Stands for
"Accelerated
As accurate as the
Sharpened.net Glossary definitions are, nothing beats a definition straight
from the source. Here is the definition of ANSI according to our friends at,
well, ANSI:
Stands for "American National Standards Institute." ANSI's primary
goal is to enhance the global competitiveness of
Stands for "American
Standard Code for Information Interchange." ASCII is the universal
standard for the numerical codes computers use to represent all upper and
lower-case letters, numbers, and punctuation. Without ASCII, each type of
computer would use a different way of representing letters and numbers, causing
major chaos for computer programmers (allowing them even less sleep than they
already get).
ASCII makes is possible for text to be represented the same on a Pentium-based
PC in
Just
to confuse ordinary people like you and me, there are two equally important
definitions of ASP. It can refer to 1) an Active Server Page, or 2) an
Application Service Provider.
1. An "Active Server Page." This is a web page that has one or more
scripts embedded in it. You can tell if you're accessing an active server page
if the suffix of the URL is ".asp" (as opposed to ".html").
Like CGI-based pages, ASP pages are processed on a Web server before they are
transferred to a user's browser. ASPs are typically used for pages that have
dynamic, or frequently changing, information. A common ASP script will get
input from the user or user's computer (through a form or a cookie), then
access a database on the server, from which it will build and/or customize the
page. Since ASP technology was designed by Microsoft, ASP pages typically run
Visual Basic Scripts (VBScripts).
2. Stands for "Application Service Provider." Sometimes referred to
as an "app-on-tap," this is a third-party company that distributes
software-based services from a central location to customers across a wide area
network (WAN). In other words, a typical ASP will offer companies access, via
the Internet, to programs and services that would otherwise have to be stored
on their own computer systems. Application Service Providers are often an
inexpensive way for companies and organizations to manage their information
services. There are five main categories of Application Service Providers:
1.
Local or Regional ASP - supplies many different application services for
smaller businesses or individuals in a local area.
2. Specialist ASP - provides applications for specific needs, such as Human
Resources or Web services.
3. Vertical Market ASP - provides support to a specific industry such as
Education.
4.
5. Volume Business ASP - supplies small or medium-sized businesses with
services in high volume.
Stands for "Basic
Input/Output System." Most people don't need to mess with the BIOS on a
computer, but it can be helpful to know what it is. The BIOS is a program
pre-installed on PCs (not on Macs) that the computer uses to start up. The CPU
accesses the BIOS even before the operating system is loaded. The BIOS then
checks all your hardware connections and locates all your devices. If
everything is OK, the BIOS loads the operating system into the computer's
memory and finishes the boot-up process.
Since the BIOS manages the hard drives, it can't reside on one, and since it is
available before the computer boots up, it can't live in the RAM. So where can
this amazing, yet elusive BIOS be found? It is actually located in the ROM
(Read-Only Memory) of the computer. More specifically, it resides in an erasable
programmable read-only memory (EPROM) chip. So, as soon as you turn your
computer on, the CPU accesses the EPROM and gives control to the BIOS.
The BIOS also is used after the computer has booted up. It acts as an
intermediary between the CPU and the I/O devices. Because of the BIOS, your
programs and your operating system don't have to know exact details (like
hardware addresses) about the I/O devices attached to your PC. When device details
change, only the BIOS needs to be updated. You can make these changes by
entering the BIOS when your system starts up. To access the BIOS, hold down the
key as soon as your computer begins to start up.
Pronounced like
"cash", not "catch", and definitely not "cashé".
There are many different types of caches but they all serve basically the same
purpose. They store recently-used information in a place where it can be
accessed extremely fast. For example, a web browser like Netscape Navigator
uses a cache to store the pages, images, sounds, and URLs of web sites you
visit on your hard drive. With this neat strategy, when you visit a page you
have recently been to, everything doesn't have to be downloaded to your
computer all over again. Because accessing your computer's hard disk is much
faster than accessing the Internet, this speeds up web browsing significantly.
Your computer also uses disk caching, which stores information you have
recently read from your hard disk in the computer's RAM. Since accessing RAM is
much faster than reading data off the hard disk, this helps speed up common
functions on your computer. One more type of cache is a processor cache which
stores small amounts of information on or next to the processor. This helps
make the processing of common instructions much more efficient, thereby
speeding up computation time. Neat, huh?
