The following list defines or identifies technical terms, abbreviations, and acro- Acronym for American Standard Code for nyms used in Dell user documents. Information Interchange. A text file con- taining only characters from the ASCII character set (usually created with a text Abbreviation for ampere(s). editor, such as MS-DOS Editor or Notepad in Microsoft Windows operating system) is called an ASCII file. Abbreviation for alternating current. Acronym for application-specific integrat- An expansion card that plugs into an ed circuit. expansion-card connector on the computer's system board. An adapter card adds some specialized function to Acronym for Advanced SCSI program- the computer by providing an interface ming interface. between the expansion bus and a periph- eral device. Examples of adapter cards include network cards, sound boards, and When you boot your computer, MS-DOS SCSI adapters. runs any commands contained in the text file, autoexec.bat (after running any com- mands in the config.sys file). An Abbreviation for Autodesk Device autoexec.bat file is not required to boot Interface. MS-DOS, but provides a convenient place to run commands that are essential for setting up a consistent computing envi- Abbreviation for artificial intelligence. ronment—such as loading mouse or network software. Acronym for American National Standards Institute. A copy of a program or data file. As a pre- caution, you should back up your computer's hard-disk drive on a regular Software designed to help you perform a basis. Before making a change to the con- specific task, such as a spreadsheet or figuration of your computer, you should word processor. Application programs are back up important start-up files, such as distinct from operating system and utility autoexec.bat and config.sys for software. MS-DOS or win.ini and system.ini for Microsoft Windows.
support.dell.com Glossary 1 Synonym for conventional memory. The smallest unit of information interpret- ed by your computer. Acronym for Beginner's All-Purpose Sym- bolic Instruction Code, a programming A typical unit of disk storage consisting of language. MS-DOS includes a version of a small number of sectors. This term usu- BASIC. ally refers to the fundamental unit of storage provided by an operating system. See also block size and striping. An ASCII text file containing a list of com- mands that run in sequence. Batch files ! must have a filename extension of .bat. The size of a block. See also block and striping. Data transmission speed. For example, modems are designed to transmit data at When you start your computer, it clears one or more specified baud rate(s) all memory, initializes devices, and loads through the COM (serial) port of a the operating system. Unless the operat- computer. ing system fails to respond, you can reboot (also called warm boot) your com- puter by pressing ; Abbreviation for bulletin board service. A otherwise, you must perform a cold boot computer system that serves as a central by pressing the reset button (if your com- location for accessing data or relaying puter has one) or by turning the computer messages by modem. For example, Dell's off and then back on. TechConnect BBS contains the latest ver- sion of software such as video drivers and the Dell Directory. If your system has a You can start your computer from a dis- modem, you can access the BBS and kette in drive A. To make a bootable download the most recent version of this diskette, insert a diskette in drive A, type- software. sys a: at the command line prompt and then press
2 User’s Guide communications between the micro- ( processor and RAM. Acronym for complementary metal-oxide semiconductor. In computers, CMOS memory chips are often used for NVRAM Eight contiguous bits of information; the storage. basic data unit used by your computer. ( $" The MS-DOS device names for the first Abbreviation for Bundesamt fur Zulassun- through fourth serial ports on your com- gen in deer Telecommunication. puter are COM1, COM2, COM3, and COM4. MS-DOS supports up to four serial ports. However, the default interrupt for Abbreviation for Celsius. COM1 and COM3 is IRQ4, and the default interrupt for COM2 and COM4 is IRQ3. Therefore, you must be careful when you To facilitate quicker data retrieval, a stor- configure software that runs a serial de- age area for keeping a copy of data or vice so that you do not create an interrupt instructions. For example, your comput- conflict. er's BIOS may cache ROM code in faster RAM. Or a disk-cache utility may reserve RAM in which to store frequently access- The MS-DOS device name for the con- ed information from your computer's disk sole, which includes your computer's drives; when a program makes a request keyboard and text displayed on the to a disk drive for data that is in the cache, screen. the disk-cache utility can retrieve the data from RAM faster than from the disk drive. When you boot your computer, MS-DOS % runs any commands contained in the text On the bottom of an expansion card, the file config.sys (before running any com- metal-contact section that plugs into an mands in the autoexec.bat file). A expansion-card connector. config.sys file is not required to boot MS-DOS, but provides a convenient place &" to run commands that are essential for Abbreviation for cold cathode fluorescent setting up a consistent computing envi- tube. ronment—such as loading device drivers with a device= statement. %' ( Abbreviation for compact disc read-only memory. CD-ROM drives use optical A chip or expansion card that controls the technology to read data from compact transfer of data between the micro- discs. CDs are read-only storage devices; processor and a peripheral such as a you cannot write new data to a CD with diskette drive or the keyboard. standard CD-ROM drives. * ) The first 640 KB of RAM. Unless they are Abbreviation for color graphics adapter. specially designed, MS-DOS programs are limited to running in conventional memory. See also EMM, expanded mem- Abbreviation for comprehensive input/ ory, extended memory, HMA, memory output. manager, upper memory area, and XMM.
