central Processing Unit

CR Carriage Return

CRT Cathode Ray Tube

CU Control Unit

D DA Desk Accessory

DAC Digital to Analogue Converter

DAT Digital Audiotape. DAT decks are becoming the standard for professional music recording

DBMS Database Management System

DD 1 Disk Drive 2 Double Density

DDE Dynamic Data Exchange

DEC Digital Equipment Corporation

DivX Digital Video Express, video compression format based on MPEG-4

DNS Domain Name System

dpi dots per inch

DRAW Direct Read After Write

DR DOS Digital Research disk operating system

DS disks double sided disks

DTP Desktop Publishing

DTV Desktop Video

DVD Digital Video Disk (or Digital Versatile Disk)

DVI Device Independent

DVI Digital Video Interactive

E EAROM Electrically Alterable Read-Only Memory

ECMA European Computer Manufacturers´ Association

EDIF Electronic Data Interchange Format

EGA Enhanced Graphics Adaptor

EOD Erasable Optical Disk

EPRAM Erasable Programmable RAM

EPS(F) Encapsulated PostScript (file)

F FAQ Frequently Asked Questions, a file containing answers to questions that the Internet users frequently ask

FD Floppy Disk

FDD Floppy Disk Drive

FDDI Fibre Distributed Data Interface

FDHD Floppy Disk High Density

FORTRAN FORmula TRANslation

FPU Floating-point Unit

FTP File Transfer Protocol

G GB Gigabyte (1,024 megabytes)

GCR Group-Coded Recording (format to recognize disks, Macintosh)

GHz Gigahertz, equivalent to one thousand megahertz

GIF Graphic Interchange Format

GNU Gnuś Not UNIX

GSM Global System for mobile Communication; it allows transmission of voice and data on mobile phones

GUI Graphical User Interface

H HD 1 Hard Disk 2 High Density Disk

HDD Hard Disk Drive

HDTV High-definition Television

HP Hewlett-Packard

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

I IAC Inter-application Communication

IBM International Business Machines

IC 1 Interface Converter (Card) 2 Integrated Circuit

ICR Intelligent Character Recognition

IDE Integrated Drive Electronics: a standard hard disk controller

IGES Internal Graphics Exchange Specification

i/f interface

I/O Input/Output

IP Internet Protocol

IRC Internet Relay Chat

ISA Industry Standard Architecture. An ISA bus is 16 bits wide

ISDN Integrated Services Digital Network

ISP Internet Service Provider

IT Information Technology

J JPEG Joint Photographic Experts´Group: standard in image compression

K k 1 kilo, used to denote a thousand 2 1,024 bytes

KB kilobyte (1,024 bytes)

Kbps kilobits per second

kHz kilohertz: 1,000 cycles per second

L LAN Local Area Network

Laser Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation

LCD Liquid-Crystal Display

LIMDOW Light Intensity Modulation/Direct Overwrite, a method that allows you to overwrite data on optical disks

LISP LISt Processing: high-level language used for artificial intelligence research

LP Linear Programming

LQ Letter Quality

M MB 1 megabyte: one million bytes 2 Mother Board

MBPS MegaBits Per Second

MC Memory Card

MCA Micro Channel Architecture: standard 32-bit bus

MDA Monochrome Display Adaptor

MFM Modified Frequency Modulation

MHz megahertz: one million cycles per second

MIDI Musical Instrument Digital Interface

MIME Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions, a standard for attaching files to e-mail messages

MIPS Million Instructions Per Second

MMX Multimedia Extensions

modem MOdulator/DEModulator

MP3 MPEG-1 Layer 3 Audio

MPEG Moving Pictures Experts´ Group : standard for compressing and decompressing images

ms millisecond

MS-DOS Microsoft Disk Operating System

MTBF Mean Time Between Failure. Refers to the average rate of hours for a hard disk

N NAK Negative ACKnowledgement

NAS Network Application Support

NIC Network Interface Card

NLQ Near Letter Quality

NUI Network User Identifier

O OCR Optical Character Recognition

OLE Microsoftś Object Linking and Embedding standard

OOP Object Oriented Programming

OROM Optical Read Only Memory

OS Operating System

OSF Open Software Foundation

OSI Open System Interconnection

P PC Personal Computer

PCI Peripheral Component Interconnect, a standard bus

PDA Personal Digital Assistant which includes an address book, a calendar, Internet access, etc.

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

PDS Processor Direct Slot

PERT Project Evaluation and Review Technique

PGA Professional Graphics Adaptor

picon picture icon

pixel picture element

PHIGS Programmerś Hierarchical Graphics Interactive Standard

PL/1 Programming Language 1

PMMU Paged Memory Management Unit

PPD PostScript Page Description

ppi pixels per inch

POP Point of Presence, the location you dial into when you want access to the Internet

PPP Point to Point Protocol, allows computers to use modems to have access to the Internet

PROM Programmable Read Only Memory

PS PostScript

R RAM Random Access Memory

RGB Red, Green, Blue

RIP Raster Image Processor

RISC Reduced Instruction Set Computer

ROM Read Only Memory

RS series Requirement Specification, referring to the interconnection standards for computing devices: RS232, RS422 and RS423

S SCSI Small Computer System Interface

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

SMS Short Message Service which allows you to send short text messages with maximum 160 characters

to GSM mobile phones worldwide

SMTP Simple Mail Transfer Protocol

SNA System Network Architecture: data network protocol developed by IBM

SQL Structured Query Language

T 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

TOS Tramiel Operating System

U UMTS Universal Mobile Telecommunications System, used by 3G mobile phones

URL Uniform Resource Locator, an address of a Web siteś location on the Internet

USB Universal Serial Bus

V VAT Value Added Tax

VAX Virtual Address eXtension

VDT Video Display Terminal

VDU Visual Display Unit

VGA Video Graphics Array

VMS Virtual Memory System

VRAM Video Random Access Memory, a common type of video card memory for colourful graphics

VRML Virtual Reality Modelling Language