Stands for "Common
Gateway Interface." CGI is a set of rules for running programs on a web
server. Whenever you submit information, like search terms or your login and
password, to a web server, there's a good chance that the server is using a CGI
script to receive and process the data. However, with new scripting languages
such as PHP, ASP, and JSP attracting many web programmers, CGI scripts aren't
as popular as they once were.
The chipset is a way of
describing the architecture of an integrated circuit. For example, the chipset
of a modem card would be much different than the chipset of a computer's CPU.
Processors themselves also have different chipsets. For example, a Pentium II
and Pentium III have slightly different chipsets, and a PowerPC processor has
yet another kind. Though there are many different types of chipsets lurking
about in today's computer hardware, fortunately, you don't need to know much
about them. After all, as long as the stuff works, who cares? =)
Stands for "Domain
Host Control Protocol." A network server uses this protocol to dynamically
assign IP addresses to networked computers. The DHCP server waits for a
computer to connect to it, and then assigns it an IP address from a master list
stored on the server. Using DHCP, managing IP addresses isn't a problem for
network administrators. Because of the slick automation involved with DHCP, it
is the most commonly used networking protocol.
Stands for "Dual
In-Line Memory Module." It is a type of computer memory. A DIMM is a small
circuit board that holds memory chips. It uses a 64-bit bus to the memory,
whereas a single in-line memory module (SIMM) only has a 32-bit path. Because
DIMMs have faster data transfer capabilities than SIMMs, they have pretty much
replaced SIMMs.
Stands for "Domain
Name System." The primary purpose of DNS is to keep Web surfers sane.
Without DNS, we'd have to remember the IP address of every site we wanted to
visit, as opposed to just the name. Now, I have some computer science friends
who might prefer this, but for normal people, names are much easier to
remember. The reason for the Domain Name System is that web sites are actually
located by their IP addresses. So, when you type in
"http://www.adobe.com", the computer doesn't immediately know that it
should look for Adobe's web site. Instead, it sends a request to the nearest
DNS server, which matches an IP address to the domain name and then connects
you to the server with that IP number. And we just take it for granted.
This strange term refers to
the way Windows stores data on your hard drive. "FAT" stands for
"File Allocation Table." This table keeps track of all your files and
helps the computer locate them on the disk. Even if a file gets fragmented
(split up into various areas on the disk), the file allocation table still can
keep track of it. FAT32 is an improvement to the original FAT system, as it
uses more bits to identify each cluster on the disk. This helps the computer
locate files easier and allows for smaller clusters, which improves the
efficiency of your hard disk. FAT32 supports up to 2 terabytes of hard disk
storage. Unless you are a serious power user, that should be more than
enough for you.
Invented by Apple Computer in the mid-1990's, Firewire has
become one of the leading peripheral standards. Firewire can be used to connect
devices such as digital camcorders, digital cameras, hard drives, and MP3
players, such as the Apple iPod, to your computer. Its uses are similar the
USB, but Firewire can transfer data at 400 Mbps, which is roughly 30 times
faster than USB. This blazing speed allows for quick transfers of large video
files, which is great for video-editing professionals. You may see Firewire
referred to by its technical name, IEEE 1394, since it was standardized by the
Flash memory is a type of
electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM). Whew. Its name
comes from how the memory is designed -- a section of memory cells can be
erased in a single action or in a "flash." Pretty creative, huh? A
common use of flash memory is to store the BIOS settings in a computer's
Though flash memory was originally used mainly inside computers, it has invaded
many other areas outside the box. Memory cards used for digital cameras,
cellular phones, networking hardware, and PC Cards all use flash memory. Though
the memory's read/write speed isn't lightning fast, it sure is nice to be able
to tote around a little card rather than a cumbersome hard drive.
Stands for "Integrated
Device Electronics." It is the most widely-used hard drive interface on
the market. The fancy name refers to how the IDE technology
"integrates" the electronics controller into the drive itself. The
IDE interface, which could only support drives up to 540 MB, has been replaced
by the superior EIDE (Enhanced-IDE) technology which supports over 50 GB and
allows for over twice as fast data transfer rates. The other most common hard
drive interface is SCSI, which is faster than EIDE, but usually costs more.
Stands for "Institute
of Electrical and Electronics Engineers." It is a non-profit organization
that develops, defines, and reviews electronics and computer science standards.
Though it is a
The IEEE describes itself as "the world's largest technical professional
society -- promoting the development and application of electro technology and
allied sciences for the benefit of humanity, the advancement of the profession,
and the well-being of our members." Maybe they could work on standardizing
a more simplified definition of their organization...