Abbreviation for centimeter(s). A coprocessor relieves the computer's microprocessor of specific processing tasks. A math coprocessor, for example,
support.dell.com Glossary 3 handles numeric processing. A graphics + coprocessor handles video rendering. The Acronym for Dynamic Host Configuration Intel Pentium microprocessor includes an Protocol. integrated math coprocessor. See diskette-based diagnostics. Abbreviation for characters per inch. (( # Acronym for dual in-line memory module. Abbreviation for central processing unit. See also microprocessor. Acronym for Deutsche Industrie Norm. In character-based MS-DOS programs, the cursor is usually a block or an under- Acronym for dual in-line package. A circuit score (possibly blinking) that represents board, such as a system board or expan- the position at which the next character sion card, may contain DIP switches for typed will appear. Windows programs can configuring the circuit board. DIP switch- design their own cursors—common cur- es are always toggle switches, with an sor symbols include the pointer arrow and ON position and an OFF position. the text-insertion I-beam.
" Acronym for digital audio tape.
Abbreviation for decibel(s).
Abbreviation for adjusted decibel(s). Directories help keep related files orga- nized in a hierarchical, "inverted tree" structure. Each disk has a "root" directory; Abbreviation for direct current. for example, a C:\> prompt normally indi- cates that you are at the root directory of hard-disk drive C. Additional directories Acronym for display data channel. A that branch off of the root directory are VESA® standard mechanism that allows called subdirectories. Subdirectories may the system to communicate with the contain additional directories branching monitor and retrieve information about its off of them. capabilities.
* * A device driver allows the operating sys- tem or a program to interface correctly with a peripheral such as a printer or net- work card. Some device drivers—such as network drivers—must be loaded from the config.sys file (with a device= state- ment) or as memory-resident programs (usually, from the autoexec.bat file). Oth- ers—such as video drivers—must load when you start the program for which they were designed.
4 User’s Guide ' Acronym for Dell OpenManage Remote Assistant Card.
'( Abbreviation for dynamic random-access memory. A computer's RAM is usually made up entirely of DRAM chips. Be- cause DRAM chips cannot store an electrical charge indefinitely, your com- puter continually refreshes each DRAM chip in the computer.
*% % Your computer can recognize a number of A comprehensive set of diagnostic tests specific hard-disk drives. Each is assigned for your Dell computer. To use the dis- a drive-type number that is stored in kette-based diagnostics, you must boot NVRAM. The hard-disk drive(s) specified your computer from the Dell Diagnostics in your computer's System Setup pro- Diskette. Refer to your Installation and gram must match the actual drive(s) Troubleshooting Guide for a complete installed in the computer. The System discussion about how to use the diskette- Setup program also allows you to specify based diagnostics. physical parameters (cylinders, heads, write precomp, landing zone, and capaci- ty) for drives not included in the table of See video adapter. drive types stored in NVRAM.
( ", Abbreviation for direct memory access. A Abbreviation for data terminal equipment. DMA channel allows certain types of data Any device (such as a computer system) transfer between RAM and a device to that can send data in digital form by bypass the microprocessor. means of a cable or communications line. The DTE is connected to the cable or com- munications line through a data Abbreviation for Department of Commu- communications equipment (DCE) device nications (in Canada). such as a modem.
, Abbreviation for dots per inch. Abbreviation for error checking and correction. ( Abbreviation for Display Power Manage- , ment Signaling. A standard developed by Abbreviation for Extended Capabilities the Video Electronics Standards Associa- Port. tion that defines the hardware signals sent by a video controller to activate pow- , er management states in a video display Abbreviation for extended-data out. A or monitor. A monitor is said to be DPMS- type of RAM chip that holds data on the compliant when it is designed to enter a chip's output data lines for a longer period power management state after receiving of time than fast-page mode RAM chips. the appropriate signal from a computer's The EDO RAM chips are also faster than video controller. fast-page mode RAM chips.
support.dell.com Glossary 5 ,,' ( , Acronym for electrically erasable pro- Abbreviation for electrostatic discharge. grammable read-only memory. See "Safety Instructions" for a complete discussion of ESD. ,) Abbreviation for enhanced graphics , adapter. Acronym for enhanced small-device interface. , Acronym for Extended Industry-Standard Architecture, a 32-bit expansion-bus de- A technique for accessing RAM above sign. The expansion-card connectors in an 1 MB. To enable expanded memory on EISA computer are also compatible with your computer, you must use an EMM. 8- or 16-bit ISA expansion cards. You should configure your system to sup- port expanded memory only if you run To avoid a configuration conflict when in- application programs that can use (or re- stalling an EISA expansion card, you must quire) expanded memory. See also use the EISA Configuration Utility. This conventional memory, EMM, extended utility allows you to specify which expan- memory, and memory manager. sion slot contains the card and obtains information about the card's required sys- tem resources from a corresponding EISA Your computer contains an expansion bus configuration file. that allows the microprocessor to com- municate with controllers for peripheral ,( devices, such as a network card or an in- Abbreviation for Electromagnetic ternal modem. Compatibility. % ,( A connector on the computer's system Abbreviation for electromagnetic board for plugging in an expansion card. interference. ,(( RAM above 1 MB. Most software that can Abbreviation for expanded memory man- use it, such as Windows, requires that ex- ager. A software utility that uses tended memory be under the control of extended memory to emulate expanded an XMM. See also conventional memory, memory on computers with an Intel386™ expanded memory, memory manager, or higher microprocessor. See also con- and XMM. ventional memory, expanded memory, extended memory, memory manager, and XMM. A RAM cache using SRAM chips. Be- cause SRAM chips operate at several ,( times the speed of DRAM chips, the Abbreviation for emergency manage- microprocessor can retrieve data and in- ment port. structions faster from external cache memory than from RAM. ,( Abbreviation for Expanded Memory Spec- & ification. See also expanded memory, Abbreviation for Fahrenheit. memory manager, and XMS. &" ,' ( Acronym for file allocation table. The file Acronym for erasable programmable system structure used by MS-DOS to or- read-only memory. ganize and keep track of file storage. The Microsoft Windows NT operating system
6 User’s Guide can optionally use a FAT file system storage capacity. However, guarded con- structure. figurations are significantly slower for applications that frequently write to the & array, because each attempt to write to Abbreviation for Federal Communications the array requires multiple read and write Commission. commands to maintain the parity informa- tion. If this is a problem, mirroring or duplexing is a better choice. See also mir- A type of EEPROM chip that can be repro- roring, RAID 4, and RAID 5. grammed from a utility on diskette while still installed in a computer; most EE- )# PROM chips can only be rewritten with Acronym for graphical user interface. special programming equipment. Abbreviation for hexadecimal. A base-16 To prepare a hard-disk drive or diskette for numbering system, often used in pro- storing files. An unconditional format de- gramming to identify addresses in the letes all data stored on the disk. The computer's RAM and I/O memory ad- format command in MS-DOS 5.0 or higher dresses for devices. The sequence of includes an option that allows you to un- decimal numbers from 0 through 16, for format a disk if you have not yet used the example, is expressed in hexadecimal no- disk for file storage. tation as: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, A, B, C, D, E, F, 10. In text, hexadecimal num- bers are often followed by h or preceded Abbreviation for foot/feet. by 0x. MS-DOS conventional memory— the first 640 KB of memory addresses— &" is from 00000h to 9FFFFh; the MS-DOS Abbreviation for file transfer protocol. upper memory area—memory addresses between 640 KB and 1 MB—is from A0000h to FFFFFh. Abbreviation for gram(s). ) A metal plate with metal pegs or ribs that Abbreviation for gravities. help dissipate heat. Some microproces- sors include a heat sink. ) +( Abbreviation for gigabyte(s). A gigabyte equals 1024 megabytes or Abbreviation for high memory area. The 1,073,741,824 bytes. first 64 KB of extended memory above 1 MB. A memory manager that conforms to the XMS can make the HMA a direct extension of conventional memory. See See coprocessor. also conventional memory, memory man- ager, upper memory area, and XMM. See video mode. A host adapter implements communica- tion between the computer's bus and the A type of data redundancy that uses a set controller for a peripheral. (Hard-disk drive of physical drives to store data and a sin- controller subsystems include integrated gle, additional drive to store parity data. host adapter circuitry.) To add a SCSI ex- Data is protected from the loss of a single pansion bus to your system, you must drive. Guarding is sometimes preferred install the appropriate host adapter. over mirroring because it is more cost- effective in systems with a very high