Stands for "Internet
Protocol." This is what allows for data to be transferred between systems
over the Internet. It provides a standard set of rules for sending and
receiving data via the Internet. People often say "IP" when referring
to an IP address. The two are not necessarily synonymous, but I don't care if
you say IP instead of IP address. I do it, I mean, nobody cares.
Also known as an IP number,
it is a code made up of numbers separated by 4 dots that identifies a
particular computer on the Internet. Every computer, whether it be a web server
or the computer you're using right now, requires an IP address to connect to
the Internet. For example, the IP address of everyone's favorite computer
resource, Sharpened.net, is 216.147.47.134. If you have a standard dial-up
account with an Internet Service Provider (ISP), you will either be assigned a
static IP address (which is always the same), or you will be given a dynamic IP
address, (which changes every time you log on). ISPs typically assign users a
dynamic IP address each time they sign on because it cuts down on the number of
IP addresses they must register. However, if you connect to the Internet
through a network, it is very likely that you have a static IP address.
ISPs and organizations usually apply to the InterNIC for a range of IP
addresses so that all their clients have similar addresses. There are three
classes of IP address sets: Class C, which consists of 255 unique IP numbers,
class B which will gives you 65,000 unique IP addresses, and class A addresses
are for very large companies. Because the InterNIC is actually running out of
IP addresses, and therefore, ranges of IPs, Class A and Class B addresses are
very hard to get. Most large companies have to get multiple Class C addresses
instead. In case you care, the Internet Engineering Task Force, which brought
us the IP protocol in the first place, is working on a new protocol called
"IP Next Generation" or IPng.
Stands for
"Internetwork Packet Exchange." (I didn't know "exchange"
started with an "x" either...) It is a networking protocol used to
connect networks based on Novell's NetWare. IPX is connectionless, meaning it
doesn't require connections to be maintained during an exchange of packets as,
like a phone call does. Another nice thing about IPX is that it usually only
loads when you log on to a network, so it doesn't take up unnecessary
resources. As many video game players know, IPX used to be the standard
connection for network games, but the TCP/IP protocol, which allows for long
distance network gaming, has now become the clear leader.
Stands for "Internet
Relay Chat." IRC makes it possible for people using the Internet to
converse with each other in real time by typing messages back and forth. For
IRC to work there needs to be an IRC server. When you and others connect to the
server, you can join a channel and talk with the other people on the channel.
Usually, channels have a specific topic like "teenchat",
"macusers", or "basketweaving". To connect to an IRC
server, you'll need a software program like Ircle (Mac) or mIRC (Windows). Most
IRC programs also let you transfer files with other users, which is cool, but
has also led to a lot of software piracy.
Stands for "Interrupt
Request." PCs use interrupt requests to manage various hardware
operations. Devices such as sound cards, modems, and keyboards can all send
interrupt requests to the processor. For example, when the modem needs to run a
process, it sends an interrupt request to the CPU saying, "Hey, hold up,
let me do my thing!" The CPU then lets the modem run its process.
The reason it is important to assign different IRQ settings to different
hardware devices is because the interrupt request signals run along single IRQ
lines to an controller. This interrupt controller assigns priorities to
incoming IRQs and sends them to the CPU. (Kind of like taking a number at the
local deli, except the hardware usually only has to wait a couple of
nanoseconds instead of like twenty minutes...) Since the interrupt controller
can control only one device per IRQ line, if you assign the same IRQ line to
multiple devices, you're likely to get an IRQ conflict. This can cause a range
of errors from not allowing network connections to crashing your computer. So
make sure you assign distinct IRQs to new hardware you install and avoid the excessive
frustration and keyboard throwing that conflicts can cause.
Stands for "Integrated
Services Digital Network." Nope, it's not the same thing as the ISBN you
see in books. ISDN is a data transfer technology, created in 1984, that allows
for faster transfer rates than modems do. Basically, ISDN enables
wide-bandwidth digital transmission over the public telephone network. It's
just that easy. Well, there's a lot more that goes into it, but it's too
complex to explain. Using ISDN, you can transfer 64K or 128K of data per
second. However, the newer DSL technology and cable modems seem to be making
ISDN obsolete.
Stands for "Network
Interface Card." Pronounced "nick", these cards are what
physically make the connection between a computer and a network cable. 10
Base-T, 100 Base-T, and 10/100 Base-T Ethernet cards are the most common type
of NICs. They come in ISA and PCI versions and are made by companies like 3Com
(really expensive) and LinkSys (way better priced). So if you want to connect
your computer to a network, you better get yourself a NIC.
This is the interface on
the back of a PC used for connecting external devices such as printers or a
scanners. It uses a 25-pin connector (DB-25) and is rather large compared to
most new interfaces. The parallel port is sometimes called a Centronics
interface, since Centronics was the company that designed the original standard
for parallel communication. It is also sometimes referred to as a printer port
because the printer is the device most commonly attached to the parallel port.
A newer type of parallel port, which supports the same connectors as the
Centronics interface, is the Enhanced Parallel Port (EPP) which supports
bi-directional communication and can transfer data up to ten times faster than
the original Centronics port. However, since the parallel port technology is
rather old, don't be surprised to see USB or Firewire interfaces completely
replace parallel ports in the future.
A partition is a section of
a hard drive. Hence the name partition. When you format a hard drive, you can
usually choose the number of partitions you want. The computer will recognize
each partition as a separate drive, and they will show up as different drives
under "My Computer" (in Windows) or on the desktop (on Macs).
Great, so why would you want to create multiple partitions? Well, there are two
main reasons. One is that you want to have multiple operating systems on your
computer. Typically, operating systems need to be installed on their own
partition in order to work. The other reason is that multiple partitions can
improve the efficiency of your hard drive. On larger drives, the cluster, or
block sizes (the minimum amount of space a file can take up), are also very
large, which can result in a waste of disk space. So multiple partitions can
actually give you more space. Yep, more room for all those MP3s.
It should be noted that the word partition can also be used as a verb, meaning
to create multiple partitions. Of course, that's pretty obvious.
Stands for "Peripheral
Component Interconnect." It is a PC bus designed by Intel, and used in
both IBM-compatible and Apple computers. Most add-on cards such as a 3DFX
Voodoo 3 card or a SCSI card use a PCI connection. These slots are found in the
back of your computer and are about 3.5" long and about 0.5" high.
You should make sure you have at least one available PCI slot before you go buy
that hot new 3D card you absolutely need.
Stands
for "Personal Computer Memory Card International Association." It can
also mean, perhaps more appropriately, "People Can't Memorize Computer
Industry Acronyms." This way-to-long acronym stands for an association
founded in 1989 which develops standards for expansion cards for portable computers.
Though the PCMCIA standards were originally designed for adding memory to
portable computers, they been expanded to include numerous other devices. There
are three types of PCMCIA cards, all of which are rectangular and measure 8.56
by 5.4 cm., but have different widths:
Type
I: up to 3.3 mm. thick, mainly used to add additional ROM or RAM.
Type
II: up to 5.5 mm. thick, typically used for fax/modem cards.
Type
III: up to 10.5 mm. thick, often used to attach portable disk drives.
PCMCIA slots also come in three sizes -- a Type I slot can hold one Type I
card, a Type II slot can hold one Type II card or two Type I cards, and a Type
III slot can hold one Type III card or one Type I and one Type II card. Another
nice thing about PC Cards is that they can be removed or inserted "on the
fly," which means you don't have to turn your computer off to exchange
them and you don't have to restart for the computer to recognize them. PCMCIA
cards are also called PC cards, to help save energy.
An Internet port refers to
a number that indicates what kind of protocol a server on the Internet is
using. For example, web servers typically are listed on port 80. Web browsers
use this port by default when accessing web pages, but you can also specify
what port you would like to use in the URL like this:
http://www.excite.com:80/. Game servers, like a Quake server, or a KALI server
also use different ports. It is good to know what a port is, but you seldom
will have to specify it manually, so don't freak out.
There are also two other computer-related meanings of port. One refers to the
ports that are on the back of a computer where devices can be hooked up (like a
serial port or a printer port). The other is used as a verb and refers to the
editing of a program's code so that it can run on another platform. For
example, to get Final Fantasy VII to run on a PC, programmers needed to port it
to the PC from the Playstation. Mac programs are (too) often ported from PC
versions.
Stands for "Point to
Point Protocol." It is the Internet standard for dial-up connections. PPP
is a set of rules that defines how your modem connection exchanges packets of
data with other systems on the Internet. Basically, if you have an ISP that you
connect to via modem, you're most likely using PPP.