support.dell.com Glossary 7 +& '1 Abbreviation for the High Performance Abbreviation for interrupt request. A sig- File System option in the Windows NT op- nal that data is about to be sent to or erating system. received by a peripheral travels by an IRQ line to the microprocessor. Each peripher- +! al connection must be assigned an IRQ Abbreviation for hertz. number. For example, the first serial port in your computer (COM1) is assigned to -. IRQ4 by default. Two devices can share Abbreviation for intelligent input/output. the same IRQ assignment, but you cannot operate both devices simultaneously. '" Abbreviation for integrated circuit. Abbreviation for I2O real-time operating ( system. Abbreviation for inter-chassis manage- ment bus. Acronym for Industry-Standard Architec- / ture. A 16-bit expansion bus design. The Abbreviation for input/output. The key- expansion-card connectors in an ISA com- board and a printer, for example, are I/O puter are also compatible with 8-bit ISA devices. In general, I/O activity can be dif- expansion cards. ferentiated from computational activity. ", For example, when a program sends a document to the printer, it is engaging in Abbreviation for information technology I/O activity; when the program sorts a list equipment. of terms, it is engaging in computational activity. 2, Acronym for Japanese Electronic Industry Development Association. Abbreviation for identification. 3 Abbreviation for kilo-, indicating 1000. A technique for increasing video resolu- tion by only updating alternate horizontal 3 lines on the screen. Because interlacing Abbreviation for kilobyte(s), 1024 bytes. can result in noticeable screen flicker, most users prefer noninterlaced video 3 / adapter resolutions. Abbreviation for kilobyte(s) per second.
34 5 An instruction and data cache built into the Abbreviation for kilobit(s), 1024 bits. microprocessor. The Pentium micropro- cessor, for example, includes a 16-KB 3 internal cache, which is set up as an 8-KB Abbreviation for kilobit(s) per second. read-only instruction cache and an 8-KB read/write data cache. A command requiring that you press mul- tiple keys at the same time. For example, Acronym for Internet Protocol. you can reboot your computer by pressing the key combination. 0 Abbreviation for Internetwork Packet eXchange. Abbreviation for kilogram(s), 1000 grams.
8 User’s Guide +! 6# Abbreviation for kilohertz, 1000 hertz. Acronym for logical unit number.
6 Acronym for local area network. A LAN Abbreviation for meter(s). system is usually confined to the same building or a few nearby buildings, with all equipment linked by wiring dedicated Abbreviation for milliampere(s). specifically to the LAN. Abbreviation for milliampere-hour(s). Abbreviation for pound(s). 6 See coprocessor. Abbreviation for liquid crystal display. A low-power display often used for note- ( book computers. An LCD consists of a Abbreviation for megabyte(s). The term liquid crystal solution between two megabyte means 1,048,576 bytes; how- sheets of polarizing material. An electric ever, when referring to hard-disk drive current causes each crystal to act like a storage, the term is often rounded to shutter that can open to allow light past mean 1,000,000 bytes. or close to block the light. ( ' 6, Abbreviation for master boot record. Abbreviation for light-emitting diode. An electronic device that lights up when a ( current is passed through it. Abbreviation for monochrome display adapter. 6 & Acronym for low insertion force. Some computers use LIF sockets and connec- A computer can contain several different tors to allow devices such as the forms of memory, such as RAM, ROM, microprocessor chip to be installed or re- and video memory. Frequently, the word moved with minimal stress to the device. memory is used as a synonym for RAM; for example, an unqualified statement 6 such as "a computer with 8 MB of mem- Abbreviation for load number. ory" refers to a computer with 8 MB of RAM. On a computer with local-bus expansion capability, certain peripheral devices A specific location, usually expressed as (such as the video adapter circuitry) can a hexadecimal number, in the computer's be designed to run much faster than they RAM. would with a traditional expansion bus. Some local-bus designs allow peripherals to run at the same speed and with the A utility that controls the implementation same-width data path as the computer's of memory in addition to conventional microprocessor. memory, such as extended or expanded memory. See also conventional memory, 6" EMM, expanded memory, extended The MS-DOS device names for the first memory, HMA, upper memory area, and through third parallel printer ports on your XMM. computer are LPT1, LPT2, and LPT3.
support.dell.com Glossary 9 () (" & Abbreviation for monochrome graphics Abbreviation for mean time between adapter. failures.