When computers communicate,
there needs to be some set of guidelines that each computer follows when
sending and receiving data. This set of communication rules is called a
protocol. There are many different types of computers and operating systems,
and just as many different types of connections between them. That's why we
need protocols.
Though they do help standardize communications, there are still many different
protocols -- probably too many to remember. Some examples of these different
protocols are PPP, TCP/IP, SLIP, HTTP, and FTP. Can you guess what the last
"P" stands for in each acronym? If not, I'll give you a hint: it's
the same as "Robocop" with a "p" at the beginning, the
"b" changed to a "t", and the "l" changed to a
"p". Sorry, I'm wasting space again...
Stands for "Redundant
Array of Independent Disks." RAID is a method of storing related data on
multiple hard disks. When the disks are arranged in a RAID configuration, the
computer sees them all as one large disk. However, they operate much more
efficiently than a single hard drive. Since the data is spread out over
multiple disks, the reading and writing operations can overlap, which speeds up
hard drive access time significantly. Multiple hard drives may not improve hard
disk performance as much as multiple processors may enhance the CPU
performance, but it is a similar logic.
The benefits of RAID come from a technique called "striping," which
splits up the stored data among the available drives. The "stripes"
of data are usually a couple of megabytes large and are interleaved between the
drives. The striping system also increases the mean time between failure
(MTBF), when reading data. This allows more data to be read accurately in a
short period of time. Because of the various benefits of the RAID system,
particularly when storing large amounts of data, many Web hosting and Internet
Service Providers use RAID to store data for their clients.
Stands for "Random
Access Memory," and is pronounced like the male goat. RAM is the stuff
that software programs run off of. Every time you open a program, it gets
loaded from the hard drive into the RAM. This is because reading data from RAM
is extremely fast, whereas reading data from the hard drive is substantially
slower. Running programs from the RAM of the computer allows them to function
without any lag time. The more RAM you have, the more data can be loaded from
the hard drive into the RAM, helping to speed up your computer. In fact, adding
RAM can even be more beneficial to your computer's overall performance than
upgrading the CPU.
Stands for "Rambus
Dynamic Random Access Memory." It is made by Rambus (surprise) and is the
fastest type of computer memory available. Typical SDRAM can transfer data at
speeds up to 133 MHz, while standard RDRAM can crank it up to over 800 MHz. In
fact, Samsung just released a 576 MB RDRAM chip that runs over 1 GHz. Though
some motherboards can use RDRAM as system memory, it is so fast, many boards
can't benefit from the speed. Because of this, RDRAM is typically used for
video memory on graphics accelerator cards, for cache memory (located on the
CPU), and for system memory in high-performance workstations and servers.
An improvement to RDRAM called Direct Rambus (DRDRAM) allows for even faster
data transfer rates. DRDRAM uses a 16-bit bus rather than DRAM's 8-bit bus,
which means it can handle 8 operations at once and can transfer data at a
maximum speed of 1.6 GHz. Now that's fast.
Stands for "Reduced
Instruction Set Computing," pronounced like "risk." It is
arguably the fastest and most efficient microprocessor technology available
today. The RISC architecture is an improvement upon the CISC (Complex
Instruction Set Computing) architecture used in most Pentium chips. In 1974,
John Cocke of IBM Research worked to make an even faster version of the CISC
chip, and came up with a result that majorly reduced the number of instructions
the chip needed to perform. The new technology was not only faster than CISC
chips, but the chips were also easier and less expensive to manufacture.
Motorola's PowerPC chips (such as the G4 in Power Macs) are the most widely
used RISC-based chips. Intel has slowly been integrating RISC technology into
its chips, but they still are mostly CISC-based, which causes the chips to
suffer in floating-point calculations.
Stands for "Read-Only
Memory." Please do not confuse this with RAM or a hard drive. Way too many
people already do. ROM is a storage chip containing hardwired instructions that
the computer uses when it boots up (before the system software loads). In PCs,
the instructions are read from a small program called the BIOS (Basic
Input/Output System). After the BIOS's work is done, the operating system gets
loaded while that cheesy Windows screen sits there for what seems like an
endless amount of time.
Stands
for "Small Computer System Interface." It's pronounced "skuzzy";
nothing else is acceptable -- that's just how it is. SCSI is a computer
interface that can be used to attach things like hard drives and scanners to
your computer. You can connect up to seven devices to a SCSI interface and get
good performance from all of them. Overall, SCSI is faster than the other
popular storage interface, IDE, especially the fastest type of SCSI, called
Wide Ultra2. For more information on the differences between SCSI and IDE,
please check the Help Center.