(+! 7 Abbreviation for megahertz. A monitor that supports several video standards. A multifrequency monitor can adjust to the frequency range of the signal Because it is the primary computational from a variety of video adapters. chip inside the computer, it is customary to refer to the microprocessor as "the 8 computer's brain." The microprocessor Abbreviation for millivolt(s). contains an arithmetic processing unit and a control unit. Software written for one microprocessor must usually be revised Acronym for network interface controller. to run on another microprocessor. CPU is a synonym for microprocessor. Acronym for nickel cadmium. Abbreviation for minute(s). (+ Abbreviation for nickel-metal hydride. A type of data redundancy that uses a set 6( of physical drives to store data and one or Acronym for NetWare Loadable Module. more sets of additional drives to store du- plicate copies of the data. Mirroring is the ( preferred data redundancy technique in Abbreviation for nonmaskable interrupt. A lower-capacity systems and in systems device sends an NMI to signal the micro- where performance is extremely impor- processor about hardware errors such as tant. See also guarding, RAID 1, and parity errors. RAID 10. A technique for decreasing screen flicker Abbreviation for millimeter(s). by sequentially refreshing each horizontal line on the screen. A pointing device that controls the movement of the cursor on a screen. Abbreviation for nanosecond(s), one bil- Mouse-aware software allows you to lionth of a second. activate commands by clicking a mouse button while pointing at objects displayed "& on the screen. Abbreviation for the NT File System op- ( tion in the Windows NT operating system. Abbreviation for multiprocessing 8'( specification. Abbreviation for nonvolatile random- access memory. Memory that does not lose its contents when you turn off your Abbreviation for millisecond(s). computer. NVRAM is used for maintain- ing the date, time, and system setup (% options. Abbreviation for Microsoft Disk Operating System. " Abbreviation for one-time programmable.
10 User’s Guide An I/O port used most often to connect a Acronym for primary domain controller. parallel printer to your computer. You can usually identify a parallel port on your com- ,' puter by its 25-hole connector. Acronym for PowerEdge Expandable RAID controller. A value or option that you specify to a pro- * gram. A parameter is sometimes called a An internal or external device—such as a switch or an argument. printer, a disk drive, or a keyboard—con- nected to a computer. You can divide a hard-disk drive into mul- ) tiple physical sections called partitions Abbreviation for pin grid array, a type of with the fdisk command. Each partition microprocessor socket that allows you to can contain multiple logical drives. For ex- remove the microprocessor chip. ample, you could partition a 2-GB hard-disk drive into two physically separate parti- tions with three logical drive assignments, Arranged in rows and columns, a pixel is as shown in the following table. a single point on a video display. Video resolution—640 x 480, for example—is expressed as the number of pixels across by the number of pixels up and down.
Partition 1 - 1.2 GB / Partition " 2 - 800 MB Acronym for power-on self-test. Before the operating system loads when you turn on your computer, the POST tests various system components such as RAM, the Drive C - 1.2 GB / Drive D - 500 MB / disk drives, and the keyboard. Drive E - 300 MB After partitioning the hard-disk drive, you Abbreviation for pages per minute. must format each logical drive with the format command. 1& Abbreviation for plastic quad flat pack, a type of microprocessor socket in which Slightly larger than a credit card, a PC Card the microprocessor chip is permanently is a removable I/O card—such as a mo- mounted. dem, LAN, SRAM, or flash memory card—that adheres to the PCMCIA stan- dards. See also PCMCIA. The set of diskettes from which you can perform a complete installation of an ap- plication program. When you reconfigure Abbreviation for Peripheral Component a program, you often need its program dis- Interconnect. A standard for local-bus im- kette set. plementation developed by Intel Corporation. An operating mode supported by 80286 ( or higher microprocessors, protected Abbreviation for Personal Computer mode allows operating systems to Memory Card International Association. implement: See also PC Card.
support.dell.com Glossary 11 A memory address space of 16 MB no redundancy is provided. RAID 0 config- (80286 microprocessor) to 4 GB urations provide very high performance (Intel386 or higher microprocessor) but relatively low reliability. RAID 0 is the best choice when controller cards are du- Multitasking plexed. See also striping. Virtual memory, a method for ' 9 increasing addressable memory by RAID 1 is commonly called mirroring. using the hard-disk drive RAID 1 also uses striping, so RAID 1 may The Windows NT 32-bit operating system be regarded as the mirroring of RAID 0 runs in protected mode. MS-DOS cannot configurations. RAID 1 is the best choice run in protected mode; however, some in high-availability applications that require programs that you can start from high performance or relatively low data ca- MS-DOS—such as Windows—are able to pacity. See also mirroring, RAID 10, put the computer into protected mode. striping.
/- ' : Abbreviation for Personal System/2. RAID 4 is commonly called guarding. It uses data striping, like RAID 0, but adds a single, dedicated parity drive. The parity Abbreviation for power-supply paralleling data stored on this drive can be used to board. recover data lost from a single failed drive. RAID 4 configurations write data slowly 8 because parity data has to be generated Abbreviation for polyvinyl chloride. and written to the parity drive, and the generation of the parity data frequently re- 1 quires reading data from multiple physical Abbreviation for quarter-inch cartridge. drives. See also guarding and striping.
' ' ; Acronym for redundant array of indepen- RAID 5, like RAID 4, is commonly called dent disks. This phrase was introduced by guarding. RAID 5 is identical to RAID 4, David Patterson, Garth Gibson, and Randy except that the parity data is distributed Katz at the University of California at Ber- evenly across all physical drives instead keley in 1987. The goal of RAID is to use of a parity drive. In configurations using a multiple small, inexpensive disk drives to large number of physical drives in which provide high storage capacity and perfor- a large number of simultaneous small mance while maintaining or improving the write operations are being performed, reliability of the disk subsystem. RAID 5 offers potentially higher perfor- mance than RAID 4. RAID 4 and RAID 5 Patterson, Gibson, and Katz described configurations are appropriate in high- five different methods, which are known availability applications where as RAID levels 1 through 5. Each level performance is less critical or where high uses one or more extra drives to provide data capacity is required. See also a means of recovering data lost when a guarding. disk fails, so that the effective failure rate of the whole disk subsystem becomes ' 9. very low. RAID 10 is a mirroring technique in which data is duplicated across two identical ' . RAID 0 array or hard-disk drives. All data RAID 0 is commonly called striping. This on a physical drive in one array is duplicat- was not originally defined as a RAID level ed, or mirrored, on a drive in the second but has since come into popular use. In array. Mirroring offers complete redun- this array configuration, data is written se- dancy of data for greater data security. quentially across the available disks and See also mirroring, RAID 1, and striping.
12 User’s Guide '( ') Acronym for random-access memory. Abbreviation for red/green/blue. The computer's primary temporary stor- age area for program instructions and ' ( data. Each location in RAM is identified by Acronym for read-only memory. Your a number called a memory address. Any computer contains some programs es- information stored in RAM is lost when sential to its operation in ROM code. you turn off your computer. Unlike RAM, a ROM chip retains its con- tents even after you turn off your '( computer. Examples of code in ROM in- Acronym for random-access memory dig- clude the program that initiates your ital-to-analog converter. computer's boot routine and the POST.
' Acronym for Resource Configuration Abbreviation for revolutions per minute. Add-in. '" '# Abbreviation for real-time clock. Battery- Acronym for Resource Configuration powered clock circuitry inside the Utility. computer that keeps the date and time after you turn off the computer. % A read-only file is one that you are prohib- ited from editing or deleting. A file can Acronym for small computer system in- have read-only status if: Its read-only at- terface. An I/O bus interface with faster tribute is enabled. It resides on a data transmission rates than standard physically write-protected diskette. ports. You can connect up to seven devic- es to one SCSI interface. It is located on a network in a directory to which the system administrator has as- ( signed read-only rights to you. Abbreviation for SCSI device manage- ment system. An operating mode supported by 80286 '( or higher microprocessors, real mode im- Abbreviation for synchronous dynamic itates the architecture of an 8086 random-access memory. microprocessor. Designed to run in real mode, MS-DOS (unassisted by additional software techniques) can address only Abbreviation for scalable disk system. 640 KB of conventional memory. , Abbreviation for single-edge contact. The frequency, measured in Hz, at which the screen's horizontal lines are re- charged. A monitor's refresh rate is also Abbreviation for second(s). referred to as its vertical frequency. ', The fundamental unit of data access for a Abbreviation for ringer equivalence hard-disk drive. For PC-compatible sys- number. tems, a sector is usually 512 bytes. See '& also block and block size. Abbreviation for radio frequency interference. An I/O port used most often to connect a modem or a mouse to your computer. You support.dell.com Glossary 13 can usually identify a serial port on your composite drive. See also block, block computer by its 9-pin connector. size, and RAID.