The different SCSI types are listed below:
SCSI-1:
Uses an 8-bit bus, supports data transfer speeds of 4 MBps.
SCSI-2: Uses a 50-pin connector instead of a 25-pin connector, and supports
multiple devices. It is currently the most common type of SCSI. Data transfer
speeds are typically around 5 MBps.
Wide SCSI: Uses a wider cable (168 cable lines to 68 pins) to support 16-bit
data transfers.
Fast SCSI: Uses an 8-bit bus, but doubles the clock rate to support data
transfer speeds of 10 MBps.
Fast Wide SCSI: Uses a 16-bit bus and supports data transfer speeds of 20 MBps.
Ultra SCSI: Uses an 8-bit bus, supports data rates of 20 MBps.
SCSI-3: Uses a 16-bit bus, supports data rates of 40 MBps. Also called Ultra
Wide SCSI.
Ultra2 SCSI: Uses an 8-bit bus, supports data transfer speeds of 40 MBps.
Wide Ultra2 SCSI: Uses a 16-bit bus, supports data transfer speeds of 80 MBps.
Stands for
"Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory." Yeah, it's a mouthful,
but if you memorize it, you can really impress your friends. SDRAM is an
improvement to standard DRAM in that it retrieves data alternately between two
sets of memory. This eliminates the delay caused when, after each data request,
one bank of addresses is shut down while another is prepared for reading. It's
called "Synchronous" DRAM because the memory is synchronized with the
clock speed that the computer's CPU is optimized for. The faster the processor,
the faster the SDRAM can be. SDRAM speed is measured in Megahertz, which makes
it easy to compare the processor's bus speed to the speed of the memory.
Stands for "Single
In-Line Memory Module." This is an older type of computer memory. A SIMM
is basically a small circuit board with a bunch of memory chips on it. SIMMs
use a 32-bit bus, which is not as wide as the 64-bit bus dual in-line memory
modules (DIMMs) use. Newer Pentium processors require a 64-bit memory bus, so
it is best to use DIMMs. You can still get away with installing SIMMS, but they
have to be installed in pairs.
Stands for
"Self-Monitoring Analysis And Reporting Technology." It is a
technology standard that is used for developing hard disk hardware and
software. The SMART technology basically monitors and analyzes hard drives
(hence the name). It checks the health of your hard drive and makes sure there
are no major problems. The main purpose of SMART is to proactively keep your
hard drive running smoothly and to prevent it from crashing.
This is a data transfer
system that transfers digital signals at 1.544 megabits per second (a little
faster than a 56K modem, which maxes out at around 0.056 mb/sec). The name
"T1" was coined by AT&T, in case you were wondering. Most small
to mid-sized colleges and business have T1 lines running out of their
buildings. Because of the T1's large bandwidth, hundreds of people can be
accessing the Internet from one T1 line with little slowdown. However, like all
good things, too many people on one T1 line can still cause dramatic decreases
in data transfer speeds. For this reason, multiple T1s are often used.
What about T2, you ask? For
some reason, there just is no such thing. (There was probably some legal dispute
about it involving the name of a popular Arnold Schwarzenegger movie.) If a T1
connection just isn't going to cut it for you, T3 should do the trick. However,
if you thought T3 was 3 times faster than a T1 connection, you're wrong. It's
actually 30 times faster, supporting data transfer rates of 44.736 megabits of
data per second. What I wouldn't do to have one of those in my basement...
Stands for
"Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol." In the early days
of the Internet, these two protocols were developed by the
Other than being the last
name of the author of "Huckleberry Finn," there are numerous other
ideas concerning the origin of this term. Some believe it stands for
"Toolkit Without An Informative Name," while others argue it is
"Technology Without An Interesting Name." Still, there are some who
buy the story that it came from the saying, "Ne'er the twain shall
meet."
Though the real story behind the name may never be truly known, the purpose of
TWAIN is quite clear. It is a graphics and imaging standard that allows
companies to make drivers for scanners and digital cameras. Nearly all scanners
on the market today are TWAIN-compliant, meaning they way they interact with
the computer is based on the TWAIN standard. If you feel the need to know more
about TWAIN and it's fascinating history, the TWAIN
Group has a web site you can visit.
Stands for "User
Datagram Protocol." It is part of the TCP/IP suite of protocols used for
data transfers. UDP is a known as a “stateless” protocol, meaning it doesn't
acknowledge that the packets being sent have been received. For this reason,
the UDP protocol is used for streaming media. Though you might see skips in
video or hear some fuzz in audio clips, it's better than having to wait for the
delayed packets, causing the clip to completely stop.
This is a protocol
originally developed by Quantum and Intel for transferring data between a
computer's hard disk and its memory. The maximum burst rate of an Ultra DMA
hard drive is 33.3 MBps. The original DMA (Direct Memory Access) protocol
served the same purpose as Ultra DMA, but could only transfer data at half the
speed.
Thanks to Ultra DMA, programs can open faster and run more smoothly. This is
because Ultra DMA can send more data to the memory in less time than hard
drives that don't support Ultra DMA. Also, Ultra DMA has a built-in utility
called Cyclical Redundancy Checking (CRC) which helps protect data better than
earlier protocols. So if you want a nice, fast hard drive, look for one that
supports Ultra DMA.
Stands for "Universal
Serial Bus." It's sort of the latest fad in computer ports. If you want,
you can use it to replace your mouse, keyboard, serial, parallel, and game
ports. In fact, you can daisy chain 127 peripherals to a single USB port and
use them all at once. USB is also faster than older ports, supporting data
transfer rates of up to 12Mb/sec. Though it was introduced in 1997, the
technology didn't really take off until the introduction of the Apple iMac
(late 1998) which uses USB ports exclusively. Kind of funny, considering USB
was created and designed by Intel, Compaq, Digital, and IBM. Now USB has become
a widely-used cross-platform interface for both Macs and PCs.
Stands for "Video
Random Access Memory" and is pronounced "V-RAM", not
"Vram". Plain old RAM is great for loading and running programs, but
when you need graphics power, VRAM is where it's at. VRAM, or video random
access memory, is the stuff used to store image data for the computer's
display. It acts as a buffer between the CPU and the display -- when a picture
is to be displayed, the image is first read by the processor as data from the
main memory and then written to the VRAM. The data is then converted by a RAM
digital-to-analog converter (RAMDAC) into analog signals that are sent to the
display. Of course, no normal person ever notices this, since it happens so
quickly. Unlike most normal RAM, VRAM chips are dual-ported, which means that
while the display is reading from VRAM to refresh the currently displayed
image, the processor is writing a new image to the VRAM. This prevents the
display from flickering between image redraws.
In case you're not confused enough already, there are many different types of
VRAM. One popular kind is called Synchronous Graphics RAM (SGRAM). It is an
inexpensive type of RAM that is clock-synchronized. This means it allows data
to be modified in a single operation rather than as a sequence of read, write,
and update operations. It also allows background, foreground, and image fills
to be handled more efficiently. Another type of VRAM is Rambus Dynamic RAM
(RDRAM). It is designed by Rambus and includes a proprietary Rambus bus that
speeds up the transfer of data through it. Video editing pros like this chip
since it is optimized for video streaming. A third type of VRAM is Window RAM
(WRAM). This is very high-performance kind of VRAM that is dual-ported, has
about 25% more bandwidth than standard VRAM, yet costs less. Finally, there is
Multibank Dynamic RAM (MDRAM). This is also a high-performance RAM, developed
by MoSys, that divides the memory into divisions of 32 KB, which can be
accessed individually. This makes memory transfers more efficient and increases
overall performance. Another advantage of MDRAM is that it can be manufactured
with just the right amount of RAM for a given resolution, so it is cheaper to
manufacture than most other types of VRAM.
Stands for "Wide Area
Information Server." It is a program that can index enormous amounts of
information and can make the index searchable across networks (including the
Internet). WAIS will also rank the information found by searches by relevance.
If that isn't enough, the search can be narrowed down even more by subsequent
searches on the results found by the previous search.
Stands for "Wide Area
Network." A WAN is similar to a Local Area Network (LAN), but it's a lot
bigger. Unlike LANs, WANs are not limited to a single location. Many wide area
networks span long distances via telephone lines, fiber-optic cables, or
satellite links. They can also be composed of smaller LANs that are
interconnected. The Internet could be described as the biggest WAN in the
world. Heck, you could even call the Internet a Super WAN BAM if you wanted to.
Again, I need to get some sleep.