( '( Acronym for single instruction, multiple Abbreviation for static random-access data. memory. Because SRAM chips do not re- quire continual refreshing, they are < substantially faster than DRAM chips. A computer's system and video BIOS SRAM is used mostly for external cache code is usually stored on ROM chips. memory. Shadowing refers to the performance- enhancement technique that copies BIOS 8) code to faster RAM chips in the upper Abbreviation for super video graphics ar- memory area (above 640 KB) during the ray. See also VGA. boot routine. < ('" See parameter. Acronym for Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology. A technology that allows hard-disk drives to report errors Sync negotiation is a SCSI feature that al- and failures to the system BIOS, which lows the host adapter and its attached then displays an error message on the SCSI devices to transfer data in synchro- screen. To take advantage of this technol- nous mode. Synchronous data transfer is ogy, you must have a SMART-compliant faster than asynchronous data transfer. hard-disk drive and the proper support in the system BIOS. The rules that dictate how you must type ( a command or instruction so that the com- Abbreviation for system management puter will understand it. bus. ( As the main circuit board, the system Abbreviation for symmetric board usually contains most of your com- multiprocessing. puter's integral components, such as the following: ( Abbreviation for Simple Network Man- Microprocessor agement Protocol. RAM Expansion-card connectors In composite drivers with two or more Controllers for standard peripheral physical drives, the drive array subsystem uses a method of data storage called strip- devices such as the keyboard ing. With this method, data is divided into Various ROM chips a series of pieces called blocks and each data block is stored on a different physical Frequently used synonyms for system drive. When each drive contains a block board are motherboard and logic board. of data, the process starts over with the first physical drive. When the size of the data block is carefully selected, the System diskette is a synonym for boota- chance that the information needed can ble diskette. be read from or written to multiple physi- cal drives at once is increased, greatly increasing the performance of the System memory is a synonym for RAM.
14 User’s Guide "&" System Setup program options allow you Abbreviation for thin film transistor. A flat- to configure your computer's hardware. panel display for notebook computers Some options in the System Setup pro- where each pixel is controlled by one to gram require that you reboot the four transistors. computer to effect a hardware- configuration change. Because the Sys- tem Setup program is stored in NVRAM, Abbreviation for tracks per inch. any options that you set remain in effect until you change them again. "' Abbreviation for terminate-and-stay- resident. A TSR program runs "in the When you start Windows, it consults the background." Most TSR programs imple- system.ini file to determine a variety of ment a predefined key combination options for the Windows operating envi- (sometimes referred to as a "hot key") that ronment. Among other things, the allows you to activate the TSR program's system.ini file records which video, interface while running another MS-DOS mouse, and keyboard drivers are installed program. When you finish using the TSR for Windows. program, you can return to the other ap- plication program and leave the TSR Revising the Control Panel settings or program resident in memory for later use. running the Windows Setup program may change options in the system.ini file. On Because MS-DOS is not designed to other occasions, you may need to change support multiple programs running simul- or add options to the system.ini file man taneously, TSR programs can sometimes cause memory conflicts. When trouble- "/ shooting, rule out the possibility of such a Abbreviation for Transmission Control conflict by rebooting your computer with- Protocol/Internet Protocol. out starting any TSR programs.
#6 Some devices, especially disk drives, con- Abbreviation for Underwriters tain a terminator to absorb and dissipate Laboratories. excess current. When more than one such device is connected in a series, you #( may need to remove the terminator—or Abbreviation for upper memory blocks. change a jumper setting to disable it— See also conventional memory, HMA, unless it is the last device in the series. memory manager, and upper memory However, some devices have terminators area. that should never be removed or disabled. The 384 KB of RAM located between An application program for editing text 640 KB and 1 MB. If the computer has an files consisting exclusively of ASCII char- Intel386 or higher microprocessor, a soft- acters. MS-DOS Editor and Notepad (in ware utility called a memory manager can Windows) are text editors, for example. create UMBs in the upper memory area, Most word processors use proprietary file in which you can load device drivers and formats containing binary characters, al- memory-resident programs. See also though some can read and write text files. conventional memory, HMA, and memo- ry manager. See video mode. # Abbreviation for uninterruptible power supply. A battery-powered unit that auto- matically supplies power to your
support.dell.com Glossary 15 computer in the event of an electrical the video driver, and the amount of mem- failure. ory installed for the video adapter.
# 8) Abbreviation for Universal Serial Bus. On some systems with an integrated VGA video adapter, a VGA feature connector # allows you to add an enhancement adapt- Abbreviation for Universal Service Order- er, such as a video accelerator, to your ing Code. computer. A VGA feature connector can also be called a VGA pass-through connector. A program used to manage system resources—memory, disk drives, or print- * ers, for example. The diskcopy command The logical circuitry that provides—in for duplicating diskettes and the combination with the monitor or display— himem.sys device driver for managing your computer's video capabilities. A extended memory are utilities included in video adapter may support more or fewer MS-DOS. features than a specific monitor offers. Typically, a video adapter comes with 8 video drivers for displaying popular Abbreviation for volt(s). application programs and operating envi- ronments in a variety of video modes. 8 On most current Dell computers, a video Abbreviation for volt(s) alternating adapter is integrated into the system current. board. Also available are many video 8 adapter cards that plug into an expansion- card connector. Abbreviation for Voluntary Control Council for Interference. Video adapters can include memory sep- arate from RAM on the system board. The 8 amount of video memory, along with the Abbreviation for volt(s) direct current. adapter's video drivers, may affect the number of colors that can be simulta- 8 , neously displayed. Video adapters can Abbreviation for Verband Deutscher also include their own coprocessor chip Elektrotechniker. for faster graphics rendering.
8, * * Acronym for Video Electronics Standards Graphics-mode application programs and Association. operating environments, such as Win- dows, often require video drivers to 8) display at a chosen resolution with the de- Abbreviation for video graphics array. VGA sired number of colors. A program may and SVGA are video standards for video include some "generic" video drivers. Any adapters with greater resolution and color additional video drivers may need to display capabilities than EGA and CGA, match the video adapter; you can find the previous standards. these drivers on a separate diskette with your computer or video adapter. To display a program at a specific resolu- tion, you must install the appropriate * video drivers and your monitor must sup- Most VGA and SVGA video adapters in- port the resolution. Similarly, the number clude VRAM or DRAM memory chips in of colors that a program can display de- addition to your computer's RAM. The pends on the capabilities of the monitor, amount of video memory installed
16 User’s Guide primarily influences the number of colors until a system or network runs out of that a program can display (with the ap- memory. propriate video drivers and monitor capability). The most common way that virus pro- grams move from one system to another * is via "infected" diskettes, from which they Video adapters normally support multiple copy themselves to the hard-disk drive. text and graphics display modes. Charac- To guard against virus programs, you ter-based software (such as MS-DOS) should do the following: displays in text modes that can be defined Periodically run a virus-checking util- as x columns by y rows of characters. Graphics-based software (such as Win- ity on your computer's hard-disk dows) displays in graphics modes that can drive. be defined as x horizontal by y vertical pix- Always run a virus-checking utility on els by z colors. any diskettes (including commer- * cially sold software) before using them. Video resolution—640 x 480, for exam- ple—is expressed as the number of pixels 86% ? across by the number of pixels up and down. To display a program at a specific An abbreviation for VESA local bus. A graphics resolution, you must install the standard for local bus implementation de- appropriate video drivers and your moni- veloped by the Video Electronics tor must support the resolution. Standards Association.
* =.=> 86 An operating mode supported by Intel386 Abbreviation for very-large-scale or higher microprocessors, virtual 8086 integration. mode allows operating environments— 8 such as Windows—to run multiple pro- grams in separate 1-MB sections of Abbreviation for peak-point voltage. memory. Each 1-MB section is called a virtual machine. 8'( Abbreviation for video random-access * memory. Some video adapters use VRAM A method for increasing addressable chips (or a combination of VRAM and RAM by using the hard-disk drive. DRAM) to improve video performance. (MS-DOS does not support true virtual VRAM is dual-ported, allowing the video memory, which must be implemented at adapter to update the screen and receive the operating-system level.) For example, new image data at the same time. in a computer with 8 MB of RAM and 16-MB of virtual memory set up on the @ hard-disk drive, the operating system Abbreviation for watt(s). would manage the system as though it had 24 MB of physical RAM. < When you start Windows, it consults the * win.ini file to determine a variety of A self-starting program designed to incon- options for the Windows operating envi- venience you. Virus programs have been ronment. Among other things, the win.ini known to corrupt the files stored on a file records what printer(s) and fonts are hard-disk drive or to replicate themselves installed for Windows. The win.ini file also usually includes sections that contain optional settings for Windows application
support.dell.com Glossary 17 programs that are installed on the hard- 0(( disk drive. Abbreviation for extended memory man- ager, a utility that allows application Revising the Control Panel settings or programs and operating environments to running the Windows Setup program may use extended memory in accordance with change options in the win.ini file. On the XMS. See also conventional memory, other occasions, you may need to change EMM, expanded memory, extended or add options to the win.ini file manually memory, and memory manager. with a text editor such as Notepad. 0( <% Abbreviation for eXtended Memory Spec- Read-only files are said to be write- ification. See also EMS, extended protected. You can write-protect a memory, and memory manager. 3.5-inch diskette by sliding its write- protect tab to the open position; you can $ & write-protect a 5.25-inch diskette by plac- Acronym for zero insertion force. Some ing an adhesive label over its write-protect computers use ZIF sockets and connec- notch. tors to allow devices such as the @@@ microprocessor chip to be installed or re- moved with no stress applied to the Abbreviation for World Wide Web. device.
18 User’s Guide